42 REFLECTIONS ON CHARACTER AND LEADERSHIP
Whatever executives or venture capitalists fi nally decide to do, they
should keep in mind that entrepreneurs ’ personality quirks may have
been responsible for the very drive and energy that made them so suc-
cessful. Instead of fi ghting these idiosyncrasies, executives should regard
developing them as a challenge.Endnotes
The material for this chapter has been gathered from the following previously
published sources:- Zaleznik , A. and Kets de Vries , M.F.R. ( 1976 ). ‘ What makes entrepreneurs
entrepreneurial? ’ Business and Society Review , Spring, 17. - Kets de Vries , M.F.R. ( 1977 ). ‘ The entrepreneurial personality: A person at
the crossroads , ’ Journal of Management Studies , 14. - Kets de Vries , M.F.R. ( 1985 ). ‘ The dark side of entrepreneurship , ’ Harvard
Business Review , November – December. - Kets de Vries , M.F.R. ( 1996 ). ‘ The anatomy of the entrepreneur, clinical
observations , ’ Human Relations , 49 : 7.
Shapero (1975) used Rotter ’ s (1971) ‘ internal - external ’ scale to determine
the locus of control of entrepreneurs. Entrepreneurs tended to be on the
internal end of the scale. Internal people were defi ned as individuals who
felt that they have some infl uence on the course of events in their life (as
opposed to external people who felt dominated by outside forces such as
luck or fate). For internal people, personal destiny comes from within and
therefore they tend to be more self - reliant and more in need of independence
and autonomy.
All names are fi ctitious.
The Oedipus complex is a concept from psychoanalytic theory referring to
a stage of psychosexual development where a child of either gender regards
the parent of the same gender as an adversary, and competitor, for the exclu-
sive love of the parent of the opposite gender. The name comes from the
Greek myth of Oedipus, who, unaware, kills his father, Laius, and marries
his mother Jocasta.1.2.
3.