I’m in-freaking-credibly insecure as a founder. People (I think) look to me for guidance – but I don’t see myself as worthy of that. Any other high-ish founder personalities out there having trouble staying confident?

I go from being incredibly excited, to incredibly worried most days/weeks. It's human to doubt yourself when you're doing something great. However, you've got to keep pushing forward and don't assume that if you let other people know your insecurities that they will abandon you.

You can gain a lot by being honest and upfront with your employees about how you feel. Most of the time they will help you come up with solutions that you hadn't thought of. No human is an island.

Went through this especially in the early days. Felt awkward that people would take direction and guidance from me. Felt like I hadn't earned it yet.

At some point you start getting used to the fact that people trust your decisions and have come to see you as their leader. Perhaps it's because your the owner of the vision and you execute well. Perhaps it's because you inspire them with speeches. Perhaps it's because you're a killer sales person or developer. There's a bunch of reasons people come to respect you. You learn to accept it.

I would definitely NOT advocate sharing these insecurities with your employees. As you scale up you begin to realize that a number of people view working for you as a job. Your fears scare people. Feeling insecure about one's job, company, or leadership is a sure fire way to get your employees to start looking for other gigs.

Don't mix up General confidence with running a business / startup. Nearly every founder of a business / startup will go through the sick feeling at the bottom of the belly.

You may not lack confidence; more you feel the pain of running a company.

Unless you are are sociopath… but reading your post, I don't think you are ;-)

Good luck and welcome to the club. It's all very normal. ;-)