Founder Flounder: The Opportunist in Visionary's Clothing (Part 1)

Mirror, mirror on the wall, who's the most visionary of them all?

Being cast as a visionary is a drug and when it turns out you are mainly an opportunist or worse, a one trick pony, the paranoia about being exposed can make you murderous to your people (who are not to blame) and suspect to second or third round investors when they discover they've been had and you really don't have the right stuff.

1. Reality Distortion Field -- Steve Jobs got away convincing himself and others of something that wasn't true in the present later in his life because he delivered the products that backed him up. By the way, it wasn't that way before the iPod and iTunes.
2. "Next great idea!" addiction -- Will switch directions every month or more frequently when the "next great idea" doesn't deliver, produce or sustain "Wow!" in customers or trust and confidence and more money from investors.
3. Delegate Poorly -- They are much clearer in their heads than what they truly communicate and treat their people as stupid or lazy when in fact they have not been clear in their communication and people are afraid to push back.
4. Intimidate their people -- They can't and won't take "No" for an answer which is usually caused by a "kick the dog" reaction when the investors they want respect, and more importantly money from, begin to question their being a good investment or even credible.
5. Unmanageable and Incorrigible -- After being told that their company needs professional management or a CEO so the founder can be the company's chief evangelist and rainmaker, a series of people are brought in who can't manage the unruly and often toxic behavior by the founder.
6. "Your agenda is showing" -- Often founders start a company out of love for its mission and what it could be, and then get seduced by all the toys that money can buy, and then need to sustain it akin to the "Goldman's Handcuffs." As a result their creating a product or service that is driven 80 percent-plus by delighting and serving the customer or client becomes corrupted into ROI on everything. True investors may be the driving force to get something back quickly for their shareholder, but the founder doesn't have to buy into that hook, line and sinker.
7. "Would rather be King than Rich" -- There are good and bad to each of these. It's good to be King if you're Steve Jobs and have your finger on your customer's future in terms of what will delight them out of their lives of quiet desperation, be dependable compared to mediocre quality products, be something they can wax poetically and enthusiastically to others about instead of waning and complaining about something that sucks. It's bad to be a King who is purely on an ego and power trip rather than quality or any other trip that focuses on anyone else. It's also good to want to be rich by both maximizing the value and ROI of how you run your company instead of it seeming like the Keystone Cops without the fun. It's bad to be so focused on ROI that quality doesn't even come second, it comes as doing the least costly thing that won't tick off your customer or client so much that they leave.