Master Thesis
Challenges of the 21st century – The potential of athlete’s mindsets being potential factors for
successfully challenging an environment of disruption and uncertainty
Kristine Vukovich 11376805
Final Version 23.6.2017
MSc. in Business Administration – Entrepreneurship and Innovation Track University of Amsterdam – Economics and Business
Supervisor: drs. Roel C.W. van der Voort Second Supervisor: dr. Tsvi Vinig
Statement of Originality
This document is written by Kristine Vukovich who declares to take full responsibility for the contents in this document.
I declare that the text and the work presented in this document is original and that no sources other than those mentioned in the text and its references have been used in creating it.
The Faculty of Economics and Business is responsible solely for the supervision of completion of the work, not for the contents.
Table of Content
1 Introduction ... 1
2 Literature Review ... 2
2.1 Entrepreneurial Minds ... 12
2.1.1 Future oriented Minds ... 12
2.1.2 Entrepreneurial Minds ... 16
2.2 Entrepreneurial Leadership ... 19
2.2.1 Leadership Behaviour ... 20
2.2.2 Effective Leadership ... 23
2.3 Leadership in Sports ... 28
2.4 The Business Environment of the 21st Century ... 30
3 Data and Method ... 34
4 Results ... 46
4.1 Results of Non-Athletes ... 46
4.2 Results of Individual Athletes ... 49
4.3 Results of Team Sports Athletes ... 52
4.4 Overall Results ... 55 5 Discussion ... 58 6 Conclusions ... 62 7 References ... 64 8 Appendix ... 68 8.1 Questionnaire ... 68 8.2 Results of Non-Athletes ... 71
8.3 Results of Individual Athletes ... 73
8.5 Overall Analysis of Results - Charts ... 80
8.6 Statistical Analysis ... 83
8.6.1 Group * A1 (Group * Feedback) ... 83
8.6.2 Group * B1(Group * Extraversion) ... 83
8.6.3 Group * C1(Group * Agreeableness) ... 84
8.6.4 Group * D1(Group * Openness) ... 84
8.6.5 Group * E1(Group * Uncertainty) ... 85
8.6.6 Group * F1(Group * Environment) ... 85
8.6.7 Group * G1(Group * Working Habits) ... 86
8.6.8 Group * H1(Group * Failure) ... 86
8.6.9 Group * I1 (Group * Connecting) ... 87
8.6.10 Group * J1(Group * Team Orientation) ... 87
8.6.11 Group * K1(Group * Empowerment & Collaboration) ... 88
8.6.12 Group * L1(Group * Adaption) ... 88
8.6.13 Group * M1 (Group * Leadership1) ... 89
8.6.14 Group * N1(Group * Leadership 2) ... 89
8.6.15 Group * O1 (Group * Leadership 3) ... 90
Table of Figures
Figure 1: 10 important trend according to the Human Capital Trends 2016 Source: Deloitte
University Press ... 2
Figure 2: Overview of Key Areas within this Thesis ... 39
Figure 3: Overview of Core Areas for creating the Questionnaire ... 40
Figure 4: Results of Question 13 (Non-Athletes) Deciding about the executed leadership style by each participant ... 47
Figure 5: Results of Question 2 Extraversion of Non-Athletes ... 47
Figure 6: Results of Question 15 (Non-Athletes) Deciding about the executed leadership style by each participant ... 48
Figure 7: Results of Question 10 Team Orientation of Individual Athletes ... 49
Figure 8: Results of Question 13 (Individual-Athletes) Deciding about the executed leadership style by each participant ... 50
Figure 9:Results of Question 15 (Individual Athletes) Deciding about the executed leadership style by each participant ... 51
Figure 10: Results of Question 5 Dealing with Uncertainty of Team Sports Athletes ... 53
Figure 11: Results of Question 6 Preferred Environment of Team Sports Athletes ... 54
Figure 12: Results of Question 15 (Team Sports Athletes) Deciding about the executed leadership style by each participant ... 54
Figure 13: Overview of Statistical Analysis and Significance ... 56
Figure 14: Comparison of Results on Question 2 ... 58
Figure 15: Overview of Results on Question 3 ... 60
Abstract
The approach of this thesis was to identify if individuals with a sporting background tend to inherit an athlete’s mindset and the potential of being successful leaders for the 21st century. Firstly, capabilities of successful leaders and current challenges and issues leaders have to deal with had to be identified. The raised hypotheses focused on individuals with a sporting background and assumed those individuals to have more potential for being leaders within the 21st century environment than individuals with no sporting background. Due to their sporting background, mindset and attitude towards performance, discipline, commitment and behaviour within groups it was assumed that athletes could have the potential for being successful 21st century leaders. A questionnaire focusing on the areas of mindsets, leadership and 21st century
challenges was sent out to a group of 49 participants divided up into non-athletes, individual and team sports athletes. The target audience was split up into three groups to gather differences among the groups and to identify more or less potential groups for 21st century challenges. The reliability analysis resulted in a lack of internal consistency whereas the statistical analysis identified four areas with strong correlations, extraversion, agreeableness, environment and leadership behaviour. The results gathered through this survey represent a starting point but need further investigation to gather more detailed information.
1 Introduction
The reason for starting this thesis was that leaders and businesses are experiencing frequent changes, disruptions, challenges and a great amount of uncertainty. Companies are trying to see disruptions as opportunities and to identify novel ideas, some on the other hand have difficulties to keep up with the numerous changes and disruptions. One main contributor to successfully challenge the 21st century environment is accessing and using the full potential of the workforce and innovative and visionary leaders. The main focus of this thesis was to identify successful and necessary capabilities for 21st century leaders and if a certain group of individuals inherits more potential than others. The raised hypotheses are based on the assumptions that individuals with a sporting background have an athlete’s mindset and are supposed to have more potential than non-athletes. An intensive literature review represented the basis for creating a questionnaire consisting of 15 questions. The questionnaire focused on areas such as mindset, leadership and 21st century challenges. The finalized questionnaire was sent out to a group of 49 individuals consisiting of non-athletes, individual and team sports athletes. The majority of team sports athletes included international fieldhockey players from Austria, Poland, Germany and the Netherlands. The group of individual athletes consisted of triathletes, gymnasts, swimmers, and tennis players. The results gathered from the questionnaires and analysed using Cronbach’s Alpha indicated towards a lack of consistency. The results of the Chi-square statistic on the other hand indicated towards four areas with high correlations and starting point for further investigations. The results identified four areas with high correlations and represent the basis for more intensive investigations to identify individuals, groups or capabilities with more potential for successful 21st century leaders who successfully challenge and tackle
2 Literature Review
As organizational hierarchy is becoming flatter, traditional structures within the company are breaking up and companies are trying to become more agile and customer-focused, scrutinizing the importance of leadership is an entitled question. According to the Human Capital Trends 2016 published by Deloitte University Press, there is a shift of organizational models towards “network of teams” which are supposed to empower teams to work on certain challenges and projects. Within Deloitte’s investigation also leadership still remains under the top 3 ranked trends of importance as from 89 % of respondants confirmed and stated below in Figure 1.
Figure 1: 10 important trend according to the Human Capital Trends 2016 Source: Deloitte University Press
This is the fourth year that Deloitte is publishing its Human Capital Trends report of HR challenges, talent, leadership and readiness for tackling today’s challenges and it represents one of the largest longitudinal studies so far. The results gained, involved interviews and surveys
with more than 7000 business and human resources leaders from 130 countries. The report clearly indicates a shift of organizations, CEO’s and HR leaders towards understanding and creating a shared culture, engaging people in a newly designed work environment, constructing a new model and style of leadership and career development. Four categories of important trends emerged within this intensive research of which each section includes several subdivision as follows
New mission and purpose - Culture
- Engagement
The new HR
- HR capabilities - People cnalytics
The new organization: Different by design - Organizational design
- Design thinking - Digital HR
New leadership and careers - Learning
- Leadership
Organizational structures are blurring, formerly structured hierarchies move towards network of teams and workforce becomes more diverse. Due to increasing life expectancy leaders have to deal with a workforce that is becoming younger and older at the same time and as the global operating environment becomes more complex an increasing demand for leaders who can lead at all levels of a company arises. Additionally, leaders are expected to inspire individual’s loyalty through their expertise, judgement and vision, provide support as skilled coaches more than as strictly supervisors and are forced to collaborate across generations, geographies and functions (Wakefield, Abbatiello, Agarwal, Pastakia & van Berkel, 2016).
Summarizing the above mentioned, leadership still remains one of the most important issues within companies. There are several changes and shifts within organization leaders of the 21st century have to deal with. Different and more expectations and capabilities are requested and expected in order to deal with challenges of today’s environment. Of course, there are various definitions of successful leadership and which capabilities leaders must inherit to which a greater part will focus in later chapters of the thesis. According to an article of Forbes including and referring to excerpts of professionals in sports, the following characteristics for effective leadership were found.
According to Forbes online, published in April 2013, they found seven crucial characteristics that define effective leadership.
1) Make your point
Confidentially make your point and grab the attention of your superior and managers even though it means to swallow a bold pill first. Having the personality to stand out an convincing infidels is a remarking charasteristic.
2) Know your strengths
It was Dr. Daniel Goleman a known psychologist and pioneer of Emotional Intelligence who presented the results of an in-depth research on leadership styles and identified six leadership styles among the top 2 % leaders in 500 global firms such as visionary, affiliative, coaching, democratic, directive and pace-setting. The point is to get to know your strengths.
3) Develop and stretch your leadership style
all leadership styles and use them depending on the situation. It is important to identify the personal leadership style and areas that can be developed but also ways to make use of them and how.
4) Initiator
Sometimes it needs visionars who point out a new direction, communicate future plans and inspire confidence among the team. Leaders need to have insights about their internal and external environment and organization but also the ability to catch people and make them share your convictions to participate in the suggested path.
5) Team-focused
Recognizing and appreciating the commitment and the contribution of employees and colleagues and giving them trust and space to unfold their potential are great indicators for a more stable future.
6) Balance
Being aware of the impact of decisions and behaviour within the organization and
balancing emotions for ideas, visions and comprehension for different perspectives and a sane and effective compromise.
7) Authenticity
Being perfect is a matter of subjectiveness but honestly communicating own visions, inspiring others, make them share your vision. Passion needs authenticity and credibility (Hoursten & Clark, 2013).
Another article of Forbes online, published in April 2014, identified core characteristics of business and sports champions and even pointed out the similarities between sports and business. Successful leaders in sports and business share their enthusiasm for their project which is one
attribute which is meant to be fundamental to every champion and this enthusiasm infects others. Additionally, they share their attitude about consequent preparation, are prepared for different alternatives and possibilities not only for short-term goals, within a season but also long-term or off-season. Their passion about what they are doing make it difficult for them to stop thinking about it and the next step to take, so in some way they never stop working. Furthermore, goals and victories are always visually present in their minds, and although they have the enthusiasm and their strong inner fire which provides them with great motivation and strength. For being successful champions they also inherit the capability to make key decisions while balancing and holding their emotions. Other distinctive capabilities which differentiates the great mass from the elite is their ability to adapt and make us of unexpected changes and emerging possibilities. They find their motivation within the work or game and not within money. In order to achieve a common goal and in contrast to others, champions are not afraid but willing to take any position or role for the team to succeed as they put “common good” upon their pride and lead by example. As an absolute team player business and sports champions know that there will definitely be ups and downs in their lifes but they know how to deal with it and come back stronger even from deep hits. They content themselves not with records or standards set by others but are trying to set new standards with their enthusiasm, passion, flexibility, motivation and especially as a team (Connor, 2014).
In the latest issue of the journal of sport management published by the Auckland University of Technology and contributions by the Loughborough University London a special focus obtained sport leadership as the new generation of thinking. Within their publication they emphasized that sport context often combines competing elements, community interests, commercial sensibilities, not-for-profit and professional workforce besides contribution on voluntary basis (Ferkins,
Shilbury & McDonald, 2009). Another point was mentioned regarding leadership background and within this they raised the question to what degree managers in sports organisations need to have a sporting background in order to be effective leaders (Swanson & Kent, 2014).
The above mentioned findings not only support synergies between business leaders and individuals with sporting background but also point out their similarities regarding their mindset and attitude in several ways. But in order to include a final area which then leads to formulating the hypotheses it is necessary to take up an additional field, leadership.
Although there has only been little research made on entrepreneurship (Cornelius et al., 2006), the establishment, development and success of businesses is definitely connected with leadership (Cogliser and Brigham, 2004). So-called entrepreneurial leadership can be ascribed as the role of a founder-CEO or manager within an organization and his responsibility to create the necessary flexibility to deal with an uncertain environment through conception and realization of existing and new capabilities (Gupta et al., 2004). Futhermore, entrepreneurial leadership focuses on a certain leadership behaviour in which a certain person is guiding and directing team members towards a certain action (Ensley et al., 2006a; Peterson et al., 2009). As one of the most widely accepted leadership theories (Westerlaken & Woods, 2013), the full-range leadership model highlights the relationship between leader and follower. The FRL model includes three types of leadership such as, transformational, transactional and laissez-faire leadership. Transformational leadership which includes motivating followers by communicating an inspiring vision, showing respect and caring about their personal growth and development (Bass & Bass, 2008), while offering new possibilities to challenge and increase their skills and abilities (Ayman et al., 2009) is considered to be the most effective type of leadership. Transactional and laissez-faire leadership
are meant to have medium and least effects on team effectiveness (Bass, 1995). Each leadership style will be described in detail in chapter 2.2.1 Leadership Behaviour. The main objective of this research was to address the existing gap that focuses on leadership behaviour and their potential of leadership in the 21st century and clearly indicates the further on existing gap of impact of
sports leaders, their mindsets and leadership behaviour. In an extensive research made by Gap International in collaboration with Forbes, more than 400 CEO’s and managers were questioned to identify capabilities of leaders to deal with challenges of the 21st century. In this research key assets like the ability to innovate, opportunity recognition, purpose-based thinking and thinking beyond business by communicating a purposeful vision by the leader and his ability to convince and develop skills and capabilities of his team were discussed. Additionally, dealing with a rapidly changing environment, fast decision making and team alignment are supposed to be abilitites of 21st century leaders (Yeramyan, 2014). A more detailed description is provided in 2.4 The Business Environment of the 21st Century. The literature review and capabilities gathered numerous capabilities assumed and supposed to characterize successful entrepreneurs as well as similarities in the behaviour and decision making process of business and sports leaders. Sports and business leaders share their enthusiasm and drive for goal achievements, dealing with set-backs and victories, trying to set new standards (Forbes Online, 2014), as well as the combination of competing elements and community intrests, to motivate and support contribution on voluntary basis (Ferkins, Shilbury & McDonald, 2009). According to Lewis Howes, former professional football player, author of The School of Greatness and successful business coach, these similarities or pronounced features are driven by the mindset and attitude of athletes. Howes, also recognized as one of the top 100 entrepreneurs under 30 in the United States by former President Barack Obama, identified 4 key characteristics to harness athlete’s mindsets for business success he experienced as vital and essential. After various set-backs in his life, Lewis Howes has put his
way from being broken, broke and aimless on how to proceed, back to being a bestselling author, entrepreneur and business coach today by using his experiences from being an athlete onto paper. Howes emphasized that an athlete’s mindset can be a great contributor to success and was also the reason he overcame his low.
Drive - Faith in yourself, doing what it needs to, and believing in yourself and being unstoppable. Being positive and having faith to succeed as failing and quitting while chasing goals is no option for an athlete.
Passion - The Passion for what you are doing, to achieve goals and standing up one more time than falling is one key asset of athletes. According to Howes there will always be smarter, faster, more connected or privileged people, but passion is the engine that drives athletes to their limits and beyond.
Focus - To focus on achieving goals and to fade out set-backs, self-doubt and fear are required capabilities that help visualizing the path to success.
Consistent Vision - Howes stated that a vision is what keeps athletes on track, limits distraction, helps visualizing and achieving goals (Howes, 2014).
The information gathered led to the assumption that in order to outperform, become great and successful, the starting point lies in each individual’s head and is defined by their mindset. The attitude that drives humans, generates passion, makes them influence others to follow and not accepting failure but always going for more and beyond existing and defined levels is rooted in
their mindset. Successful entrepreneurs inherit portions of athlete’s mindset or in other words, athletes inherit a great potential of realizing success also in business due to their attitude, drive, passion, focus and vision. The right mindset in combination with an effective, efficient and supportive leadership style can result in highly requested individuals being able to tackle challenges of the 21st century successfully. Carol S. Dweck, professor of Psychology at the Stanford University and author of Mindest: The New Psychology of Success that growth and success are related to the mindset of an individual. Dweck identified two mindsets people can have, the fixed mindset where people believe that abilities are fixed and the growth mindset. Individuals with a growth mindset believe that not everyone has the same potential but that talents and abilities need to be developed and can only come to fruition through dedication, passion, focus and practice. Great athletes like Michael Jordan, Jackie Joyner-Kersee or Tiger Woods have had a growth mindset. No one of these athletes rested on their level but constantly tried to stretch their capabilities, analysed performance and addressed weaknesses. Weaknesses in the context of athletes get identified, analysed and tackled. Carol S. Dweck furthermore emphasized that researches have shown that a growth mindset supports a healthier attitude towards practice, learning, hunger for feedback and a greater ability to deal with set-backs and failure in order to improve performance. Dweck finally concluded his findings by highlighting the growth mindset in conjunction with players, coaches and coaching staff. Players with a growth mindset benefit as they welcome challenges deal well with set-backs and appreciate feedback in order to improve their performance. Carol S. Dweck’s concluding remarks on coaching staff’s main responsibility emphasized is to inspire and promote development of talent and nurture a new generation of world class athletes who bring it to the highest level (Dweck, 2009).
Based on the findings regarding mindset and their potential for growth, performance and success, their conjunction to athletes and Dwecks research on mindsets led to the assumptions that athletes with a growth mindset inherit the potential to constantly stretch their capabilities to continuously improve but also to identify talents, opportunities and to deal with set-backs. These information highlight the great potential athletes and their specific mindset can have to challenge an environment of uncertainty, disruption and tough competition of the 21st century and finally led to the following hypotheses:
H1: Athletes’ mindsets inherit the potential of being essential leadership capabilities to challenge the environment of the 21st century.
H2: Sports leaders are assumed to inherit an athlete’s mindset and are therefore high potentials for being 21st century leaders.
H3: Individuals with an athlete’s mindset are expected to execute transformational leadership within business.
In the following steps, the areas that are supposed to have a major impact on identifying potential 21st century leaders and which capabilities and characteristics are assumed being requested will
be defined and investigated more intensively.
The literature review and discussion of mindsets, personality traits and different leadership style will represent the basis for futher investigations and the creation of the questionnaire to gather the relevant data from respondents. A major part within this thesis will of course be covered by
mindsets, leadership, different leadership styles, challenges of the 21st century and finally personality traits will be discussed to identify if former researches found significant results on their relevance and relation to success. The following literature review will start with investigating entrepreneurial minds, how they are characterised and what key characteristics are, which will be highlighted and remembered when creating the questionnaire. The following chapter will be covered by leadership and various leadership styles and finally the environment and its challenges of the 21st century will be researched.
2.1 Entrepreneurial Minds
The main goal of this chapter is to get a better understanding and deeper insights of cognitive skills, capabilities and think wise that are associated with entrepreneurs and individuals who aim to challenge future problems and possibilities in order to create opportunities for success out of it. A main contribution is made by Howard Gardner and his five future oriented minds. Based on this theoretical framework and further developed by Duening, the latter then created his definition of entrepreneurial minds.
2.1.1 Future oriented Minds
Howard Gardner a famous Harvard professor for cognition and education developed a theoretical framework to identify cognitive-skills that have been found successful to entrepreneurs. Based on Howard Gardner’s analysis he discovered that people need to have minds that are disciplined, able for synthesis, creative, respectful and ethical (Duening, 2010).
1 The Disciplined Mind 2 The Synthesising Mind 3 The Creating Mind 4 The Respectful Mind 5 The Ethical Mind
The first three mentioned areas, disciplined-, synthesising-, and creating mind refer to cognitive capabilities of the mind. This includes the cognitive ability of problem solving, finding and making connections between two unrelated topics. The respectful- and ethical mind on the other hand refer to interaction and collaboration with other people. Gardner’s idea of his five minds also includes a kind of hierarchy. It needs to develop a certain discipline of thinking or to then synthesize knowledge or to learn how to do things properly. Creativity and discipline therefore often have a quite tensioned relationship to each other. The respectful minds refer to how people treat each other, starting with day one. The ethical mind defines how people behave in a world of rights and responsibilities. And finally synthesizing means to make these five minds fit perfectly together. Gardner’s five minds include a prescription and a description. Within his description he analyses and explains what a synthesising and respectful mind is. In his prescirption he emphasizes which kinds of minds have to be developed in order to survive in the future (Michelman, 2007)
There is a strong movement on trying to explain the success of entrepreneurs by focusing on cognitive skills as primary differentiator (Mitchel et al., 2002). Duening is using content of a book written by Harvard psychologist Howard Gardner who supported the intellectual foundation for general education and curriculum development. In his work Gardner argumented for five specific
‚minds“ individuals require for being effective in the future (Gardner, 2007). The reason for the increasing number on researches made to get deeper insights and results for the success or non-success of entrepreneurs have two primary motivations of investigators. One motivation is finding more results and further support of current assumptions regarding the ‚difference’ about successful entrepreneurs. And secondly finding intellectual foundation to further build credible and legitimate entrepreneurship curriculum (Kuratko, 2005). Duenings investigations initially led him to the assumption that there are at least essential or defining personality characteristics successful entrepreneurs have in common. Contrary to his assumptions the results of his researches came to the conclusions that there are simply no personality characteristics that are essential or defining entrepreneurs from non-entrepreneurs. These results became increasingly accepted and drove opportunity and threat among investigators. These insights on the one hand destroyed Duening’s made assumptions but on the other hand supported that entrepreneurs who don’t possess certain personality characteristics could not have been excluded immediately (Duening, 2010).
A new approach, the cognitive skills school of entrepreneurship research emerged and argues that the way entrepreneurs think differentiates them from non-entrepreneurs. This approach defined knowledge structures in how people make assessments, judgements or decisions involving opportunity evaluation, venture creation and growth (Mitchell et al., 2002). In the last decade progress in identifying cognitive biases on how entrepreneurs think have been made. The different way of thinking includes abilities such as rent-seeking opportunities, the ability to manage ambiguity and failure. Results of researches made in the last decase provide new hope for the intellectual foundation of entrepreneurship curriculum development (Duening, 2010).
Gardner’s Five Minds for the Future
1 The Disciplined Mind
The disciplined mind defines how to solve unique types of problems, how to distinguish useful contributions from errant or fraudulent ones. In seeking to expand the range of problems that can be addressed and solved, this capacity helps the individual to gain more independence (Gardner, 2007:3).
2 The Synthesising Mind
The synthesising mind describes the ability of gathering, organising and digesting diverse facts and ideas. In a world of an increasing amount of information and knowledge for individuals, this capability enables to take information from different sources, understands, evaluates them and puts it together in ways that creates more value to the synthesizer.
3 The Creating Mind
The creating mind describes the ability of finding innovations by combining information, ideas and artifacts in novel and different ways by asking provocative and counter-intuitive questions.
4 The Respectful Mind
The respectful mind explains how individuals could cope with cultural, attitudinal and behavioural variety. Furthermore it describes how to tolerate differences among humans, supports resolving conflicts between varying perspectives and promotes tolerance among different parties or individuals.
5 The Ethical Mind
The ethical mind teaches that in a world of decreasing shapers of ethical behaviour, individuals therefore must or start develop their own ethical system and values.
Summarizing the most important points of Garnder’s Future Minds with regard to their contribution to the raised hypotheses the focus will be made on the three minds of cognitive ability, Disciplined -, Synthesising and Creating Mind. We assume that respectful behavior and considering rights and responsibilities of people should be a fundamental basis which why the focus will be on the differentiating cognitive skills of individuals. Therefore, the Disciplined Mind, the ability to solve unique problems, the synthesising mind, the ability of organising and connecting information in a different way and the Creating Mind which includes the ability of creating novel innovations will represent one cornerstone and receive special attention within this thesis.
2.1.2 Entrepreneurial Minds
Duening refined Gardner’s five minds and coverted the aggregated cognitive skills as an approch for entrepreneurial minds.
1 The Opportunity Recognising Mind
The ability of recognising opportunities is a vital part and a great concern of entrepreneurship research (Venkataraman, 1997). Researches found that opportunity recognition resembles a form of pattern recognition, such as patterns in consumer behaviour, economic conditions and resource availability (Baron, 2006).
2 The Designing Mind
The designing mind refers to design techniques entrepreneurs use for brining existing products and services to underserved markets. Furthermore it includes providing a solutions to a customer problem (Duening, 2010).
3 The Risk Managing Mind
The broad spread assumptions of entrepreneurs and risk was that they seem to be notorious risk takers. But now assumptions have changed as entrepreneurs have become exceedingly risk minimisers. By looking at situations, including elements of risks and by using certain learned techniques, they managed to risk down to levels that are tolerable (Janny & Dess, 2006). This capability may be especcially important for entrepreneurs who are trying to raise capital from external investors (Duening, 2010).
4 The Resilient Mind
The resilient mind describes the ability to rebound from entrepreneurial failure or the ability to survive and continue under conditions of turbulence, change or trauma. This includes the capability of absorbing or defeating bad news without losing focus on goals and objectives (Mangurian, 2007).
5 The Effectuating Mind
The effectuating mind includes action orientation in the sense of understanding how to do things in a world of uncertainty and unpredictable outcome, as well as creating or acquiring something of value and thirdly delivering the value to a market that is willing to pay rents in excess of costs
(Duening, 2010). By assuming an entrepreneurial expertise which can be learned through the process of „deliberate practice“, individuals can acquire superior knowledge structures. These principles include:
Motivation
In order to undertake deliberate practice, individuals must be highly motivated and develop expertise.
Understandability
Understandability refers to the process of an entrepreneur learning a variety of skills, processes and models which can be applied across entrepreneurial opportunities and domains.
Feedback
In a process of trial and feedback where experts try to continously upgrade their cognitive pattern recognition system, it is highly important to recieve immediate feedback on performance.
Repetition
By repeating same or similar tasks entrepreneurs are able to develop entrepreneurial expertise. And against of thinking of a „one hit wonder“ the more common assumption of successful entrepreneurs is by trying multiple times they have become successful by learning valuable lessons during the process.
A vital aspect of an entrepreneur’s success is seen in the fit between practice and goals. Success is defined as a function of talent, expertise, environment and other factors.
The information gathered under chapter 2 Literature Review highlighted areas that were found being essential capabilities for successful leaders of the 21st century. Wakefield, Abbatiello, Agarwal, Pastakia & van Berkel (2016) emphasized that leaders have to get used to a more diverse workforce due to increased life expectancy, their ability to lead at different levels and leading by example throught their expertise and vision. Fobes online (2014) and Lewis Howes (2014) stressed characteristics of sports and business champions and how to harness the mindset and attitude of an athlete for business success. Finally, Carol S. Dweck presented his results on growth mindsets in conjunction with top sports athletes and which potential it inherits. Both sources supported that the enthusiasm, drive, passion and vision, dealing with set-backs, failure and uncertainty inherit the possibility for great success. Duening’s Entrepreneurial Minds will represent the first corner stone to concentrate on when designing the questionnaire. The Opportunity Recognising-, Designng-, Risk Managing-, Resilient- and Effectuating Mind, based on Gardner’s former identification of Future Minds describes capabilities that are associated being highly useful for entrepreneurs and reflect and support characteristics inherited by athletes. In chapter 3 Data and Method a more detailed overview of the information gathered will be provided and how these points are related to and with each other. The following chapter deals with leadership and advantages and disadvantages of each style and represents the second pillar needed for designing the questionnaire.
The chapter of „Entrepreneurial Leaderhship“ represents one key area of this thesis and the formulated hypotheses. Within this part a special focus is made on the existing and commonly shared leadership styles and their associated impacts on team members but also leadership behaviour, similarities between sports and business and finally, based on the gathered information a questionnaire will be created in order test the hypotheses made.
2.2.1 Leadership Behaviour
Bernard M. Bass (1985) developed a description about the differentiation of transformational and transactional leadership by using James McGregor Burns’ work on transformational leadership as basis. In 1994, Bernard M. Bass and Bruce J. Aviolo came up with a „full-range of leadership development“ or FRLD model which describes leadership styles with regard to their effectiveness, frequency of utilization and degree of activity. The reasons for favouring this leadership model are that the FRLD covers a great bandwith of leadership styles, has been widely researched and describes specific behaviours associated with specific styles (Bass & Avolio, 1994). The „full-range of leadership development“ includes five specific leadership styles, such as laissez-faire, management-by exception-passive, management-by-exception-active, constructive transaction and transformational leadership.
Laissez-Faire or Non-Leadership
The laissez-faire or non-leadership style is characterized by abscence, indifference and delayed action taking. Additionally to these characteristics leaders representing this style refrain from intervening, don’t take a stand on issues and don’t emphasize results and performance of their employees (Bass & Avolio, 1994).
Transactional Leadership
The transactional leadership itself inherits three types of leadership models, management-by-exception-passive (MBE-P), management-by-exception-active (MBE-A) and constructive transaction.
Management-by-Exception-Passive
This leadership style sets standards and is waiting for deviations to occure before intervening and correting the problem (Bass & Avolio, 1994).
Management-by-Exception-Active
The MBE-A leader is mainly focusing on mistakes and their rectification. There is a main focus on standard setting, error searching and rule enforcement (Bass & Avolio, 1994).
Constructive Transaction
This leadership style is the most effective and active out of the three styles of transactional leadership. Due to the commitment made by the leader goals are expected to be achieved. The constructive transaction leader defines and sets goals, clarifies outcome, recognizes and rewards performance, supports and provides feedback to his or her employees (Bass, 1985).
Transformational Leadership
The transformational leadership represents the most effective leadership style as leaders try to create relationships of mutual stimulation that convert followers into leaders and leaders into moral agents (Bass, 1985; Burns, 1978). Futhermore, Bass (1985) identified four factors, the
„4I’s“ of the transformational leadership that characterizes leaders more closely: individualized
consideration, intellectual stimulation, inspirational motivation and idealized influence.
4I’s of Transformational Leadership
Individualized Consideration
Leaders who detect members who seem neglected and provide personal attention to them.
Intellectual Stimulation
Describes leaders who make members view problems from a different or new angle (Bass, 1990).
Inspirational Motivation
Inspirational motivation is created by leaders who communicate „high performance expectations“ (Bass, 1990, p. 218) by projecting a confident, powerful and dynamic presence and supports members to experience their inspirational motivation.
Idealized Influence
The idealized influence is characterized by a role model behaviour of the leader based on personal achievements, character or behavior (Sosik & Dionne, 1997).
As already mentioned above, a main part of this thesis will focus on transformational leadership as this behaviour is supposed to have the most positive effects on the performance of individuals and companies. Transformational leadership includes the motivation of individuals by clearly communicating inspiring visions. Respectful behaviour and taking responsibility for personal
growth and development (Bass & Bass, 2008) by giving followers the opportunity for learning new skills and abilities are characteristics of transformational leadership. Additionally, transformational leaders encourage team members to thinkout of the box and beyond (Ayman et al., 2009) but also define and find new ways of working, dealing with risks and always trying the challenge the status quo (Zaech & Baldegger, 2017). Summarizing the above gathered information the main focus when developing the questionnaire will be on transformational leadership. Transformational leadership inerhits characteristcs of coaching and mentoring relationships and is expected to have the greatest and highly positive effect on colleagues, their performance and finally organization’s success. The following chapter focuses on effective leadership and will also provide more intense explanation on additional leadership styles. The following points will describe how and why these styles are assumed to be and extension of transformational leadership and which characteristics need to be remembered when creating the questionnaire.
2.2.2 Effective Leadership
Effective leadership has always been expected to be one of the influencing factors on the success of organizational teams and there have been several researches made to investigate this topic (Zaccaro, Rittman & Marks, 2001). Some researches emphasize that encouraging and coaching the team self-management, self-observation, self-evaluation and self-reinforcement can lead to more effective group performance and processes (Manz & Sims, 1987). This approach of leadrship style that has been established as an important leadership behaviour (Amorose & Horn, 2000; Reinboth, Duda & Ntoumanis, 2004). A more directive style of leadership involves setting clear goal expectations, providing instructions to members, monitoring performance and the team
as well as implementing corrective actions. And again some researches also mentioned that this kind of leadership style is able to enhance team performance (DeRue, Barnes & Morgeson, 2010). The meta-analytic summary of Burke (2006) that both leadership styles coaching and directive can have positive effects on the team performance and that the relative effectiveness may depend on other factors. In the model of Kozlowski, Gully, Salas, et al. (1996) effective leaders focus on building shared visions and attitude in early phases of development and then concentrate on the application and direction of team capabilities.
Although there are several researches made it seems that the releationship between leadership behaviour and team performance despends on a number of factors. The currently existing models of leadership lack from three important limitations. Models are limited to external factors of team members, such as task characteristics and team size. According to a research made by Yun, Faraj, and Sims (2005) the directive leadership style is more effective for less experienced teams, whereas coaching supports performance of highly experienced teams better. Under these assumptions it can be suggested that characteristics of members influence how they respond to various leadership styles. Lastly existing models suffer from explaining contingencies of linking leader behaviour and team performance. DeRues, Barnes and Morgeson (2010), tried to link the influence of leader behaviour and team performance by assuming contingencies between leader’s charisma and team member efficacy. By considering coaching and directive leadership as two behavioral approaches to focus on and explaining team performance by interaction of this certain approach together with leader charisma and team member self-efficacy (Zaccaro, Rittman & Marks, 2001).
Recent researches emphasize two behavioural approches for team leadership to focus on, coaching or person-focused approach and directive or task-focused approach (Burke et al., 2006; Peare et al., 2003). The coaching leadership style includes developing a team’s ability to handle key functions, taking responsibility for their work and decisions and helping members when task-related problems arise (Hackmann & Wageman, 2005). Coaching leadership doesn’t include active intervention as dealing with problems is associated with learning and development opportunities for improving self-management. Directive leadership on the other hand is characterized by a more active and intrusive approach (Peare et al., 2003). There are several points dictated by the leadership such as, goal assignment for teams and members, giving specific instructions for working tasks including expectations, monitoring and controlling the performance according to the plan. Not or not well performing members will be educated what and how to do it better. In conclusion, both leadership styles can have a positive effect on team performance depending on the level of team members.
Contingencies in Team Leadership: A Motivational Perspective
DeRue, Barnes and Morgeson (2010) assumed that motivation is one key mechanism that makes both leadership styles, coaching and directive leadership influence team performance. Within their research they focused on 2 attributes that seem to moderate the influence of leadership styles on team perfromance. One, leader charisma used as a key resource to motivate members (Bass, 1985; Ilies, Judge, & Wagner, 2006). Second, self-efficacy seen as a source of effort for team members ability dealing with certain tasks (Bandura, 1997). Both, leader charisma and
self-efficacy seem to be contingency factors coming from different sources but may work through a common motivational pathway.
Leader Charisma
Charisma defines having profound and extraordinary effects on other people (House & Baetz, 1979, p. 399) and seem to be skilled at improving performance among followers by seeking radical reforms to achieve a goal (Conger & Kanungo, 1987). Charismatic leaders are meant to affect group outcomes positively by developing members’ beliefs for achieving objectives. (Bass, 1990; Dvir, Eden, Avolio, & Shamir, 2002; Lowe, Kroeck, & Sivasubramaniam, 1996). Coaching leaders who are charismatic therefore seem to be more effective in supporting change and developing teams toward self-management than leaders who lack charisma and find it difficult to motivate their team (DeRue, Barnes & Morgeson, 2010). As charismatic leadership styles often include motivational factors (Bass, 1985, House, 1977), charisma affects team members` motivation and is a vital asset for coaching leadership. For managers exercising directive leadership seems less important as members gain less from inspirational actions since leaders provide them with a clear plan of action and expecations of goals and task instructions. As long as team members understand the mission and path for achieving goals, having charisma is a key factor for the team success of coaching leadership whereas for directive leaders lacking charisma does not seem to a liability (DeRue, Barnes & Morgeson, 2010).
Self-efficacy defines personal judgement of own capabilities to perform roles effectively (Kozlowski, Gully, Nason & Smith, 1999) but also to produce successfully outcome (Bandura, 1986, p. 391) The meta-analytic reseach of Stajkovic & Luthans (1998) supports these assumptions. In contrast to collective efficacy where the overall focus is on beliefs shared among team members and their ability to achieve objectives (DeRue, Hollenbeck, Ilgen & Feltz, 2010; Gully, Incalcaterra, Joshi & Beaubien, 2002; Tasa, Taggar & Seijts, 2007), self-efficacy concentrates on personal beliefs about own abilities. Motivation and the reaction to leadership behaviour represents an individual process and not a team process. Directive leaders are therefore more successful if team members inherit high self-efficacy and believe in their ability of accomplishing clearly communicated goals and expectations of directive leaders.
Effective leadership inherits two leadership styles, coaching and directive leadership. Coaching is characterised by developing group’s ability of handling key functions, taking responsibility and encouraging self-management. Directive leadership on the other hand focuses on a more active and intrusive approach but also active intervention of leaders regarding goal assignments for members, giving specific instructions but also educating not performing members. Effective leaderhip, coaching as well as directive leadership characteristics can be found within the transformational leadership style. This is the main reason why the focus within this thesis will be made on transformational leadership as most of the characteristics associated with effective and successful leadership styles are represented and found within transformational leadership. A more detailed explanation will be given under 3 Data and Method. The following chapter is covering the area of leadership in sports, group behaviour within a team, leadership of different individuals and success.
2.3 Leadership in Sports
The importance of leadership and its influence on performance and group cohesion is illustrated in many publications and researches but there is still a gap on researches made on leadership in sports. Northouse (2010) defines leadership as „a process whereby an individual influences a group of individuals to achieve a common goal“.
Athlete leadership can be defined as „an athlete, occupying a formal or informal role within a team, who influences a group of team members to achieve a common goal“ by Loughead, Hardy & Eys (2006). Those leaders are meant to influence team cohesion, team confidence and satisfaction within the team. Athlete leaders can then be classified depending on their focus of instrumental function, expressive, motivational or external function. Within the instrumental function the task leaders concentrate on the accomplishment of group tasks, social leaders concentrating on interpersonal relationships in contrast follow an expressive function (Rees & Segal, 1984; Todd & Kent, 2004; Voelker, Gould, & Crawford, 2011). Motivational leaders encourage and motivate teammates and direct their emotions on the field into the right direction in order to ouperform (Fransen, Vanbeselaere, De Cuyper, Vande Broek, & Boen 2014). The external function descripes a leader representing the group at meetings and conferences (Eys, Loughead, & Hardy, 2007; Loughead et al., 2006).
Another possibility to define athlete leadership is to classify between formal or informal leadership. The formal leader is officially named by the coach or the team whereas the informal leader is not officially announced for any leading position but becomes a leader within the team as a result of interactons within the team (Holmes et al., 2010; Loughead et al., 2006).
There is a core group existing in every team in which both formal and informal athlete leaders exist. Teams inheriting several leadership roles are also expected for being highly resilient teams (Pim, 2010, p.127; Holmes et al., 2010; Loughead et al., 2006). Focusing on the team captain and his or her responsibility to represent the linking part between coach, staff and players, leading during team activites and representing the team at meetings and press conferences (Mosher, 1979). Additionally, the captain is meant to inherit task and social behaviours in order to coach and support teammates (Voelker et al., 2011) and lead the team on and off the field (Loughead et al., 2006). A team therefore consists no not only of the formal leader named by the coach or the team but also a number of informal leaders who have an important role within the team.
According to Fransen, Vanbeselaere, De Cuyper, Vande Broek, & Boen (2014) who carried out an investigation based on 4.451 participants perceived task leaders as most important followed by the motivational leader. Social and external leaders were associated as less important. Within this study they also found that only 2 % of the teams asked found that one player inherits all four leadership roles which supports the assumptions of the core group and spread leadership roles within a team and different players perceived as primary leaders with regard to the four leadership roles. The emergence of informal leaders within a team is associated with higher individual and team performance (Zhang, Waldman, & Wang, 2012). Shared leadership is therefore directly and positively linked with higher collective efficacy beliefs and stronger team identification (Fransen, Vanbeselaere, De Cuyper, Vande Broek, & Boen (2014).
Regarding answering the formulated hypotheses it is therefore important to include all important key players and not only formal leaders named by the coach. It is important to identify especially informal leaders who have an important role in the team and playing a crucial role for the success
of a team. The following chapter covers the final part that will contribute to this thesis in supporting or rejecting the raised hypotheses but also contribute in building the questionnaire. The final part will address the environment and challenges of the 21st century leaders have to deal with. By identifying certain characteristics of this environment specific differences compared to the business environment years ago and also capabilities nowadays needed can be identified.
2.4 The Business Environment of the 21st Century
Gap International and Forbes Insights published a report “Challenge or Be Challenged: How to Succeed in Today’s Business Environment” and emphasized important traits for business leaders in the 21st century to respond to today’s demands and expectations. Gap created a framework
consisting of six pillars to face challenges of the 21st century, pressure and uncertainty. Encouraging and supporting innovation in all firm areas, all employees will be a key asset to innovate supply chains, talent development, sales processes, strategic planning and customer management. This type of innovation, also called rentless innovation requires a change of current mindsets that embraces creating differentiation, regardless of position or function. The second pillar includes a purpose-based thinking approach and has the ability to create competitive advantage, make people think beyond business and care about something much bigger. Futhermore, cultivating a certain passion for growth especially in this highly competitive environment becomes essential and provides new challenges to access new markets. Pillar four represents customer oneness and shaping products and services from a customer perspective, and pillar six is defined as breakthrough performance environment. The fifth pillar therefore concentrates on adapting to a rapidly changing environment, making speedy decisions and support alignment to outperform competition. The ability to create alignment among leaders and teams inherits the biggest potential to successfully deal with uncertainty at all levels. The main
difference to normal organizational approaches is that the breakthrough performance environment focuses specifically expanding the mindset and creating extraordinary outputs. The sixth pillar represents the 21st century leader and emphasizes the newly required capabilities of those leaders. 21st century leaders focus on connecting people and aligning multiple groups to a purpose, they
support team memebers and bring them to a higher level of performance. They lead by example, deliver extraordinary results are authentic and open (Yeramyan, 2014).
In an article published in 2007 by Entrepreneur.com special attention was made on defining capabilities of 21st century leaders. Some factors did not change in their importance for leaders such as the ability to innovate, execute and the importance to act as a role model within the company and for employees. But a new style of leadership emerged with unique skills tailored to succeed in today’s environment. According to Mark Stevens, author of “Your Management Sucks”, new leaders are decisive, insightful and able to keep ideas flowing within the company and identify opportunities before competition does. Moreover, they take information from different angles, offer new directions but also symbolize a great passion for achieving a goal. Marty Linsky, co-founder of the consulting firm Cambridge Leadership Associates in Cambridge, Massachusetts emphasizes adaptability as crucial capability also within the company. Additional remarks were made by Ken Blanchard, co-author of the management classic “The One Minute Manager” and “Leading at a Higher Level” by mentioning self-awareness as a starting point for leaders to also extend their leadership styles and tackle weaknesses. Purposefulness and having a strong vision splits expert’s opinion. One important capability, also mentioned in the report of Gap and Forbes is about creating alignment and to create cultures with the possibility to exchange ideas among all corners of the company and beyond. These assumptions are also supported by Cynthia McCauley, senior fellow at the Center for Creative Leadership in Greensboro, North Carolina, she emphasizes the importance of having the opportunity to work across boundaries
with stakeholders and across business units. The ability to innovate keeps a vital part of a successful leader and company but also the ability to execute a vision will help a company to succeed and survive (Tice, 2007).
The key findings of Gap International and Forbes therefore include innovations to challenge and face a rapidly changing environment with increasing disruptions. But also using each employee as creater and resource for innovations and giving them the opportunity for progress by alignment and cross-functional collaborations. Leaders will therefore have a key function in building those needed capabilitites for the 21st century including team alignment, communicating their passion for growth to their team and support them to outperform but also the ability for breakthrough performance, adapting to a changing environment including fast decision making and dealing with a great amount of uncertainty. The environment in which leaders have to make use of those capabilities is therefore characterised by uncertainty, a changing environment full of emerging disruptions and a greater need for cross-functional collaboration.
Consistent remarks were made by an article of the Harvard Business Review regarding leadership and new leaders of the 21st century. According to the HBR the learning organization replaced the craftsman-apprentice model and also emphasized that skilled workers with know-how will not be motivated and encouraged by “top down” leadership anymore. 21st century leaders have to be authentic, encourage and support sustaining superior performance and team alignment, collaborations throughout the organization and empowering leaders at all levels. The ability to sustain superior results over time represents the ultimate indicator for effectiveness. Successful leaders of the new century have the ability to galvanize the whole organization to focus and sustain on long-term performance (George, 2010).
The report of McKinsey, published in June 2012 emphasized the changes leaders now experience compared to a decade ago. Leaders now are supposed to operate in a new environment, under
extreme uncertain conditions, disruptions and greater dynamic than ever before. Carlos Ghosn, chariman and CEO of Nissan and Renault pointed out that although business school prepare future leaders to deal with internal crises, leaders now need to prepare more than ever for external crises, where it is not about the best strategy of the company but the ability of leaders to adapt those strategies in order to deal with the crisis. Additionally, leaders have to prepare for an increasing number of disruptions and adaptions as technology moves so fast and has the ability to create tremendous changes. Daniel Vasella, former CEO and chairman of Novartis picked up the topic of authenticity by emphasizing a leaders’ ability to express doubt in the team because otherwise he would pretend to play a role. Therefore, it is about persuading people to follow your path and lead them toward the right direction for long-term performance and success. McKinsey summarized the information of their interviews and stressed out key skills that can help leaders to respond to today’s challenges. First, consider the world with two lenses, the telescope and the microscope. The telescope focuses on long-term trends, considers opportunities in the future and where the company could be in five or ten years but also appropriate resource allocation. The microscope on the other hand raises the importance of taking a critical perspective and forces organizations to challenge established and conventional knowledge and wisdom. Secondly, the ability to cope with externally generated crises have become a key part of leader’s functions. In the volatile world of today leaders are supposed to react quickly, considered and rational during chaos (Barton, Grant & Horn, 2012).
Correlations of key attributes related to leaders and their capabilities required for the environment of the 21st century were made on the leaders’ ability of encouraging innovation to sustain superior results and ensure long-term performance throughout the whole organization. Futhermore, the importance of supporting team alignment and providing the ability of collaborations within and beyond the organization. Lastly, the ability to empower leaders at all levels and use their
knowledge and skills to ensure long-term success. The above mentioned characteristics describe internal challenges, additionally to that leaders of the 21st century also have to make use of the telescope as mentioned in the article of McKinsey. The telescope describeds the leader’s ability to adapt to a rapidly changing environment and quick decision making. Leaders therefore have to be aware of internal and external challenges, barriers and disruptions while encouraging the whole organization in order to create an environment of innovation, long-term focus and encouragement on all levels.
The main points that characterize the environment of the 21st century, starting externally, are dealing with an environment of uncertainty and an increasing number of disruptions which requires the ability of adaptability and crisis management. Internal changes caused by this environment are increasing need of innovation and creating competitive advantage, cultivating a passion for growth connected with greater team alignment and development of leaders on all levels. The above mentiond points also represent the main key areas that will be implemented in the questionnaire. The following chapter will summarize the main areas out of the total gathered information and highlight the areas to focus on when creating the questionnaire. Futhermore, the method and the procedure of generating data from respondents will be further explained.
3 Data and Method
The areas covered by the literature research and cornerstones for creating the questionnaire were the identification of specific capabilities of successful leaders, mindset and its impact on leaders and success, leadership and finally challenges of the 21st century. Leaders of today have to operate
in a new environment characterized by recurring disruptions, greater dynamic and uncertainty. Capabilities associated to be essential for leaders were opportunity recognition, dealing with
disruption and uncertainty (Yeramyan, 2014), to develop leaders, to lead at all levels and inspire by expertise, vision and support (Wakefield, Abbatiello, Agarwal, Pastakia & van Berkel). Moreover, certain cognitive skills are identified to differentiate between success and failure of entrepreneurs. Duening transformed Gardner’s approach and developd a new approach in which new knowledge structures define the different way of thinking of successful entrepreneurs. The Opportunity Recognising Mind describes the ability of identifying and recognizing opportunities as a main differentiator between success and failure (Duening, 2010). The capability of finding opportunities after set-backs, failure or lows is one criteria that describes athlete’s attitude, their drive, focus and passion, as described by Lewis Howes (2014). The Designing Mind describes finding new solutions and techniques for existing problems and procedures. The continuous and consequent drive for novel ideas and opportunities also reflects many capabilities inherited by athletes and their quest for constant development and improvement (Duening, 2010). Managing risks, uncertainty and disruptions, making key decisions while balancing emotions (Forbes Online, 2014) are important characteristics to ensure short-term and long-term survival and success of a company and are characteristics of the Risk Managing Mind (Duening, 2010). The ability to rebound from failure, absorbing set-backs, to perform under condition of turbulances (Mangurian, 2007) and not accepting failure are chracteristics of the Resilient Mind, while the Effectuating Mind concentrates on identifying further steps in a world of uncertainty and unpredictable outcome (Duening, 2010). Core characterstics of business and sports champions, according to Forbes Online (2014) are dealing with highs as well as lows, making use of unexpected changes, trying to set new standards and foremost are passion, dedication and will not to accept failure (Dweck, 2014), which indicates that highlighting the Resilient Mind of Duening as one of the vital minds for success can be argued. Dweck’s growth mindset emphasizes an individuals hunger to improve, analyze and address weaknesses, to inspire and promote development of talent to
finally bring it to the highest level and is corresponding with Duening’s definition of the Resilient Mind.
Summarizing the key contributions of the model, key factors for successful entrepreneurs seem to be the ability to solve a variety of problems and to expand the amount of problems that can be solved and addressed. Being innovative and creative in connecting existing problems with novel innovations or serving newly emerging problems with existing products in a novel way turned out to be essential. This also counts for social competence and the ability to handle different cultures and opinions as well as the ability to learn from past failure and the motivation to improve. Another vital factor is the capability to deal with uncertainty and using knowledge and experience to find innovation and opportunities even in difficult and unclear situations. One last key factor that differentiates successful entrepreneurs from non-successful entrepreneurs is definitely the ability to connect several capabilities with each other. These findings indicate that a main contribution for this thesis build up on the mind-set athletes inherit. An additional cornerstone for future leaders is leadership and which leadership style is executed by athletes. According to Bass (1985) transformational leadership represents the most effective leadership style, compared to the additional styles such as laissez-faire or non leadership and transactional leadership. Transformational leaders try to inspire followers, convert followers indto leaders and leaders into moral agents (Bass, 1985; Burns, 1978). Additionally, transformational leaders communicate inspiring visions, are taking responsibility for personal growth and development (Bass & Bass, 2008) and are continuously driving to extend their own and others skills and capabilities. The Auckland University of Technology emphasizes sports leadership as the new generation of thinking and highlights the great contribution athletes can offer organizations (Ferkins, Shilbury & McDonald, 2009). Additional remarks were made by Forbes in 2014, where core characteristics
