Today's female entrepreneurs are changing the way we think about business. Traditional measures of entrepreneurial success, of power, financial success and status are being overtaken by a more holistic approach which includes a focus on interaction with people and helping others.
Women predominantly believe that success is more about having control over their own destinies, building ongoing relationships with clients and self-fulfillment. Financial success is still important, but they are working in a more holistic way to achieve this outcome.
It is acknowledged that women and men approach the task of running a business differently. For men being an entrepreneur is a business strategy, and for women it's a life strategy.
Women tend to want to minimize conflict between work and home life and therefore strive to achieve flexibility. According to recent research, women reported that when the balance was skewed mainly towards work, they came home too tired for any other activities and had difficulty relaxing. Those who achieved business success based on their own terms also reported greater satisfaction with their home life.
Women also develop this holistic approach by creating a business culture that incorporates their own values and approach to life. In "Secrets of Successful Women Entrepreneurs" Geetie Singh, founder of the world's first certified organic gastropub explains that she came up with this idea when she got fed up going out to eat and not being able to find anywhere that offered organic food. She decided to set up a gastropub that would be organic and enable her to live up to her ethical values.
Following Margaret Heffernan's article in Fast Company magazine describing a women's need for honesty in business, she was bombarded by responses from women who supported her view. She explored it further and realized that honesty is part of a woman's need to share and that when women experienced the corporate male-dominated culture of not being open and not giving away information for free it did not sit comfortably with their values.
Therefore would-be entrepreneurs need role models who adopt a holistic approach to business in order to understand how it is possible to have it all - to be yourself and run a successful business.
Talk show host Oprah Winfrey, who runs a $1 billion empire, is a good example. She sees herself not as a successful businesswoman but as someone who is helping to educate others to be all they can be. Her business is "being herself" and the activities she gets involved in are those that she is personally passionate about rather than those that are most profitable. Ironically, they do bring in massive revenues. Food for thought!
Sue Stockdale is a motivational speaker, successful business woman and record breaking explorer. Buy her latest book, "Secrets of Successful Women Entrepreneurs" at http://www.bookshaker.com
