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The 3 Biggest Myths of Entrepreneurial Leadership

Guest post by: John Nicholas

Article Overview: Successful entrepreneurs are leaders who understand the myths of commonly accepted wisdom and temper them with the realities. Outlined in this article are 3 of the most common leadership myths that, if not clearly understood, could be barriers to success.

The 3 Biggest Myths of Entrepreneurial Leadership

Successful entrepreneurs are leaders who understand the myths of commonly accepted wisdom and temper them with the realities. Here are three of the most common leadership myths:

Myth #1: Practice makes perfect.

Reality: Perfect practice makes perfect.

You've most likely heard the old story, "How do you get to Carnegie Hall? Practice! Practice! Practice!" Leadership is a lot like that, but the practice has to be as perfect as possible. That means avoiding picking up bad habits here and there. You can practice a sport, a musical instrument or any other skill on your own and get passable results. But, if you aren't doing it right from the "git-go," then you end up having perfected a less than perfect skill!

If that happens and you want to improve then you would have to unlearn it and start over properly. Why bother? To be good at anything and reap the rewards of that, you must p-e-r-f-e-c-t the perfect. How? Every top rated professional athlete I know of has a coach. So, learn the right way to do something. How? Seek out a mentor leadership coach. Follow those who are recognized for demonstrating good leadership ways. In the interim, read good practical application leadership from those who have "been there, done that" (just as you're doing now).

Myth#2: Knowledge is POWER

Reality: Knowledge APPLIED is POWER

When you have the knowledge but do little with it, it's the same as not having it at all. I once heard the statement; "Better to know half as much about something but be able to get it across twice as good as someone with twice your knowledge who gets very little of it across." A mouthful, I know, but you get the picture.

Myth#3 You have to be twice as good as others to get ahead.

Reality: You only need a 1% slight edge (if even that).

All you have to do is watch any race in the 2010 Winter Olympics being held in Vancouver, BC, to see the reality of the Law of the Slight Edge. As an example the number one downhill skier gets gold, while the number four gets nothing, zero, zilch, nada (maybe glory). Yet the difference is just 10ths of a second. You don't have to be twice as good to be twice as successful. All it takes is just the power of a slight edge. Successful entrepreneurial leadership is a lot like that. It's better to work on becoming just 1% better in 100 areas than trying to be 100% better in just one area.

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Article Tags: entrepreneurial leadership, law of the slight edge, leadership, leadership myths, successful entrepreneurs



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