The Intrapreneur and ways to “manage”

Author: Gilles


The intrapreneur is generally considered a person who has to be really motivated, be a good manager, and have good leadership skills. These three aspects are essential in order to achieve different objectives.

Clearly, the intrapreneur has to be motivated and the organisation has to make easier the way to undertake some inintiatives. With sufficient motivation people tend to be more innovative then making the organisation more competitive. People can be a real competitive advantage.

This kind of person needs to have a certain degree of freedom in order to lead his or her project and team properly. Other executive managers do not have to interfere in the intrapreneur’s decision-making. The internal environment has to encourage these kinds of employee activities. “The enemy of the entrepreneur is the market, whereas the enemy of the intrapreneur is the corporte culture” (David A. Kirby Entrepreneurship 2003).

As far as the Manager aspect is concerned, it means that the manager must have some skills and competencies in order to be able to work on different projects, manage his team and provide to them what they have to do. But for that he could use his power due to his status.

But I think that in order to manage properly his team and the project the intrapreneur has to use more of his leadership abilities than his power in order to avoid some difficulties as Sinetar underlined in 1985 “entrepreneurs have difficulty working as team members because they have to tend to alienate others by their drive, focus on pet projects”.

Good leadership, more than management, makes the project and outcome more effective. Because people who are working with leader intrapreneurs will know that they are working on a project which could fail, and in this way I reckon that they will feel that they are in collaboration rather that under the orders of the manager. People will really be committed and will more likely see this commitment in the results.

What do you think? Could we consider an Intrapreneur without leadership abilities?


References:

Kirby,David A. (2003) Entrepreneurship