Business Ownership and Insecurities

Someone recently asked me how a business owner’s insecurities manifest in their business. I think they assumed there was only one or two ways insecurities would present themselves. After thinking about my friend’s answer, I decided to write this article.

Insecurities will stay beneath the surface until the owner experiences sustained stress. Under such stress, depending on how the owner coped with stress as a child and how the owner learned to manage it by watching adults around him, the owner’s insecurities may manifest in a variety of ways. Here are the more common ways insecurities can manifest themselves:

·       Confidence will turn into arrogance

·       Assertiveness will turn into abrasiveness

·       Detail orientation may turn into micro-management

·       Feelings of inadequacy may result in avoiding people or conflicts

·       Cautiousness may turn into distrust or an unusual fear of failure

·       Normal risks may be framed in extreme terms of lethality

·       Feelings of detachment may increase, causing the owner to retreat to an alternate universe and become detached from reality

·       Quietness may become pushing others away

·       Hating the spotlight, an owner may turn the attention to others through domination and manipulation

·       Some cover their insecurities with charm and risk-taking

·       Others cover their insecurities through attention-seeking drama

·       Creativity may turn into eccentricity, where results are secondary to chasing the latest dream

·       Perfection becomes emphasized and every detail is scrutinized to the point of paralyzing the organization

·       Some owners cover their insecurities by being overly eager to please their key employees

In all these situations, the main problem in the business is the owner’s insecurities. This is why executive coaching, psychotherapy (or both) is so very valuable to the owner. By working on himself, he can shore up his personality deficits and free his business to achieve new levels of success, unhindered by his personological dysfunctions.

Bill English, PhD, MDiv, MA, LP