U.S. presidents and state governors are sometimes referred to as chief executives. That designation is appropriate, but there are major differences between how holders of that title in the public sphere are expected to act in office, versus how corporate CEOs do.

President Trump is the first person to occupy the White House without having previously held positions in government or the military. Prior to the presidency, he spent much of his adult life in the private sector as CEO of The Trump Organization. That background appears to heavily influence how he carries himself as president.

In the private sector, workers have no role in selecting the CEOs of the companies they work for. They also have no reasonable expectation that CEOs will be accountable to them. Corporate bosses answer primarily to company boards of directors and ultimately to shareholders. Some decisions that CEOs make can place their companies at risk, and by extension jeopardize their workers’ employment. But workers have no power to influence high-level decision-making processes. If they are unhappy with the direction of their companies, the only recourse workers have is to leave and find other jobs.

In the case of President Trump and his corporate days, there was an even greater distance between him and those who worked in his enterprises. That was because he was running his own companies. He held a much more powerful position than the one a typical CEO occupies.

The boss-subordinate relationship is completely different in his current role. Because he owes his position to the electorate, all citizens, including those who didn’t vote for him, are not only members of the board of directors, they are also shareholders of the organization he now runs. A president answers to every citizen of the country.

The presidency is an extraordinarily powerful office for many reasons. One of them is the fact that the occupant of the White House is the only constitutional officer who is on duty twenty-four-seven. The enormous powers vested in that office are supposed to allow presidents to deal with emergencies in a timely fashion.

In many ways, President Trump has tried to stretch the limits of those powers. In one example, he used the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) to impose sweeping tariffs on countries across the world, something the Supreme Court later ruled unlawful. The Court said the president “self-declared” an emergency that didn’t fit what the statute intended.

Despite those vast presidential powers, President Trump no longer has that luxury of answering only to himself. Making the transition from the private to the public sector required him to switch hats. It appears he has failed to do so.

Given how often he lashes out at people, especially journalists, it is apparent that the president is not used to having people question his decisions or his judgment on any matter. Public figures in democratic societies know that harsh scrutiny comes with the territory. Most people who run for office expect to be interrogated about anything they say or do, and they learn to deal with it. President Trump is a highly unusual politician governing in a free and open society.

The president’s apparent donning of an inappropriate hat creates enormous tensions in the country due to the constant fights he picks. Perhaps someone in the White House should check to make sure he isn’t wearing the wrong hat.