By Colleen DeBaise

ROBERT SMITH IS a recovering control freak.

Ten years ago, when he started Champion Media Worldwide, a Rockton, Ill., public relations and search-engine marketing firm, he handled everything: prospecting for clients, marketing, accounting, even running to Kinko's if the need arose. Working 12-hour days, Smith refused to take a vacation and spent huge chunks of time away from family. After finally hiring employees in 2004, he became the worst kind of boss — a micromanager who watched over every little thing his staff did.

Then, advice from a mentor opened his eyes: Unless he changed his controlling ways, the business would never grow. "Once I recognized that, and released some control, my business took off," says Smith, who credits the new approach to adding some serious cash to the company's coffers in the past two years. He's even taken a vacation —for the first time in 10 years. "I'm enjoying my life, and I'm enjoying my business, a whole lot more."

Entrepreneurs are a notoriously controlling bunch. Many start their own businesses because they can't bear to work for someone else. And while those control-freak tendencies -- namely, hyper-attention to detail, an overzealous devotion to the business and a need to dictate how everything is done — can help them in the start-up phase, those same traits can ultimately take a toll on their life and the business itself.

Most often, the first area that's affected is one's family and personal life. "If your focus is always going to be your work/your job/your business, it's really hard to prioritize," says Cooper Lawrence, a developmental psychologist in New York, who writes about such personalities in her book, "The Cult of Perfection."

In fact, it's sometimes a crack in one's personal life — such as the break-up of a marriage, the alienation of friends or family, or the lack of time with children — that causes a control-freak business owner to change his or her ways. For Richelle Shaw, owner of FreshStart Telephone, a multimillion-dollar phone-service company in Las Vegas, it was back-to-back serious illnesses that got her to kick the control-freak habit. In 2005, Shaw suffered complications from an ovarian cyst, and then, a short while later, a blood clot. Both problems, she believes, were worsened because she ignored the painful symptoms and kept on working.

Tips To Change Your Control-Freak Ways

Much like other bad behaviors, the first step in conquering a negative, controlling personality is to admit that you have one. Not sure? Ask any outside observer, including the people who work for you.

After that, it's time for an attitude adjustment. Cran, author of "Control Freak Revolution," suggests these ways to flip negative characteristics into positive ones:

Are you overbearing?
Try to be a coach instead. Provide helpful feedback that allows others to grow.

Are you a micromanager?
Set parameters and reward good performance, but don't watch over shoulders.

Are you a perfectionist?
Recognize and accept that everyone has individual personalities and styles.

Are you condescending?
Communicate high expectations, but check the need to be rude or belittling to get your point across.

After her health scare, Shaw realized: "I have an issue here. I need to slow down, and pay attention to my body." For years, she had micromanaged her six staff members, and wasted time on trivial matters. "I would get caught up doing labels," she says, recalling one occasion when she re-made labels because her assistant used the font Arial instead of Garamond. "I mean, come on, that's just dumb."

Now, Shaw makes a long list of everything she'd like to do for the business, and then crosses off everything except tasks or projects that directly bring in revenue. "I only do the money stuff," she says. The rest gets handed off to staff. "My business really flourished when I stopped micromanaging," she says. "When I started putting systems in place, and saying 'You know what, I can't control everything,' it made it much easier to run the company."

As Shaw's story illustrates, control-freak entrepreneurs essentially must "relearn new ways to be successful," says Ellen Ernst Kossek, a professor of organizational behavior at Michigan State University and co-author of "CEO of Me." It's difficult for many people to shed that ego-driven "I am the only one who can do this" way of thinking. She advises business owners to hire talented staff, train them thoroughly and then allow them to take charge and make decisions. "It will get people more involved in the firm and acting like owners," she says.

Control-freak business owners should also work toward letting go of maddening behaviors while hanging on to more effective ones, says Cheryl Cran, the Vancouver-based author of "The Control Freak Revolution." In her book, she argues that some of the most successful entrepreneurs in the U.S. — Oprah Winfrey, for instance — have "positive" control-freak attributes. "She knows what she wants, and she sticks to her guns," she says. Positive control freaks focus on product quality and customer satisfaction, and "are very controlling of their vision, and they're disciplined," she says.

"Negative" control freaks, on the other hand, are "that person we all absolutely fear interacting with," she says. "They are rude and abrupt; they are perfectionists; they are overbearing; they are arrogant." In her research, she found that younger employees, in particular, don't perform well for "old-school" control-freak bosses. Cran suggests that business owners who suspect they have overly controlling personalities ask for feedback from mentors, peers and employees — and then start to shift those bad behaviors from negative to positive (for tips, see sidebar). "People who say 'this is the only way to succeed in business' haven't explored anything else," she says.

And give yourself time to make the change. Smith, the Champion Media owner, got serious about giving up control in 2005. But it's taken time to train his 11 employees, write out policies and procedures, and put new systems in place — all while fighting the urge to do everything himself. "I've been used to being the guy in charge, making the decisions," he says. "I don't think you can change that behavior overnight. It takes time to break it."

"Balancing Work & Life," a weekly column written by Colleen DeBaise for smSmallBiz.com.