editor's Note
 By
Alfred Wise, President
Community
Wealth Ventures
“If you're not
confused, you're not paying attention.”
-- Tom Peters
The greatest lesson we at Community Wealth Ventures have learned over
the years is that the key to a successful nonprofit, social enterprise,
or entrepreneurial pursuit, has little to do with the brilliance of an
idea and everything to do with leadership. This lesson comes after years
of helping organizations come up with brilliant ideas. We have many
bookshelves of such ideas that languish due to lack of leadership and
execution. We now understand that an “A” leader or leadership team could
make a mediocre idea succeed, while a “C” team would flounder with the
best idea.
For 20 years, George Gendron served as editor-in-chief of Inc. Magazine,
which publishes the Inc. 500, the list of the nation's fastest-growing
private companies. Gendron has commented that in interviews over the
years, most of those CEOs , have noted that their ideas were neither
brilliant nor innovative, but usually quite mundane. What has made these
leaders and these companies succeed is thoughtful execution.
.
Which gets to the big question: What is effective leadership? And, more
important for us, what is effective leadership among social
entrepreneurs? In this edition of Community Wealth Vanguard are
perspectives on identifying and nurturing leaders, including an article
by Cheryl Dorsey, president of Echoing Green, which identifies and
invests in emerging social entrepreneurs. Echoing Green has been one of
the first to identify leaders such as Alan Khazei and Michael Brown of
City Year, and Wendy Kopp of Teach for America.
In another
piece, Ben Litalien, president & CEO of Social Franchise Ventures,
writes about how to develop business savvy using an advisory council.
Also you’ll find articles on creative ways for organizations on a budget
to hire topnotch team members, by Dana Levy of Koya Consulting, and
thoughts on leadership by CWV chairman Bill Shore. Finally, Goodwill of
the Chesapeake shares its experience in identifying and hiring a leader
for a staffing venture.
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