{"id":12306,"date":"2019-05-08T17:42:06","date_gmt":"2019-05-08T17:42:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/948294437a.nxcli.io\/?p=12306"},"modified":"2019-05-16T12:17:45","modified_gmt":"2019-05-16T12:17:45","slug":"entrepreneurship-innovation-and-the-future-of-leadership","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alpsleadership.com\/index.php\/2019\/05\/08\/entrepreneurship-innovation-and-the-future-of-leadership\/","title":{"rendered":"Innovation and The Future of Leadership"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Innovation and entrepreneurship are the bedrock of modern civilization.<\/h2>\n

We depend on those willing to take the necessary risks, who dream big and who dare to challenge the status quo in order to change the world. In the US over the past forty or so years, the driving force behind the greatest innovations have occurred within the private sector – and much of this as a result of entrepreneurship.<\/p>\n

Mackay and Sisodia suggest in their book “Conscious Capitalism” that capitalism has done more to improve society and our quality of life than any other force on earth. They argue, like Peter Drucker suggested, that business is the only organ of civilization that utilizes things of value to create more value. While scientific research, education and major government initiatives may contribute to our overall wellbeing, it is the engine of innovation and drive of entrepreneurship that provides the fuel.<\/p>\n

Driving change requires more than the ability to go fast or far, it requires a sense of direction. Driving innovation requires capable leadership to actually do the driving. Powerful, even explosive ideas are worthless unless developed into something useful. The most disruptive technological changes we have undergone have all been driven by a leader who was had and completely absorbed by a great, worthy cause.<\/p>\n

Dr. Lee Thayer, author of “The Competent Organization” and “Leadership Virtuosity” suggests that in any competition between change and the status quo, we should always bet on the status quo. People prefer problems they cannot solve over solutions they do not like. Most people prefer to remain squarely in our comfort zones – even if we pretend that remaining there requires dedication and courage. The opposite is true: it takes commitment and courage to embrace the unknown and risk what we have for what might be.<\/p>\n

It would seems that is financial incentives that drive entrepreneurs, but in actuality that rarely is so. It may seem to be the case given the enormous rewards that successful entrepreneurs can reap. But those rewards are met out to a fractional percentage of all those who dare to pursue ideas that few others would even consider. Greed does not generate the kind of performance required of driving great ideas. If not foolishness that drives an entrepreneur – it is always a deep and abiding sense of necessity and a purpose. And it is this sense of purpose that can produce the vacuum for great leaders to form.<\/p>\n

Great leaders often emerge from the plasma of super-heated ideas – where a steady sense of guidance is required to pump meaning into those who choose to come along on such a treacherous journey. Like their leaders, the people who adopt a sense of duty and place themselves in harms way along with those leaders – are driven by that sense of purpose. Those who are not, and are motivated by wealth tend to wash-out. It takes a powerful connection to a deep sense of purpose for people to place themselves in harms way – whether that be risking their lives on a battlefield – or their careers in pursuit of a shared vision.<\/p>\n

It is the role of the leader to make what is necessary possible – and what is possible necessary. They become a force that turns imagination into reality by performing acts of organization making and people making. They see potential beyond what may be apparent – and demand that level of performance from others by demonstrating what that commitment to performance looks like in themselves.<\/p>\n

If we want to increase the velocity of innovation and bring more weight to bear on the future we aim to create – we need to first invest in developing the leadership that will take us there. And to accomplish this we need to understand that leaders are not built in business schools or in the pages of books. Leaders are cultivated by imbuing those who dare to attempt leadership with the courage to question their beliefs and to believe in their dreams, the power to see and hear clearly – even when it means learning we are wrong and the sense of duty to stay true to the things that matter most. Our future truly depends on this.<\/p>\n

###<\/p>\n

Phil Liebman is the CEO and founder of ALPS Leadership\u00a0<\/strong>and a Vistage Chair since 2005. He earned his Master of Leadership Arts and Sciences at The Thayer Institute – studying High-Performance Organizations and Competent Leadership under Dr. Lee Thayer. You can learn more about what it takes to become a more effective leader and building and growing sustainable high-performance organizations by visiting ALPS Leadership at<\/em>\u00a0www.ALPSLeadership.com<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Innovation and entrepreneurship are the bedrock of modern civilization. We depend on those willing to take the necessary risks, who dream big and who dare to challenge the status quo in order to change the world. In the US over the past forty or so years, the driving force behind the greatest innovations have occurred […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":12307,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_price":"","_stock":"","_tribe_ticket_header":"","_tribe_default_ticket_provider":"","_tribe_ticket_capacity":"0","_ticket_start_date":"","_ticket_end_date":"","_tribe_ticket_show_description":"","_tribe_ticket_show_not_going":false,"_tribe_ticket_use_global_stock":"","_tribe_ticket_global_stock_level":"","_global_stock_mode":"","_global_stock_cap":"","_tribe_rsvp_for_event":"","_tribe_ticket_going_count":"","_tribe_ticket_not_going_count":"","_tribe_tickets_list":"[]","_tribe_ticket_has_attendee_info_fields":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12306","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-leadership-matters"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alpsleadership.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12306","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alpsleadership.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alpsleadership.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alpsleadership.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alpsleadership.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12306"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/alpsleadership.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12306\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12348,"href":"https:\/\/alpsleadership.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12306\/revisions\/12348"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alpsleadership.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12307"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alpsleadership.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12306"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alpsleadership.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12306"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alpsleadership.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12306"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}