EntreLeadership Review: Dave Ramsey’s New Book on Business

Dave Ramsey wrote a new book: EntreLeadership. This book is a bit different than his other books about getting rid of debt (such as The Total Money Makeover) and Financial Peace. This book is about how he took an idea from a coffee table in his garage to a multi-million dollar company, where people enjoy working at.

What is an EntreLeader? How do you become one? These questions and more are answered in Dave’s new book. Get the scoop on EntreLeadership and see if it’s something you need to add to your bookshelf.

EntreLeadership Book Review: What is an EntreLeader?

I picked up this book when my brother gave me a gift certificate from Amazon. I had been looking forward to learning exactly what EntreLeadership is and to be able to apply some principles to my life. Since Ramsey knows what he’s talking about when it comes to living beneath your means, and developing a plan for your personal income, he should know something or other about running a business, right?

First off, as Dr. Lee (a teacher of mine) always taught me, define your terms. He defines EntreLeadership as “The process of leading to cause a venture to grow and prosper.” This is combining both the principles of leadership and the principles of entrepreneurship and coining a new term and a different way of looking at business. An EntreLeader is someone who is aware that the head of the body determines the way the rest of the body acts. What we do as leaders in our businesses will affect everyone involved. Our attitudes, our drive, and our vision will determine the pace, atmosphere and the overall success of our business.

EntreLeadership Key Principles

Here are a few things that made an impression on me:

Dreams and Goals

This seems rudimentary, basic even, but it’s necessary. Take your dreams, write them down, turn them into visions and goals, then figure out the action steps to make them reality. This really helped me think about my dreams and to start to write them down.

Time Management and Organization

He talks about how to manage your time with to do lists, figuring out what you have to urgently and not so urgently, and sticking to the purpose of your meeting. It’s all about keeping track of what needs to be done.

Hiring Team Members

One of the things that made me change the way I think about businesses, is that Dave talks about taking a long, long time to hire a team member in order to make sure that they aren’t hiring crazy or married to crazy. He has an initial half hour interview that then is followed by a series of interviews and even dinner with the family. It’s all about figuring out the character of your potential hire as well as making sure they can catch and maintain the vision of your company. That way you don’t have to fire someone.

Maintaining a Gossip Free Atmosphere

Keep gossip out of the business by allowing people to talk to you and their division leaders when there is a problem. If they are complaining to those that can’t do anything, then that is gossip. Dave has a hardline attitude about that. If you are warned, yet keep a negative attitude, then you’re fired. If all that can be done to figure out the problem is done, and you’re still negative, then you’re not contributing to the company.

Treating Your Team As Family

He tells several stories about how he cares about everyone in his company. One story that struck me is that even as an owner of a successful company, he can still be in the truck, unloading boxes with the rest of his team. He takes his lunch in the break room with everyone else, takes time to be friends and cares if a family member is sick or dies. This goes a long way towards fostering a loyalty and a passion for the company. If your members want to be at work, then they will produce and be happy in their job. Their job becomes a mission.

EntreLeadership covers a variety of subjects, such as: Selling by serving, accounting and various important ways of staying debt free in business, communication within the company, how people matter most, how to show that through recognition and compensation. Finally, how to delegate and encourage your team how to get things done.

All in all, this book is very clear on how to be a leader, an entrepreneur, and grow your business. His reliance on other leadership materials shows me that he knows what it means to be a life long learner. If you are a business owner, want to start your own business, or even improve the way you run your department, this is a book for you. I definitely recommend this as a needed read!

You can pick up your copy of EntreLeadership at Amazon.com. Meet us in the comments and let us know what you think about Dave’s new book!