Is there such a thing as a classic entrepreneurial personality?
If you pondered the seemingly divergent personas of Donald Trump
and Bill Gates, you'd think not. But a recent study by the
Hagberg Consulting Group in Foster City, California, shows that
entrepreneurs do in fact tend to share certain characteristics that
set them apart from their Fortune 500 counterparts.
"We compared the 400-plus entrepreneurs in our database
with executives of top companies," says Richard Hagberg, the
company's president, "and found 10 traits in which
entrepreneurs showed a statistically significant
difference."
Yet, lest a superiority complex sprout up, Hagberg points out
that not all these characteristics are healthy for a company's
growth. For example, he says, entrepreneurs tend to be
task-focused, which makes them "not particularly sympathetic
to issues or to people outside of that task. This gets in the way
of the long-term loyalty and bonding necessary to sustain
relationships. An entrepreneur might go charging up the mountain
with guns blazing and, if he's not careful, turn around and
find there's nobody behind him."
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Interestingly, the study reported discrepancies between the way
entrepreneurs characterized themselves and the way others perceived
them; for example, a large majority see themselves as introverts,
though many of their employees and peers characterize them as
extroverts. The emergence of technology may contribute to their
isolation; however, Hagberg hints at some deeper reasons.
"A lot of entrepreneurs are borderline
extroverts/introverts who can put on a mask and appear to be very
outgoing," Hagberg says. "But leadership is a lonely
thing, and people who seek leadership tend to be independent, loner
types who happen to have good social skills."
Another perceptual gap exists in the area of vision.
"Entrepreneurs in particular tend to be visionary people, but
they tend to believe they've communicated their vision more
than they actually have," says Hagberg. "Entrepreneurs
typically eat, sleep and breathe their business--they're
thinking about it all the time--so they may think they've
communicated their vision clearly to others when they actually
haven't."
Entrepreneurs' strong personalities may also create what
Hagberg calls "a false consensus because entrepreneurs are
hard to challenge. They walk out of a meeting thinking everyone
agrees with them, but people are simply afraid to challenge what
they've said."
Though asking someone to change his or her personality is about
as effective as asking a dog to meow, Hagberg believes the study
calls for a behavior adjustment. "Many of the traits that help
people succeed in the entrepreneurial stage of a company become
problematic in the long run," he says. "The best
entrepreneurs are able to modify that cowboy mentality and become
somewhat more like the CEOs of bigger companies--a little less
seat-of-the-pants, a little more deliberate. You have to make
adjustments as the company grows."
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