Characteristics Of Entrepreneurs

Entrepreneurs - is there a personality type to describe them?

Using 5 factor model

i) Neuroticism (sensitive/nervous v. secure/confidence)

ii) Extraversion (energetic/precarious v. solitary/reserved)

iii) Openness (inventive/furious v. consistent/cautious)

iv) Conscientiousness (orderly/industrious v. easy-going/careless)

v) Agreeableness (co-operative/empathic v. self-interested/antagonistic)

Entrepreneurs have a particular set of these traits, especially the last three, ie openness, conscientiousness and agreeableness.

"...Innovators have to be open. They have to be able to imagine things that others cannot and be willing to challenge their own pre-conceptions. They also need to be conscientious. An innovator who has brilliant ideas and lacks the discipline and persistence to carry them out is merely a dreamer...... innovators need to be disagreeable. By disagreeable, I don't mean obnoxious or unpleasant...... on agreeableness they tend to be on the far end of the continuum. They are people willing to take social risks - to do things that others might disapprove of. This is not easy. Society frowns on disagreeableness. As human beings we are hardwired to seek approval of those around us. Yet a radical and transformative thought goes nowhere without the willingness to challenge convention..."

Jordan Peterson as quoted by Daniel Kahneman, 2012

As George Bernard Shaw wrote

"...The reasonable man adapts himself to the world: the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man..."

Daniel Kahneman, 2012