Entrepreneurial Leadership and Business Innovation Training Course

Course overview

Entrepreneurial leadership is not confined to founders. A division head launching a new line, a manager given a mandate to build something inside a large company, a public-sector leader creating a service where none existed, are all doing entrepreneurial work: pursuing an opportunity under uncertainty with resources they do not fully control. The mindset that this requires is different from the one that runs a stable operation well, and the two are frequently confused, which is why capable operators sometimes struggle the moment the map runs out.

This course develops that mindset and the practices around it. It covers the foundations of entrepreneurial leadership, cultivating an entrepreneurial mindset, innovation in business strategy, business model innovation, leading entrepreneurial teams, decision-making and risk under uncertainty, and sustaining entrepreneurship as an organization matures. It suits both independent founders and people building something new inside an existing organization.

Why running and building are different jobs

Managing an established business rewards optimization, control and predictability. Building a new one rewards the opposite: acting before the information is complete, spending small to learn fast, and treating a plan as a hypothesis rather than a commitment. A leader who applies operational discipline to an early-stage venture tends to demand certainty that does not yet exist, over-plan a situation that will change, and kill promising work for failing to hit projections that were always fiction.

The entrepreneurial approach is not recklessness. It is a different discipline: bounding the downside so failure is survivable, testing the riskiest assumption first, and committing progressively as evidence accumulates. Concepts such as effectuation, working from available means rather than from a fixed goal, and affordable loss, risking only what you can stand to lose, capture much of it.

Course objectives

By the end of the course, participants will be able to:

• Split entrepreneurial work from operational work in one role.
• Ring-fence time for a venture the operating calendar will claim.
• Borrow slack from a full operation to start something new.
• Insulate a venture from the core's demand for certainty.
• Shield an early team from measures built for steady output.
• Staff a second effort without weakening the first.
• Protect the operation from the failures a venture will produce.
• Carve a clear choice out of a venture nobody has stopped.
• Free the leader of a maturing venture from carrying it alone.

Course outline

Unit 1: Foundations of entrepreneurial leadership

• One leader accountable for the core and the venture.
• Opportunity pursued with resources the core still needs.
• An operation that predicts while the venture adapts.
• Operational excellence as an obstacle to the new venture.

Unit 2: Fostering an entrepreneurial mindset

• Venture bootstrapping from the core's spare capacity.
• Attention as the scarcest resource across both jobs.
• Experimentation ranked against work that already pays.
• Ambiguity of venture work inside a team built for routine.

Unit 3: Innovation in business strategy

• Finding demand the core operation is not built to serve.
• Competitive position of a venture carrying the core's name.
• Losing a window because the core needed the same people.
• Matching an opportunity to what the core can deliver.

Unit 4: Business model innovation

• The model the venture needs and the one the core runs.
• Cost structure of a venture judged by the core's margin.
• Innovation in the model rather than in the core's product.
• Running a test the core operation would never approve.

Unit 5: Leading entrepreneurial teams

• Staffing a venture from people the core cannot spare.
• Switching between two ways of leading in one week.
• Holding a borrowed team together through early setbacks.
• Growing a second set of norms inside one organization.

Unit 6: Risk-taking and decision-making

• Bounding the risk the core carries for the venture.
• Deciding on the venture without the core's usual data.
• Judging uncertainty against a core built on forecasts.
• Naming the decisions the core makes by quiet neglect.

Unit 7: Sustaining entrepreneurship and innovation

• The point where the venture starts to look like the core.
• Keeping entrepreneurial habits once the core absorbs it.
• Repeating the venture without borrowing the same people.
• Appraisal on one job for a leader who carried two.

How the course is delivered

The course is delivered through case analysis, worked examples and facilitated discussion. Participants apply tools such as the business model canvas and affordable-loss reasoning to real opportunities, including ones they bring. Financial concepts such as unit economics are worked through step by step. There is no acted pitch exercise and no software environment; the course is educational and does not provide investment advice or evaluate any specific venture's prospects.

Those who want the full business-building treatment will find it in Entrepreneurial Leadership and Business Development.

Who should attend

• Founders and aspiring founders building or planning a venture.
• Intrapreneurs leading new products, services or units inside a larger organization.
• Business development and innovation leaders pursuing new opportunities.
• Managers moving from running an established operation to building something new.

About EuroQuest International Training

EuroQuest International Training was founded in 2015 by a team with more than 25 years of experience in professional development. We run over 1,000 courses and have trained more than 15,000 participants. Our head office is in Bratislava, Slovakia, and we deliver courses through hubs in Dubai, London, Barcelona, Istanbul, Vienna, Paris and Geneva. Courses are built and reviewed by practitioners who have worked in the fields they teach.

Frequently asked questions

Is this only for startup founders?

No. Intrapreneurs building something new inside an established organization face the same core challenge and are explicitly included. The setting differs; the entrepreneurial work does not.

Does the course include a live lab?

No. There is no software or acted pitch exercise. Participants work from documented cases and real opportunities, analyzed in the room.

Will the course tell me if my business idea is good?

It gives you the tools to test that yourself. It is educational and does not provide investment advice or a validation of any specific venture.

Related courses

• Leadership and Strategic Decision-Making Frameworks
• Innovation Leadership for Business Transformation
• Developing a Culture of Innovation in Organizations
• Driving Growth and Organizational Excellence

Register for this course

Choose a city and date from the schedule above and register online, or contact the EuroQuest team for group bookings and in-house delivery. Where a venture team attends together, the business model work can be run against your own opportunity.