Originally published in Entrepreneur

By Scott Wylie

Sometimes successful entrepreneurs must be skillful actors. But when they pull a Daniel Day-Lewis and start playing a role off the set, trouble almost inevitably follows.

It’s true that great company builders’ business personas are grounded in who they really are. But almost all leaders occasionally have to put on a brave face or pretend to not be intensely disappointed when they’re dying inside. Given all the eyes on them, their being the driving force of a growing business is very much a performance art — with sales to make, people to recruit and inspiration to dispense.

But any CEO who can’t turn off that entrepreneurial role for the nonwork parts of his or her life is going to have a bountiful set of serious problems. The crackerjack chief financial officer was recruited because the CEO is incredibly good at playing a leadership role. And his or her spouse married the private person, not some abstraction of a company builder. The 10-year-old child at home sees Mom or Dad and definitely not “the founder.”

Read the full story at https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/235623

Scott Wylie is Chairman and CEO of First Western Trust Bank.