Table of Contents
- Report Overview
- Elon Musks Rise To A World-Class Entrepreneur
- Purpose Of The Report
- Critical Review Theories Used In The Assessment
- The Big 5 Model
- Limitation of Scope
- Amabile Model Of Creativity Strengths And Weaknesses
- Elon Musk’s Entrepreneurship And Creativity Assessment
- Conclusion and Recommendation
- References
Report Overview
The main purpose of this report is to unearth the underlying drive in the success of entrepreneurship by assessing personality traits, creativity, innovation levels, and other factors of Elon Musk who is one of the greatest minds of this generation. The main component of this report is based on character, innovation, and creativity. By using creativity and innovation models such as the four action framework, the Annabile’s creativity model and Peter Drucker’s 7 Sources Of Innovation, along with personality and entrepreneurial status frameworks such as Joe Abraham’s DNA Model and the Big 5 personality styles and entrepreneurship, the report provides a blueprint for aspiring entrepreneurs to follow in their quest for greatness.
Elon Musks Rise To A World-Class Entrepreneur
Famously known as the Founder of X.com, Tesla Motors, Space X, and the boring Company, Elon Reeve Musk is a South African-American entrepreneurial icon. Elon Musk is not only someone who made it in history books of our generation for his creativity and innovation, but also someone who has contributed to human civilization. Just like most entrepreneurs, Elon Musk started his innovation journey from selling video games. Musk moved to Canada in 1989 to study at Queens University at age 17. After that, he went to study business and physics at the University of Pennsylvania, after which he moved to California to study energy physics. He then dropped out of Stanford, and thus started his journey to greatness.
Purpose Of The Report
The main purpose of this report is to provide an in-depth analysis of Elon Musk as an entrepreneur based on his personal traits and innovation/creativity. The report not only provides an assessment of Elon Musk but also provides an overview of models used in the assessment.
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Summary On The Purposes Of The Report
- To critically review models/theories of entrepreneurial traits, creativity, and innovation.
- To carry out an assessment of the entrepreneurial traits of Elon Musk.
- To carry out an assessment of the level of creativity and ability to handle innovation of the selected entrepreneur.
Critical Review Theories Used In The Assessment
The Big 5 Model
To better understand the big 5 models, we have to understand it’s underlying principles. Many people can define personality, but the world of psychology offers a lot more complexity on the subject. According to personality research, (Revelle, 2013), personality is “the coherent pattern of affect, cognition, and desires (goals) as they lead to behavior. The American Psychological; Association, however, has different thoughts on the definition and defines personality as an individual difference in characteristic patterns of thinking, feeling, and behaving” (2017).
Despite the American Psychologist Lewis Goldberg popularizing The Big 5 Model in the 1980s, this model can be traced back to as far as Ancient Greek. This framework is one of the accepted frameworks in personality. The acronym OCEAN better described the framework. The following are the five personality factors in order of appearance.
Openness
This is mostly known by people as the imagination or the intellect. This factor is mainly characterized by people’s interests to seek what is beyond the unexpected, their ability to see things in dimensions others can’t, and their vulnerability to some factors. Some common traits associated with this factor include imagination, originality, daringness, cleverness, creativity, perceptiveness, intellect, and varied interests.
Conscientiousness
Conscientiousness can be described as the ability to manipulate impulses to fit into society. People with this trait tend to be good at organizing their works, delaying gratification, and work within their own rules. Some traits associated with those people are persistence, consistency, control, reliability, resourcefulness, energy, hard work, and self-discipline.
Extroversion
Extroversion mainly described how someone responds to social stimulation, which in this case is seeking attention from other people. Extroversion is mainly associated with people who expect others to shower them with power, admiration, romance, and other forms of admiration. Most of the power that exists in extroverts come from social stimulation. Some traits included in extroversion are sociableness, energy, merriness, the ability to be articulate, friendliness, talkativeness, social confidence, and assertiveness.
Agreeableness
This refers to simply how good someone interacts with each other. This is different from extroversion since no energy is involved in agreeableness. Some of the traits that fall under this factor include altruism, modesty, trust, patience, tact, loyalty, unselfishness, helpfulness, amiability, consideration, and moderation.
Neuroticism
This mainly describes the ability of someone to harness negative energy such as sadness, shame, guilt, or depression. Emotions such as depression, sadness, anger, and other relative emotions mainly act as alarms that there is something wrong. However, people are different in how they react to such emotions and negativity. Some traits found under the umbrella of neuroticism include awkwardness, pessimism, jealousy, fear, anxiety, wariness, self-criticism, insecurity, and lack of confidence.
Strengths Of the Big 5 Model
- Proven reliability (Famous among scientists in personality)
- The model is usefully categorized
- Shortcut for profiling people
- It appears to be universally applicable across culture
Weaknesses of The Big 5 Model
- The big traits are too broad
- The traits do not explain human personality
- Lack of a dependant methodological support from the universal scientific community
Limitation of Scope
Creativity and Innovation Model Reviews
Creativity and innovation are key to entrepreneurial development and progression. To access the creativity level of Elon Musk the Amiable Model of creativity was implemented into the assessment.
Creativity – Creativity refers to the ability to generate or transform ideas, possibilities, or alternatives that may be useful in problem-solving, communication among other things.
Amiable Model of Creativity
The Componential theory was brought to life by Teresa Amabile in 1983 and mainly aimed to increase efficiency in research in organizational and psychological research by integrating both creative processes and other factors influencing outcomes in certain situations.
The model includes on-built components based on domain-relevant skills, creativity relevant processes, and task motivation. The model mentions that creativity requires the presence of each component and the level of creativity is measured by the blend formed by the level of every component in a person.
Creative Relevant Processes
Originally recognized as creativity-relevant skills, creative relevant processes include cognitive style and personality traits which are risk-taking, conducive to creativity, disciplined work, and the ability to generate new ideas. The cognitive processes include tendencies to integrate flexible categories into the synthesis of information and achieving the impossible.
Task Motivation
This is yet another underlying component of creativity that makes a person want to solve a problem or accomplish something because of the burning desire that exists in them. This component includes the desire to achieve something because it is interesting in satisfying to them, as opposed to getting rewards. The highest level of creativity is mainly achieved when the underlying desire to achieve something is based on satisfaction, the thrill, and enjoyment.
Domain Relevant Skills
These skills include expertise, intelligence, knowledge, and talent. Domains such as engineering, product design, and other related disciplines require such skills to achieve the underlying goal.
Amabile Model Of Creativity Strengths And Weaknesses
Strengths
- Amabile model provides a logic organizing the way the three elements interact in a clear and explicit manner
- Amabile’s model addresses the conflict between creativity and management by connecting the problems of creativity with the critique of the impact of bureaucratic management on motivation.
- It incorporates many valuable elements of other approaches.
Weaknesses
- Amabile model uses a subjective approach to measure creativity (the measure she proposes is the consensual assessment technique) and it lacks an objective method to measure the results of the process.
- Amabile places more focus on one of the 3 elements: intrinsic motivation and neglects detailed research on another two core elements; creative thinking and domain skills
- The effect of creativity on the interaction of the elements is not precisely specified.
Elon Musk’s Entrepreneurship And Creativity Assessment
Entrprenueship Assessment
It is evident through Elon Musk’s transition into one of the greatest entrepreneurs of the 21st century that he as a strong combination of personal traits. His open-mindedness made him bring his dreams into reality by creating companies with concrete underlying missions. Other traits that have made Elon Musk a rock star in the world of business is his dependable and organized nature, his ability to network amd think beyond the impossible. Despite the fact that he may be considered an agreeable person, Elon Musk’s traits are among the main reasons he has achieved great success.
Assessment Of Elon Musk’s Creativity Level and Ability To Handle Innovation
Innovation and Creativity are the foundation of Elon Musk’s entrepreneurial success. Having learned how to program at the age of 12, Elon Musk displays domain-relevant skills in this world. Elon Musk clearly does what he believes in for the thrill, and out of curiosity as opposed to most entrepreneurs.
His creativity and innovation have made him achieve what may have been considered impossible decades ago by having motivation whatever he does.
Some of Elon Musk’s Words on Innovation that broke the internet include:
“When somebody has a breakthrough innovation, it is rarely one little thing. It’s usually a whole bunch of things that collectively amount to a huge innovation”.
“If something is important enough. You do it even if the odds are not in your favor”.
Some of his accomplishments that showcase his creativity include the creation of Space-X, The founding Boring tunnel to dig tunnels to relieve traffic congestion, pioneering the development of Solar City, and contributing to the growing Artificial Intelligence community. The combination of all aspects of creativity into Elon Musk’s operation mechanism makes him achieve whatever he sets his mind to do. He is also the mastermind behind Tesla Motors which is the greatest electric and hybrid car company. All of these accomplishments are born of creativity and innovation genius who knows no boundaries when it comes to doing what he believes in.
Conclusion and Recommendation
Summary
This report is more of a blueprint for your entrepreneur journey. Through the assessment of Elon Musk as an entrepreneur, the report sheds light on the most important components of being a successful entrepreneur including personal traits and creativity. The report went on to provide an in-depth assessment of Elon Musk’s personal traits, creativity, and innovation using frameworks and models so as to provide you with a blueprint on what entrepreneurship is all about. Creativity and innovation should be the foundation of any entrepreneurship journey.
Conclusions and Recommendations To Aspiring Entrepreneurs
Entrepreneurship is a journey that has no short cuts and all the components discussed in this report are vital if one is to succeed as an entrepreneur. Creativity and innovation should be the pillar of your entrepreneurship transformation journey, especially during this dynamic era of technology. It is important that one masters their strengths and weaknesses in terms of personality traits, creativity, and innovation. Some of the factors that should be the driving force of every entrepreneur include:
- Delegation – You should be careful when selecting a team since creativity and innovation is what determines your ability to achieve your goals.
- Be the inspiration to those around you and work towards a healthy work-life balance.
- Choose your working mechanisms carefully and learn to harness negative energy to positive energy.
- Don’t be afraid to fail as it is in failing that greatness is achieved.
References
- https://www.biography.com/business-figure/elon-musk
- https://www.verywellmind.com/the-big-five-personality-dimensions-2795422
- https://www.123test.com/big-five-personality-theory/
- https://positivepsychology.com/big-five-personality-theory/
- https://www.ccl.org/articles/leading-effectively-articles/the-trait-that-teslas-elon-musk-and-other-high-performers-share/
- https://www.hbs.edu/faculty/Publication%20Files/12-096.pdf
- https://www.truity.com/book/big-five-personality-model
