Qualities of the Business Owner

Lily Llewellyn
Apr 21
3 min read

Updated: Apr 28

Qualities of the Business Owner

You, as a business owner, have so many skills and strengths! You’ll have weaknesses and areas in need of development that you’ll be working on! You’ll be aware of skills that most benefit your role as a business owner, and you’ll be aware of what misconceptions you face as a business owner too.

I'll talk about ten qualities that business owners need to grow a successful business. There will be more than ten qualities of business owners, and undoubtedly there will be successful businesses who have more than one business owner whereby one owner does not embody every quality I discuss, but another person on your team can compensate. My top ten qualities are not exhaustive and are my personal take on what makes a great business owner.

• Business owners are motivated

The biggest and best quality of a business owner is motivation. Business owners who know why they run a business, what they want to achieve and who can stay motivated when business is tough are the people who have the happiest clients, the happiest stakeholders and the longest serving business.

• Business owners are dreamers

In order to set up a business, the business owner needed a clear reason why they would (frankly) to daft enough to work incredibly hard and risk their time, money and sanity. At the heart of every successful business is a business owner who has a clear dream with an even clearer mission.

• Business owners are goal-orientated

The mission is put in place through goals. The business owner needs to be able to organise their mission and plans into actionable chunks that can be reached. Goals are an essential part of running a business.

• Business owners are analytical

To make sure these goals are hit, the business owner must be able to measure and track the business’ progress. This takes analyzing the business system, keeping records and keeping a map of the business (which we explore in The Process of Providing).

• Business owners are resilient

Successful and well rewarded business owners are able to face obstacles all businesses face and overcome them. I call this ability to overcome a hurdle resilience. Resilience requires acceptance, finding meaning and problem-solving.

• Business owners are reactionary

Being resilient requires being reactionary to whatever comes up for the business. The business owner is alert and quickly responds to hurdles and implements diLerent tactics when need be.

• Business owners are adaptable

Along with being reactionary, the business owner is able to take their business and their team (if they have a team) from one focus to another focus. The business is able to adapt to new stakeholder requirements and changes in the environment.

• Business owners are persistent

While business owners are flexible and adaptable, they are also able to persist when the going gets tough because they have a bigger mission they need to achieve. The ability to persist is what sets the successful, strong and steady business apart from the businesses that close its doors after the environment changed.

• Business owners are empathetic

As we’ve explored in Pain and Relief a business will provide relief to the client’s pain-point. In order to do this, the business owner needs to put themselves in the client’s shoes and consider what they need and want. The ability the be empathic will clients, staff and stakeholders allows the business owner to provide for the business community.

• Business owners are humble

Tying all the business owner’s qualities together is humility. The business owner is not able to serve their client, problem-solve, adapt and make improvements without the humility to accept when changes need to be made and when support is needed. All business owners have the humility to listen to others and absorb feedback.

It’s important to also consider what a successful business owner does not have to be too. There are plenty of misconceptions about business owners that I find keep motivated, empathic, humble and resilient people from becoming business owners. I will talk about three misconceptions only.

Not all business owners are confident – you and I will both have moments where we doubt our abilities and continue to work while hiding our doubts and nerves!