One of the defining academic papers on enterprise is the “Dark Side of Entrepreneurship” by Manfred Kets De Vries.
Whereas much of the previous research into the motivations of business founders had focused on positive traits such as achievement, this study took a very different view on what made entrepreneurs different to the rest of the population.
Yet it is a theme that few have returned to in recent times although there have been increasing concerns that those who start-up businesses, enthused by caricatures of those highly successful entrepreneurs who work 100 hour weeks, are starting to suffer because they are usually ill-equipped to deal with such pressures.
With such terms such as “failure is not an option” “sleep is for wimps” and “pick yourself up by your bootstraps” bandied about many start-up ecosystems across the World, it is somewhat surprising to find that some entrepreneurs have begun to talk about the real problems they faced every day in running their business.
For example, a recent survey of New Zealand but undertaken to coincide with on World Mental Health Day found that 95 per cent believed that being an entrepreneur affected their mental health, with 71 per cent experiencing anxiety, 59 per cent having issues with sleep and 53 per cent believing they were depressed.
This may be surprising to some who feel that the entrepreneur is a driven individual who will succeed no matter what.
However, the statistics that nearly four in ten people in the UK will not consider starting a business because of a fear of failure probably demonstrates the high stakes that many of those people who take the jump into starting a new business face every day, especially given that only around a fifth will survive five years.
Various studies have shown that many of those who start businesses not only feel they have countless problems in juggling their business with trying to maintain a personal life, but they often feel they are doing it by themselves and that the risk they bear are theirs alone.
At the same time, they are trying to manage not only their own expectations but the expectations of others including family, their staff, investors and clients and given these pressures, it is not surprising that some will succumb to depression.
And not surprising, these expectations are very different than if you were working for someone else and the biggest issue for many entrepreneurs is the long working hours culture, with many working nights and weekends with very little breaks or holidays that can lead to an eventual burnout.
Yes, there is an expectation that at the start of every business that maximum effort will need to be put into place to launch it successfully but if that pattern continues into the future then it will inevitably affect the mental and physical health of the founder.
There is the danger of focusing on the business to the exclusion of everything else with family and friends neglected and hobbies and interests put to one side.
Being a leader as the business grows is stressful as they are, making hard decisions about employees and are ultimately responsible for every major decision which can cause high levels of stress especially as many people in this position have rarely been trained for it.
Finally, with start-ups increasingly attracting funding from external investors, there are growing pressures to succeed quickly in order to see a return on funding, rather than patiently building up the business over a number of years so that achievable milestones are put into place to establish a strong and sustainable customer-base (and it is worth noting that the average age of the 577 firms that have appeared on the Wales Fast Growth 50 for the last nineteen years is 12 years, with some being far older than that.
Some will say that increased stress is the price you pay for being a successful entrepreneur but this can result in in the business being affected. For example, it is likely that the entrepreneur will become less productive and effective, which will have a knock-on effect on the performance of the business and on the morale of the team. This can lead to poor decision-making which will lead to further problems in both the long and short term.
More worryingly, life at work will become less fun as the business takes over your life. Many entrepreneurs choose to work for themselves not because they want to make more money but because they want control over their own destiny. If managing business become too stressful then you will undermine the very reason why you became an entrepreneur in the first place.
The problem is that many entrepreneurs will not only refuse to recognise these issues but, more worryingly, will ignore them and justify their existence as part of the entrepreneurial process.
Indeed, various articles written on this issue on World Mental Health Day demonstrated that talking about the stresses of starting and managing your own business is still something that is seen an anachronism in the world of entrepreneurship.
That has to end now and entrepreneurs need to recognise that unlike large organisations, they are the beating heart of all start-ups and taking care of that resource should be the entrepreneur’s primary consideration if the business is to grow and develop successfully.