by
Katie Donnelly
Women Entrepreneurs and Work Ethic
There’s a lot we can learn from successful women entrepreneurs. Although there are many routes toward becoming a successful business woman and supporting workplace diversity, one thing all top entrepreneurs have in common: a tireless work ethic. As Margaret Thatcher once said, “I do not know anyone who has got to the top without hard work. That is the recipe. It will not always get you to the top, but should get you pretty near.”
3 Ways Successful Women Entrepreneurs Apply Work Ethic
Here are 3 lessons we can all learn from successful woman entrepreneurs who know how to apply a strong work ethic to achieve their goals.
Take initiative and follow through.
A 2011 Zenger Folkman study that surveyed 7,280 leaders across a wide range of successful organizations found that women excel in many leadership categories, outperforming men much of the time. In fact, the two categories in which women outscored men most dramatically were taking initiative and driving for results. It should come as no surprise that taking initiative pays off. Women entrepreneurs do not wait around for a lucky break to come to them. They identify opportunities, take initiative and follow through to achieve their goals.
Do whatever it takes.
To make it to the top, you will have to put in long hours. Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer used to put in 130-hour workweeks at Google, including regular all-nighters in which she slept under her desk. She managed to avoid burnout by being invested in â and keeping a positive attitude toward â her work. As she told Joseph Walker, “I don’t really believe in burnout. A lot of people work really hard for decades and decades, like Winston Churchill and Einstein . . . Burnout is about resentment. It’s about knowing what matters to you so much that if you don’t get it that you’re resentful.”
In addition to putting in long hours, sometimes entrepreneurs have to be willing to do work that no one else wants to do. Especially when you are first starting out, you will probably have to put in some grunt work before you can move up.
Practice self-development.
Finally, always be willing to practice self-development: women who are always looking for ways to improve have an advantage in business. The Zenger Folkman study also found that women were more likely than men to seek out personal and professional development. Katy Cowan, who runs the PR agency Boomerang and founded the online community Creative Boom, identifies a “willingness to learn” as one of the “top ten traits of successful, creative businesswomen.” She writes:
You cannot rest on your laurels when you run your own business. The creative industries are always changing, so you will constantly need to keep up and innovate. Successful female entrepreneurs know this and will work hard to learn and improve all the time. They’ll read books, go to workshops and be willing to learn from others.
There is no secret recipe to becoming a successful female entrepreneur. However, this combination of working hard, putting in the time and always being willing to learn something new has propelled plenty of women to the top.
Katie Donnelly is a freelance writer in Philadelphia, who wrote this post on behalf of Navex Global, a leading provider in ethics and diversity training in the workplace.
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