Page 49 - (DK) The Business Book

START SMALL, THINK BIG 47 47

See also: Take the second step 43 ■ The Greiner curve 58–61 ■ Leading well 68–69 ■ Effective leadership 78–79 ■
Develop emotional intelligence 110–11 ■ Mintzberg’s management roles 112–13 ■ The value chain 216–17

Other studies report entrepreneurs staying still. His company launched
as mavericks, unafraid of failure and in 1998 with a low-cost airline,
driven by a passion for success. easyJet, and now includes more
While there is some overlap, absent than 20 “easy” businesses that
from these findings are the traits operate on a similar low-cost model.
that define good leaders and Haji-Ioannou has shown an aptitude The function of leadership
managers: organization, an eye for for strategy, and an eye for detail; is to produce more leaders,
detail, communication, emotional but he has also been criticized for not more followers.
intelligence, and the ability to lacking leadership skills, for Ralph Nader
delegate. And as Indian executive micromanaging, and, common US political activist (1934–)
Vineet Nayar advised, effective to entrepreneurs, for an inability to
leadership involves encouraging delegate and let managers manage.
others within the company to US professor Larry Greiner
realize their potential, and excel. identified leadership—the ability
of a start-up founder to transition
Making the transition from entrepreneur to leader—as one
Canadian business guru Professor of the major crises that businesses ventures, and leadership skills
Henry Mintzberg proposed that face as they grow. Greiner suggests to move the start-up beyond its
management can be broken down that successful growth often entrepreneurial roots.
into three categories: managing requires the employment of Start-ups require the spark
by information, through people, and professional managers who bring of entrepreneurship; but growth
through action. Many entrepreneurs to the business an understanding requires a different set of skills: a
have difficulty managing through of the requirements of financial founder must transition from being
information—they often lack the markets, banks, and—most sole decision maker to being a
skills to build the systems and importantly—have the leadership disciplined manager and a
communication networks on which skills needed to manage complex successful leader. Those who are
large businesses are built. organizations. Entrepreneurs may unable to make this transition
Cyprus-born Stelios Haji- possess bountiful ideas, but it takes often need to step aside and let the
Ioannou, entrepreneur and founder management discipline to turn professionals take over. But this is
of easyGroup, is known for rarely those ideas into successful often easier said than done. ■

Zhang Yin Chinese entrepreneur and paper- exporter in the USA, and the
recycling tycoon Zhang Yin was largest overall exporter to
born in Guangdong in 1957. China. In 1995, after returning
Recognizing that the Chinese to Hong Kong, Zhang cofounded
export sector faced a shortage of Nine Dragons Paper with her
paper-packaging materials, Zhang husband and her brother. The
(her Cantonese name is Cheung company went on to become the
Yan) opened a paper-trading world’s largest maker of
business in Hong Kong in 1985. packaging paper.
Quickly moving from In 2006, at the age of 49,
entrepreneur to established Zhang became the first woman
business leader, Zhang moved to top the list of richest people
to Los Angeles, US, where she in China, according to the
co-founded the paper-exporting magazine Hurun Report. The
company America Chung Nam in following year, Ernst & Young
1990. The business quickly awarded her “Entrepreneur of
became the leading paper the Year in China 2007.”