Business Owners Make Awful Political Leaders

I was the owner of small businesses for my entire career.

One thing I learned from the start was to be in charge. No matter how good or loyal an employee was, the employee was never going to be as invested as I was. I had my money, sweat, and more importantly my self-esteem on the line. A small business owner is the one in charge.

The owner may at times delegate authority to others, but he/she is the ultimate decider. The owner has their entire being wrapped in that venture. And it is personal, very personal.

The business owner owns the entire enchilada including usually the debts accumulated. Every pencil, machine, note pad, and chair are theirs. Small businesspeople seldom make good government leaders. Their training and temperament have not been forged to be tolerant of the rules and pace of government.

A CEO of a large corporation can slip into government much more easily than the small business owner. In a publicly traded company, there are shareholders, an independent board of directors, thousands of employees, and perhaps unions to deal with. There is little of that in a sole proprietorship.

Some of what plagued Donald Trump as president was his inability to separate himself from his job as president. In business, he was the only one who counted. It was his 24–7 whether away or at home. In government, that is far from the case. Nothing in running an independent business prepares you to act within the constraints of a large bureaucracy or for that matter a small one.

Trump owned every scrap of paper in his business. If he liked an employee, he could give him a bonus. If he didn’t, it wouldn’t be very hard to fire that employee. Acting that way as president is entirely different.

I am not excusing Trumps’ behavior. He is being tried for repeatedly breaking the law. Even sole proprietors can’t do that. His immorality coupled with his business experience made him abundantly unfit to be a president.

I believe he will go down as the worst president the U.S. ever had. That is too bad. The last small business owner/president was Harry Truman, and he went bankrupt in his haberdashery store. President Truman then returned to politics.