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Understanding the nuances of psychology is an invaluable business coaching skill for today’s leaders. Though many of us lack the formal training to use psychology to address genuine mental health concerns, a bit of basic psychology can be helpful in dealing with followers and employees. It is often key to unlocking their potential. 

Leadership is not management. Compassion is not weakness. Too often we use negatives to frame positives, as a way to eliminate non-examples. The effect may increase our clarity, but it often puts a heavy penalty on the very thing we want to amplify. Machines, time, and animals can be managed, but people must be led. Similarly, leadership can express itself in the person of a benign dictator, a malevolent overlord, or an emotionally connected guide.

The universe operates at two scales: microscopic and macroscopic. If you are presented two pictures without context, you could be challenged to distinguish between something infinitesimally small or monumentally large. Try this for yourself. This is not a question of vision—you can see the field clearly—or even perspective (you are towering over the field, an omniscient presence), but of context.

As a group, entrepreneurs face common challenges. Fortunately, they also share personal traits that can help them overcome these challenges with skill and confidence.

This is the consensus of Professor Ed Hess, who studied 54 entrepreneurial companies in 23 states across the country to write, Growing an Entrepreneurial Business: Concepts & Cases.