Negative Capability of Founders of Mid-Sized Business Creators

This study is devoted to research the negative capability of mid-sized business companies’ founders. It explores how the negative capability itself and the level of its development can help founders proactively manage team members and the whole business. The purpose statement of this work is investigation of mid-sized founders’ negative capability formation and its impact on business development and efficiency of decision making. To achieve the purpose statement of this study in theoretical part authors explore the following: the concept of negative capability from leadership and psychodynamic perspectives, origins and theories of leadership, leader’s childhood scenarios. The empirical part of this study was implemented as an analysis of semi-structured in-depth interviews with 5 founders of mid-sized business companies. Empirical problems of this study are the following: analysis of personal and professional experience of mid-sized business companies’ founders and identification of their unique method to expose uncertainty, enquiry the application scope of this unique method in crisis conditions, synthesis and analysis of interviews results and its psychoanalytic interpretation. First finding of this study stands that the balance of frustration and support formed in relationship with significant parental figures has the crutial influence on the formation of negative capability. Secondly, the fairly-well developed negative capability helps founders effectively build management processes aimed at preserving and expanding it in crisis. Moreover, it helps to allocate responsibility among team members in an efficient manner. The main elements of negative capability which appeared there are adaptability and containment. Thirdly, a child’s unique way coping with uncertainty may or may not contribute to the development of the negative capability. The main hypothesis of this study was confirmed during the investigation.