Almost every entrepreneur starts their journey by developing a solution, based on their knowledge of a new technology or required service. Developer skills are necessary, but not sufficient, to build a business. A real business requires leadership – thought leadership to attract customers and mind share, as well as people leadership around a team, partners, and investors.
One answer is for the developer to find a partner who is a leader to build and run the business, and two heads in a startup are almost always better than one. But in my experience as a startup mentor, I find that the happiest and most successful entrepreneurs in the long-term are those that continually stretch themselves to get comfortable in the leadership role.
In fact, being a leader is often outside the experience and training domains of both experienced developers and experienced business professionals. As pointed out in a recent book by leadership expert Herminia Ibarra, very few people are born knowing how to “Act Like A Leader, Think Like A Leader.” But we can all learn and step up if we get the right guidance.
I really related to Ibarra’s direction on how to build your leadership skills by learning to complement your insights with outsights, defined as the valuable perspectives you gain from external experiences and experimentation. Every entrepreneur already knows that building a startup is all about experimentation, new experiences, and problem solving.
To get you started, here is my summary of a half dozen of her key tips, re-focused to the leadership success elements for entrepreneurs, even though the same principles apply to large business professionals and even non-business domains:
Don’t be afraid to challenge your own identity. Because doing things that don’t come naturally can make you feel like an imposter, authenticity becomes an excuse for staying in your comfort zone. The trick is to work toward a future version of your authentic self by doing just the opposite, stretching way outside the boundaries of who you are today. Emulate the leadership attributes of entrepreneurs you admire, such as Richard Branson.
Let go of performance goals that limit new learning. We all like to do what we already do well, so it’s easy to focus on achieving higher performance in that domain. Take the risk of setting goals in the leadership domain that will force non-linear learning. This is called avoiding the competency trap, and lets you bridge to new competencies.
Manage the stepping up process. Let the gap between where you are and what you want to achieve be the spark that motivates you to action. Stepping up to play a bigger leadership role is not an event; it’s a process that takes time before it pays off. It is a transition built from small changes. Map out the steps, and celebrate each success.
Practice your new learning in extracurricular activities. Professional roles outside your startup can be invaluable and less risky for learning, practicing new ways of operating, raising your profile, revising your limited view of yourself, and improving your leadership capabilities. It can then be exhilarating to bring these outsights back home.
Create and use new networks to tap new ideas. When you connect to people in different worlds, you will access different perspectives to broaden your own. Avoid the network trap of sticking to the same old players for insight, motivation, and advice. Leaders need at least three different networks – operational, strategic, and personal.
Start acting and thinking like a leader now. Stretch yourself to take action now, and recognize that you may not see at first how all the dots connect as you start branching out beyond your comfort work zone, habitual networks, and historical ways of defining yourself. Slowly but surely a more central and enduring leader identity will take root.
Thus if you have mastered the art of developing solutions, but struggle with building a business, it’s time to focus on your critically important leadership skills. Stop hiding in your comfort zone, and branch out for some new outsights. You too can find an entrepreneur identity in yourself that you never thought possible, and business success that you once only dreamed about.

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By Magda Lovei

Africa’s unique natural assets—its iconic wildlife, snow-capped mountains, waterfalls, rapids, majestic forests, unique bird populations, pristine beaches and coral reefs—represent tremendous value. Wonders of nature such as Mt Kilimanjaro, Mt Kenya, and the Victoria Falls, as well as Zanzibar’s Stone Town and its beautiful beaches, and the wildebeest migration between the Masai Mara and Serengeti, are some of the world’s best-known tourist attractions.

Indeed, tourism, primarily nature-based in East and Southern Africa, significantly contributes to GDP, jobs, and livelihoods. The World Travel and Tourism Council says that in 2016 the total contribution of travel and tourism was 7.8 percent of GDP and 6. percent of total employment, including its wider effects from investment, supply chain, and income.

In some countries, this contribution is significantly higher. In Namibia, 19 percent of all employment is directly or indirectly linked to tourism. In Tanzania, tourism is the largest foreign exchange earner, competing with gold. Importantly, the spillover effects of tourism throughout the economy can be significant. There is also a strong gender dimension: half of the world’s hotel and restaurant employees are women.

Tourism has been growing faster in emerging and developing regions than in the rest of the world, especially in countries proactively supporting tourism, according to the UN’s World Tourism Organization. Africa is at the forefront of this trend, with the role and value of nature-based tourism likely to increase even more than the global average because of the scarcity of unique wildlife and natural assets.

Nowhere else in the world can tourists experience the same thrill of encounter with wild animals. They can go gorilla trekking in Rwanda, walk with cheetahs in Zambia, observe lions resting in trees in Uganda, or lounge on the pristine beaches of Mozambique’s Maputo Special Reserve while watching wildlife. For this experience, tourists have been willing to pay a premium, and some African countries have been able to corner a high paying niche of the tourism market.

What is needed for Africa to use its huge potential for capitalizing on its natural assets in a sustainable manner?

First and foremost, this requires strong protection and the sustainable management of these assets. Threats such as the rampant poaching of wildlife, the clear cutting of forests, and the pollution of beaches should not only be a concern for environmentalists, but for ministers of finance, planning, and tourism. They should also worry the private sector and local communities, as this sort of damage can deprive them of opportunity. Understanding the value of natural assets and the potential revenues they can generate can help mobilize broad support for protection and conservation efforts.

Investing in protecting a country’s natural assets is equally important for the local and global good.

Role in Protecting Biodiversity

The World Bank has been protecting biodiversity for decades, in the past ten years through a portfolio of projects worth US$2bn globally, leveraging additional resources. But an urgent response is needed to help people protect against large-scale poaching and illegal wildlife trade.

Many countries have introduced anti-poaching programs and stepped up efforts to curb international networks dealing in the illegal trade of wildlife products, particularly ivory and rhino horn. The World Bank-led, Global Environment Facility-supported Global Wildlife Program, and partnerships such as the International Consortium on Combatting Wildlife Crime, have brought together CITES, UNODC, the Interpol, and the World Customs Organization to help.

Devising sustainable tourism strategies, targets, and plans also helps. Policymakers need to understand that increasing the number of tourists is not always the best target. Other considerations are important, too, such as an ecosystems’ carrying capacity and the need to maintain a unique tourist experience; these attract low impact, high value tourism, especially in areas with unique assets. Revenue per tourist rather than the number of tourists should be used as the benchmark for success. The country’s image should be built, promoted and linked to this vision.

The local economy and local communities need to share the benefits from tourism. There are many opportunities for this, including sourcing supplies and labor, which can be supported by targeted training and capacity building to increase local value addition. My visit to a Bank-supported small training facility in Botswana, one where youth are trained in tourism, showed an uplifting example of what can be done with limited resources. More systematic vocational training can do much more.

Local conservancies have also evolved in countries from Namibia to Kenya to provide sustainable models of community involvement in conservation and tourism. Beyond this, tourism revenue needs to be managed in a transparent and equitable manner to generate broad, local support.

The regulatory environment for businesses to start up and operate needs to be simple and accommodating. Overly comprehensive regulations too often inhibit and discriminate against local business development. Policy reforms can improve the business climate and allow local businesses to thrive.

Investment in services (health, finance, hospitality, safety, and visas) and infrastructure (transport, accommodation, safe water and sanitation) are the basic foundations for attracting tourists. The role of public-private partnerships also needs to be strengthened to ensure that scarce public resources are used for the highest priority public goods, as well as to help leverage private investment.

Nature-based tourism can offer a bright future for Africa. A step in this direction is the US$150m Tanzania Resilient Natural Resource Management for Tourism and Growth Project, the largest nature-based tourism project in the Bank’s portfolio, (that was) approved by the Board on, September 28, 2017.

Magda Lovei is Sector Manager, Environment, Natural Resources, Water and Disaster Risk Management, World Bank Group

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