8 ways to effectively lead entrepreneurial employees

A person doesn’t have to own a business to be an entrepreneur. Many people with an entrepreneurial mind-set wait years to start their own companies. Others never start their own companies.

In the meantime, they work for you. Yet they’re still entrepreneurs at heart.

Remember people with an entrepreneurial mind-set are different from those with a more corporate outlook. So if you want to create an environment where entrepreneurs can operate at their very best, try to manage and lead them appropriately.

Here’s how to manage the entrepreneurs who work for (and with) you:

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1. Keep rules and guidelines to a bare minimum.

When entrepreneurs find new ways to think, they discover new ways to act. And that means they will instinctively evaluate every rule and look for ways to improve it since rules are just problems to solve or challenges to overcome.

So keep the rules to a minimum. Not only will that help your resident entrepreneurs operate better. It will also allow them to do what they do best: innovate.

2. Allow them to challenge things.