From countless media articles & biographies, when we think of the entrepreneurial personality we think in terms of certain stereotypes: go-getter, extrovert, dreamer, optimist, risk-taker.

By Saras Sarasvathy



Amitav Ghosh's novel The Calcutta Chromosome is based on a strange premise: what if personality could be transmitted via a female Anopheles mosquito? In this scenario, such a mosquito could nip a doctor, say, pick up latent malarial plasmodium, and then wander over to nip you. The malaria is bad enough, but post-recovery, your friends notice you insist on wearing a stethoscope at all times.



Welcome to your new personality. Needless to say, Ghosh's fine novel is about entirely different concerns. But if we think about it, advice about how to be a good entrepreneur often consists of urging you to pick up this or that personality trait. Are you passionate? Are you driven by data or your gut? Take a Myers-Briggs test and find out if you have the personality of an entrepreneur.



In other words, there's this widespread belief that successful entrepreneurs have specific personality traits. From countless media articles and biographies, when we think of the entrepreneurial personality we think in terms of certain stereotypes: go-getter, extrovert, dreamer, optimist, risk-taker. But what if you're a tongue-tied introvert, a thorough realist, who prefers to look twice in each direction before every decision? Tough luck? Wait for a kind mosquito to infect you with those traits?



Actually, research into the traits of entrepreneurs shows little correlation between entrepreneurship and personality traits. For example, one of the most persistent myths about entrepreneurs is that they are risk-takers. But studies published in the Journal of Applied Psychology have found evidence both for and against the propensity of entrepreneurs to take risks. That is, entrepreneurs are like the rest of us.



Willing to take certain risks at certain times and not others at other times. Furthermore, what counts as risky varies from person to person. If you can do something I can't, then what is risky for me isn't risky for you. For most of us, it would be suicidal to walk across the Niagara gorge on a tightrope. However, for Jean Francois Gravelet-Blondin who crossed it many times, once blindfolded and another time carrying his manager on his back (stopping to prepare a meal along the way), the walk might seem less risky.

To say things like 'Blondin is a risk-taker' not only explains nothing, it ignores his exquisite sense of balance, his meticulous preparations, and his years of practice. Similarly, research shows it doesn't hurt to be passionate (that is, to believe strongly in one's opinions) but it also shows that it doesn't hurt to be 'agile' (that is, flexible, open to change). It is useful for an entrepreneur to be stubbornly persistent but also to know when to quit.









The list of paradoxes is long in the stories entrepreneurs tell. And all kinds of contradictory events occur in the histories of the ventures they build. Consider actual ventures you see all around you. Sure, the swashbuckling dropout Richard Branson built Virgin Atlantic, an accountant named Tom Fatjo built the multi-billion dollar Browning Ferris.



Both the uncompromising aesthetic of Steve Jobs and the ever-ready-to compromise business sense of Bill Gates have worked well in the same market category. In my own research study, there were entrepreneurs who routinely made it into both the "Top 10 best bosses to work for" and the "Top ten toughest bosses to work for." Dhirubhai Ambani's "Only if you can dream it you can do it" highlights the importance of wanting to be an entrepreneur but Kiran Majumdar Shaw's "I call myself an accidental entrepreneur" suggests such clear visions are not particularly necessary.



These examples suggest two important things about the role of personality traits and successful entrepreneurship. First, no particular set of traits is both necessary and sufficient. Second, it is not your traits that are important; it is how you match your traits to the kind of venture your start and the environment in which you start it. It reminds me of the old adage about invention: Both the optimist and the pessimist can be successful inventors.



The optimist invents the airplane. The pessimist invents the parachute. (Someone who was neither probably invented flight insurance). We may pigeon-hole ourselves based on all kinds of things: what our parents kept pointing out to us in our childhood, meaningless IQ tests, our grades in schools, an astrologer's predictions, caste and class expectations, the expectations of our friends.

Squashed into these pigeon-holes, we may eventually end up like pigeons, cautious, timid, afraid of every sudden movement, wondering why every other bird seems to be having so much fun. Social psychologists have shown we're mostly lousy at estimating our strengths and weaknesses. We have a theory of ourselves and that theory is often flawed.



A simple and practical solution is to try doing things within our control. When we think with actions, many things change, including our personality traits. That is because our traits are not set in stone. How we put our personality to work, who else chooses to work with us, and how we together shape our futures matters far more than the traits we begin with.



But how do you put your traits to work? You might think that if you want to be an entrepreneur, only your strengths are important. And that your weaknesses get in the way. Not so! Are you a fatalist type? Great! Now go write an international best-seller explaining why hard work is useless.



The point is this: you can put all your strengths and your weaknesses to work for you. Truth is, there is often no way of really knowing what we can do until we try doing it. It is the only surefire way of knowing what we are made of. So don't wait for the right personality mosquito to bite you.



Instead begin doing what you already know how to do. Or even what you don't know how to do, but that someone who wants to work with you knows how to do. Even if you fail at every personality test devised for entrepreneurs, there are always ventures you can build and perhaps only you can build, given your personality.

(The author is Isidore Horween Research Professor, The Darden Graduate School of Business, University of Virginia.)