Maxwell's Leadership Myth #2: The Entrepreneur Myth

John C. Maxwell, p. 14 of The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership Follow Them and People Will Follow You,Nelson Books, 1998, says:

Frequently, people assume that all salespeople and entrepreneurs are leaders. But that's not always the case.

Obviously, Maxwell means something different here by the term entrepreneur myth than Gerber means by the E-myth. But, I take somewhat of an issue here anyway. I don't like equating sales people and entrepreneurs. Entrepreneurs have to be good at selling, but not all sales people are entrepreneurs. Likewise, sales people who are leaders are better sales people, but not all sales people are leaders.

On p. 15, Maxwell refers to an entrepreneur named Ron Popeil, allegedly the sales person of the century. Maxwell says he was successful with $300 million.

People may be buying what he has to sell, but they're not following him.

But they are following him. If only I could be that kind of a non-leader.

I think an skilled entrepreneur is a leader. Entrepreneurs have to have vision and have enough leadership skills to get people to help them implement this vision.

What do you think of this? The goal is to produce more skilled entrepreneurs. Is this helpful? Post a comment. I'd like to know. And follow me on Twitter.com.

Entrepreneurship informs all of my professional activities. Entrepreneurial ideas are their life's blood. For my ideas on entrepreneurial real estate go to www.yourstopforrealestate.com/blog and for my ideas on writing and publishing, go to www.kearneymusicschoolmurders.blogspot.com.