The Entrepreneur Syndrome
In this blog I cover another of the things I’ve learnt about SME Managing Directors that I’ve christened The Entrepreneur Syndrome. This is a behaviour that stops the accidental (or even deliberate) business leader moving on and limits the growth of their business.
They know they need to step back and be more of a director and less of a doer. They know they need to work ON the business not IN it. And they know they need to get out and about, see the wood for the trees and learn from others.
(To use a few catch phrases) BUT THEY’RE JUST TOO BUSY. It’s just never the right time and there’s never quite enough time! If only they could get just a little more business in, and make a bit more money and then they could take the time out to look at where they are going and invest a little of that extra cash in the future growth of the business. BUT THEY CAN’T AFFORD THE TIME OR THE MONEY JUST NOW! They’ll do it tomorrow. Which, as we all know, never comes.
The ironic thing is that the very behaviours that make an entrepreneur successful when they start a business – their focus on sales, their tight control over everything (which in the early days delivers excellent service at minimum cost) and their grabbing of opportunities as they come – are the very behaviours that can eventually cause their business to plateau. Sometimes, natural talent, instinct and sheer hard work sorts things, and the business leader develops anyway, and eventually works out how to lead a successful medium sized business.
I have also written a blog about how a business plateaus as well as tips to avoid your business plateauing if you would like to find out more about this.
But the sad thing is, there are many cases where Entrepreneur syndrome gets in the way of that happening. Which is one of the many reasons I run MD2MD. I believe it helps business leaders up their game, enables their businesses to be more successful and in a small way helps make the economy of the UK more successful.
If you would like to find out more about entrepreneur syndrome or would just like some general advice then feel free to get in touch with us to see if we can help.
Written by Bob Bradley, founder of MD2MD.
In a recent blog called Accidental business leaders I shared one key characteristic of SME business leaders that I have learnt from working with them for just over five years (as well as being one myself twice in my career).