I often questioned if I was a bad employee before embracing entrepreneurship. I finally realized I wasn’t a bad employee at all. I was an entrepreneur performing in the wrong arena, which clashed with co-workers, management, and the bureaucracy of the corporate ladder.

When utilized where they thrive within a company, entrepreneurs can make great employees. Companies tend to be bad employers of entrepreneurial minded people. Most companies operate with micromanagement and strict rules; the opposite environment for a thriving entrepreneurial mindset.  

Entrepreneurs aren’t bad employees, they’re just oftentimes misunderstood. Being in the wrong place for your personality, gifts, talents, and abilities within the company can cause you to be miserable and have conflict with co-workers and management.

These following characteristics and differences can help you understand what role you may be better suited for within your company, or on your own.

Why do employers often struggle with an entrepreneurial employee?

Employers and managers often find themselves dealing with a strong willed employee or complaints from employees about their coworker. There are some reasons why these coworkers may not jive well together.

When hiring or restructuring a department, an employer wouldn’t make these assignments:

• Placing the budgeting analyst on the social media management team; or
• Placing the graphics designer in the auditing department

In the same way, entrepreneurial mindsets are innovative, strive for efficiency, and need room for growth, creativity, and test new ideas; so utilizing them where they’re personality will thrive will be beneficial company wide!

Otherwise, there may be conflict within the department and this go-getter will move on.

Misunderstood Entrepreneur or Bad Employee?

If you’re feeling restrained, snuffed out, underappreciated, overworked, and everything(one) against you, it’s time to evaluate if you’re performing within your optimal arena. 

Think about these:

• You wouldn’t put on a suit and step into a shower; or 
• Slide into your favorite little black dress to step onto a basketball court.

In the same way, understanding some of the mindset differences of an entrepreneur and employee can help you determine if you’re uncomfortable because you’re just wearing the wrong outfit for the occasion or if you’re getting dressed for the wrong occasion with the wrong expectation. 

A self-evaluation of your frustration can help you figure out what action steps you should take. But be honest with yourself, remember these caveats as you evaluate:

• Lazinesses is not the same as loss of ambition
• Rebellion to authority is not the same as frustration with sluggish systems of corporate bureaucracy
• Spotlight obsession is not the same as setting an example by what you do (a.k.a leadership)

This can impact your action steps dramatically. Ranging from the realization of just needing to adjust your cubicle organization and calendar, requesting to move to a different department, jumping ship to an entirely different company or stepping out on your own as an entrepreneur. 

Am I an Entrepreneur? What’s the difference?

To understand which personality traits you tend to have in your mindset and which arena you may perform best in, we must look at a few of the possible personality differences of both the entrepreneur and employee.

Keep in mind, neither mindset is bad, they are just different and better suited for different arenas.

You may find you fall into different categories so remember to take a step back from your position and evaluate the why behind the thoughts, feelings and actions to get a better understanding as to what drives them:

• Do entrepreneurs embrace their strengths or weaknesses? What about the employee?

• Do entrepreneurs or employees have to be good at multitasking to be successful?

• Entrepreneur and Employee views on the existence of business and personal life balance or if they blend.

• What is the difference between entrepreneurial and employee mindsets on short term and long term planning?

Do Entrepreneurs or Employees Embrace Strengths or Weaknesses?

Entrepreneurial minds tend to improve their skills or strengths and employee minds tend to improve their weaknesses. 

Employees view their weaknesses as a bad thing, possibly reducing their chance of promotion, big break, or competing against others in their department.

They want to be seen as the person that can do it all or ‘go-to’ person in the department.

They focus on increasing their weaknesses and view them as bad, which takes time away from utilizing and rocking their strengths to the fullest.

They sometimes fear job loss, missed promotions, or missed pay increases if they don’t get rid of their weaknesses.

Entrepreneurs embrace their strengths and work to grow them further. They don’t try to do it all, someone with expertise where they have a weakness is a collaboration opportunity, not a threatening competitor.

They know what they’re good at and they perfect their performance in that arena.

They also know what they aren’t as talented at and will look to their network for someone who will collaborate with them and can fill the need.

To be Successful, Do Entrepreneurs or Employees Have to be Good at Multitasking?

Employees tend to feel if they turn that extra project or task down, don’t jump to be the go-to person for last minute requests, or go beyond their duties to cover others’ responsibilities (within the department that aren’t doing them) they’ll be seen as not being a team player, have less value/need from their manager, and ultimately not move up the corporate ladder.

This typically looks like: trying to respond to an email while finishing a report and on the phone with a customer doing troubleshooting.

Entrepreneurs understand there’s no such thing as the widespread misconception of ‘multitasking’. Someone can only give 100% to one thing at a time.

If they try to spread that across many areas at one time it will produce less than 100% results and they can’t honestly say they gave it all they had. Instead, they collaborate with others, hire up, or simply first prioritize what needs to be done and stay focused on the priorities at hand.

They must wear many hats, yes, but they perfect when to wear which hat and when it’s time to change that hat. 

Entrepreneurial minds seem to understand the need for managing not just their time but their attention. They typically have a time frame set for answering emails, a separate time for working on their report, etc.

If a customer calls needing to troubleshoot they’ll stop entirely what they’re doing to focus on that call to give the customer 100% of their focus and return to the task at hand once completed.

Do Entrepreneurs and Employees Have the Same Mindset on Work-Life Balance vs Work-Life Blend?

Employee minds:

Work-life balance is typically misunderstood by the employee of keeping all things in life completely balanced so they don’t get overworked, stressed out, or overwhelmed anywhere. 

The thought that if one side of the scale is rising that means the other is falling backwards so they must address both sides simultaneously to just keep things afloat (multi-tasking and weakness focused).

Entrepreneurial minds:

The Entrepreneurial mind understands that overworking, added stress and potential overwhelm are just seasons in business but they should be balanced in life as a whole.

The entrepreneur may work years without a typical week or two week vacation like the employee mindset requires.

But they also understand taking the time now to meditate and draft a plan of action are vital for their success in the future, whereas an employee mindset may not slow down for meditation or draft a plan of action because they feel they must be ‘busy’ doing something to stay balanced. 

The entrepreneurial mind understands there are always priorities in life and strives to prioritize within the sections of life; such as work, family, health, social activities, networking, etc. while prioritizing which sections are most important to them.

This is where they may battle with an unhealthy balance between the sections, just as an employee, and be labeled or battle against seasons of being a workaholic. 

Entrepreneurial minds see the balance scale more as a basket weave to be blended. When priorities are in line in all areas of life it makes the inner workings stronger and more fruitful in their efforts.

That doesn’t mean they ‘bring home’ or ‘take to work’ issues from other areas, it means they know when it’s time to prioritize and focus where they are and what they’re doing and when it’s time to prioritize and focus on a different area. 

Blending must exist because managing time, money, networks, relationships, and to-do lists are vital to keep all areas healthy.

When finances or time are mismanaged in business, it will affect personal finances or time also. This is where attention management shines.

What is the Mindset Difference Between Entrepreneurs and Employees for Short Term and Long Term Planning?

Entrepreneurial mindset:

The entrepreneur will invest heavily for a long amount of time before expecting to see a return, knowing the risk of never seeing a return. 

They are willing to put in high amounts of effort on the frontend of a project with low immediate returns, however, over time the anticipation, though not promised, is that the amount of effort decreases as the amount of return increases. 

Values the management of time and money. If they aren’t talented they either strive to learn or bring in help or assistance with the matter.

They tend to question what long term benefits are resulting from their short term actions, what growth potential is there for these efforts, and if the juice will be worth the squeeze.

They may struggle on the weekends in turning off their thoughts and drive for personal growth, productive projects or building something for their future.

Employee Mindset:

The employee is willing to work as long as there’s little risk of no return, they receive return quickly, and will use the benefits package as one of the deciding factors in work they choose; paycheck mentality.

They tend to have the thought of just doing their job and going home.

They think more about the weekend entertainment, trips, and distraction from work than productive projects, personal growth, or building something for their future.

Final Thoughts on the Needs of an Entrepreneur in the Workplace and Results if Not Fulfilled.

1.  The entrepreneur can not be held back, micromanaged, or feel the sluggishness that comes from too many rules, monotonous systems, and lazy employees.

Go-getters at heart with the need for freedom to strive for more, to feel appreciated for putting 150% in when others are doing 98%, and the ability for continual growth.

If this sounds like your kind of needs, the next paragraph might be some things you’re contemplating.

2.  Not promoting soon enough or allowing these top performers to truly excel will just cause them to leave the company seeking for these needs to be filled elsewhere. They’re not afraid of risk, so you can only bluff for so long on promotions, loosened reigns, or a better schedule before they walk away, even without another job to go to.

They know their worth and are confident they can find work and appreciation elsewhere.

Ultimately, it’s not that an entrepreneurial mindset is better or an employee mindset is better. They both have their place and can be beneficial to the company if placed in the right roles.

It’s because of the entrepreneurial mindset and spirit a company was first formed and it’ll be these principles that bring growth and change to the organization over time. There is a place for management, a place for employees and a place for the entrepreneur.

Now, you can decide for yourself which mindset you have and what your next action step is! 

Stay employed where you are, move to a different department, leap over to another company, or jump ship to the entrepreneurial journey!

Downfalls and Benefits Between Entrepreneur Mindset and Employee Mindset in the Normal Workplace.

What are some possible downfalls of having an entrepreneurial mindset in the normal workplace?

They don’t function well in a monotonous cubicle doing the same responsibilities every day, answering to a manager that controls their every movement, or dealing with the co-workers that tell on them when they don’t ask to go to the restroom. This can cause them to lose interest, be frustrated and outspoken.

What are some benefits of an employee mindset in the normal workplace:

Employees will typically complete tasks without changing the process, want to know their exact job description and not stepping outside of those boundaries, and wanting a reliable paycheck every two weeks and their benefits. 

What are some possible benefits of an entrepreneurial mindset in the normal workplace:

Entrepreneurs are the ‘go-getters’. They need room for growth, innovation, breaking the status quo, challenge, creativity, and room to breathe out from under the tight management systems; guidelines instead of rules.

When given these opportunities paired with guidance and mentorship, this employee will outperform and out produce expectations (and probably their co-workers), they make great leaders and sources of inspiration, they will take on new projects, experiment, and challenge inefficient practices.

This could potentially bring stronger systems, productivity, and profits to the company. 

What are some possible downfalls of employee mindset in the normal workplace;

The downfall happens when paired with entrepreneurial minded people or placed in a management role.

Because they are content with routine, getting done what they have to, and going home, the typical employee doesn’t like change, they don’t want to do more work, and don’t want to look incapable of their job or less important/knowledgeable than someone else, especially if they are the manager.

They may combat good ideas, complain that the entrepreneurial minded is a ‘know it all’ or ‘not a team player’’. Someone who fights change will fight the growth of others, causing disturbance.