Visionary
To be a successful business professional of any sort, not just in e-commerce, you must be a visionary. If you are not, then you should work hard to develop a visionary outlook or simply give up. Without this, you have no leadership skill.
You can cultivate it many ways, but you must keep in mind that it is a spiritual quality. You could get in touch with God and this could spark your visionary side. Another way is to foster your artistic instinct. Study and analyze art. Go to art museums. Learn everything you can about it and this can begin to shape your visionary outlook.
Optimistic Realist
It is one thing to be an optimist and fail to see trouble that overtakes us, but we must be more realistic. All of our optimism about what we can do in the field of e-commerce must always be tempered with stark realism.
We might expect to earn a certain amount each month over the next year, but we must also critically evaluate our optimistic outlook. Ground it in realism by playing the Devil’s advocate with yourself or ask a friend to do the same. See where the weak spots in your optimistic armor are.
Self-motivator
A true leader must be able to motivate himself. Of course, we allow others to motive us because we are not islands. In this way we show that others are important to us. They feel value in our relationship. Yet, when it comes down to it, we cannot rely on others to provide motivation all the time. We must do it ourselves, because our lives are in our own hands. We are responsible for what we do with it. There is no better reason to motivate ourselves.
How do we make motivation when we do not feel like it. First, we must take small steps learning to discipline ourselves, if we did not learn this from our parents or in the military. Write yourself notes and place them where you will see them to remind you what you ought to do. Remind yourself in your head or out loud what the results of following through would be. Then tell yourself that the feelings inside your body do not matter. They work against your success and you do want success, do you not?
Proceeding with Caution
Another successful attitude of leaders of e-commerce is a healthy dose of caution that prevents over-reaching. Without this caution, you are likely to take risks that are stacked against you. When you do this too often you are bound to crash, and hard.
Proceeding with caution allows you to test the waters of risk for sharks. As you see it is safe you can go a little farther, but with eyes wide open. Keep on the lookout for both external and internal threats to the success of what you are trying to achieve.
Planning for the Worst
Along with a cautious attitude, you should actually plan for disaster. That is the whole concept of insurance. You do have business insurance, do you not? If you have not even considered it, then you need to work over your attitude in this area of planning for the worst.
When you make projections, examine the worst case scenario along with the best case scenario. Build into your budget protection against the worst case scenario. Then if it comes to pass you will be able to move forward with your e-commerce success, nonetheless.
Investing in Yourself
Every great leader believes in himself. If you are unwilling to take a risk on yourself, then how can you expect others to? They see how reticent you are to invest in yourself and they take their cue from you about what outlook to have toward your ideas and plans.
Start investing in yourself or give up on the ideas you are working out. Come up with plans that you can believe in enough to take the risk. This is what great leaders do. E-commerce always has risk, but you must evaluate how much risk you are comfortable with and choose the opportunities that run on the level of risk you can believe in. This is a completely personal choice. You know yourself and what you are actually capable of.
If You Want it Done Right…
My grandpa always said that if you want something done right you have to do it yourself or expect half-assed results. He was correct. It applies not only to life, but to e-commerce as well. You must take charge of the most critical components that most directly impact the success of your e-commerce.
When you delegate critical tasks, you agree that your success or failure will be placed in the hands of another person. Their ability to motivate themselves to get the job done and the level of their tempered optimistic realism will determine what happens to your e-commerce. Can you live with that? If not, then do it yourself and delegate tasks that are less mission-critical.
Self-correction
Humility is a lost virtue today. We are battered with messages that we need self-confidence more than anything else, but humility keeps us beautiful in spirit and able to see more clearly. Self-correction is a result of humility and few are able to achieve this to any measure of success today. It is a lost art that gives a select few leaders who find it a kind of charisma that is unparalleled.
Even within one leader you can observe humility at times and at others a lack of it. Take Steve Jobs as an example. There were times he demonstrated the most amazing humility and others, usually in direct interaction with employees, when he lacked that same amazing character.
Recognize it and cultivate it to build confidence by others in your leadership. Give power to your e-commerce by tempering your entire enterprise with humility.
The Final Word
The attitude of the leader is the driving force of a successful e-commerce. When you take the time to reflect on your own character and make a plan to build it in ways that demand respect from others, you start to find success in e-commerce.