leadership

Imagine yourself in rural India, driving down a pothole-filled road as the sun’s 90 degree heat pounds down on you in the car - without air conditioning, of course. Sweat is dripping from every pore of your body; all you want is a cold drink and a long nap.

But no. Instead, you are putting together a spreadsheet tracking each of the local dealers who are going to distribute your low-cost, low-margin product to the base of the pyramid. You have just met 5 dealers in the past six hours plus you plan to meet another 50 in the coming week and your boss (a venture backed entrepreneur) has to report the numbers to his investors by 5pm that day. And by the way, he asked you for the information this morning when he called you on your cell - which barely gets any signal.

This is not the typical role of an ex-Silicon Valley venture capitalist and Stanford MBA graduate normally finds himself playing. So why in the world did this particular individual want to do this kind of work - and what type of leader does it really take to succeed in this field? As the manger of Acumen Fund’s Fellows Program it is my job to know.

So what do I think are the skills needed to succeed in this field? Here are the the “Three R’s” of Social Sector Leadership, which I believe are all necessary ingredients for success and some characteristics that I believe truly differentiate the social sector from others.

1. Resilience: For those of you who are clamoring to get into this sector, I first want to dispel the romantic vision of social entrepreneurship; taking a business to scale in this sector is incredibly hard and takes extraordinary humility, patience, and sheer resilience. Be prepared to bang your head again about 10 doors before you manage to open one. And that data you have to report in a beautiful, McKinsey-style deck is often hidden in tens and hundreds of hand-written ledgers (that’s right - many social enterprises are not IT enabled! There is even one company we know of that has 7 million clients and not a single e-mail account - can you believe it!).

Resilience is not about the physical challenges you will face on a day to day basis (though they are important, too); it is about the emotional battle you will encounter with yourself every day. Most days you will think you are crazy to do this stuff, and your mind will try to convince your heart to quit. A real leader in this sector is one who wakes up every morning ready to battle this fear and goes to bed every night exhausted and fulfilled. So your job as a leader, mentor, friend, fellow, or peer is to encourage each other to keep fighting, because those are the leaders we need. There is a great TED talk up about by Elizabeth Gilbert discussing this issue and the constant battle between your inner demon and genius… check it out.

2. Resourcefulness: I recently heard a presentation by the leadership guru Tony Robbins in which he said too many people spend their time making excuses and that the defining factor for a leader is not resources - it is resourcefulness. This could not be more true for leaders in the social sector. If social sector leaders simply said “sorry, I don’t have the resources to make this happen” we would not see some of today’s leading organizations like LifeSpring, Aravind, Ashoka, Echoing Green, Kashf Foundation - just to name a few.

So I encourage leaders in this sector to create change by reevaluating, reassessing, and re-organizing their resources. Spend your time mapping your assets to understand what you do have and then just go for it.

3. Reflection and Empathy: I cannot emphasize this capability enough. Innovation is a practice of trial and error, and yes there will be errors… many. The leaders that I value most are the ones who take the time learn from their failures not the ones who don’t make any (which of course there are none).

So I encourage young leaders out there to take the time to write in a journal, discuss a thoughtful article, and enjoy the company of your own thoughts. Reflection takes practice and discipline but it will pay off in spades when you find yourself battling the daily challenges of the social sector and it will teach you how to learn from your mistakes and find more innovative and lasting solutions.

And so there you have it - reflections from the Acumen Fund Fellows Manager. Do you have these capabilities? If so, I hope to see your application this fall for the Class of 2011 Fellows Program!!

This May, Acumen Fund will host its first Summer Student Leaders Workshop. Be sure to get your application in before the April 10 deadline!

More information can be found on Aden Van Noppen’s blog post or on the Acumen Fund web site.

Thanks for your interest, good luck with the mini projects and we look forward to reviewing your applications!

Editor’s note: This is Amon Anderson’s (pictured here, on the right) first post on the Acumen Fund blog. Read his bio by clicking on his name or visiting the Our People page of Acumen Fund’s website.

I’ve been studying, working with and thinking about leadership development for the last seven years, but I never stop being surprised. This past summer, I led an idea session for the Center for Creative Leadership to brainstorm how leadership development could be applied in the context of poverty.

But in this group of East Africans, West Africans, and North Americans, we could barely agree on semantics-leadership for the base of the pyramid, bottom of the pyramid, leadership for the majority, leadership for all…etc. However, no matter what we called it, we all could agree that not only did the poor have little access to leadership development tools, but the research and resources at hand had limited relevance to someone living in poverty.

That is not to say that there aren’t leaders. I have had the honor of meeting leaders born into poverty and raised through adversity who demonstrate true leadership irrespective of socio-economic status.

Living in Ethiopia, I met Solomon (above, left), a young man who lost three of his limbs when the Addis-Djibouti railway overturned on route to Dire Dawa, Ethiopia’s second city. Solomon ended up in one of Mother Theresa’s clinics and tried a variety of prosthetic options, none of them feasible for the life he would lead in Ethiopia.

So he decided to pack it up and return home. Solomon wanted to start his own business, and I worked with him over a period of months to figure out how he could make it happen. Solomon left his old community, where people saw him as half the man he once was, and established one of the most successful video rental shops in his new neighborhood. His business has grown quickly because Solomon has impressed and befriended those around him, and he’s not done yet. He’s sending home money to his mother, employing boys from the street and he dreams of opening a proper internet café.

After such a devastating accident, many in Ethiopia take to the streets as beggars-either by choice or by force-but Solomon chose a different path. His optimism, courage, and work ethic helped him found his shop and attract a growing number of customers each day.

For me, leadership is about unlocking human potential. In my work with the Cherokee Gives Back Foundation and the Acumen Fund, I have struggled to find entrepreneur-leaders and provide them with the financial support needed to succeed and alleviate poverty through market-oriented solutions. But finance is only part of the picture. I have participated in two Leadership Essential programs, designed by the Center for Creative Leadership’s Leadership Beyond Boundaries initiative, and experienced first-hand the impact of “leadership development for the majority.”

I see immediate potential to introduce these tools to a broader audience in East Africa, but I see an even greater opportunity/challenge: How do we take this concept of leadership development and apply it to the people living in the villages and slums? In East Africa, the “pyramid” looks more like the Eiffel Tower - a needle at the top and large in its foundation. I believe that unlocking doors for this “foundation” will require creativity and a cross-disciplinary effort. But I also believe in the power of leadership development to transform the paradigm. Solomon is one of those extraordinary leaders who succeed, no matter the odds. There are many more out there like Solomon, and with appropriate and accessible leadership development, the impact could be revolutionary.