 Social
Entrepreneurs as Emerging Public Leaders
By Bill
Shore, Executive Director,
Share Our
Strength
I recently dropped by the Kennedy School at Harvard
to sit in on a study group led by Alan Khazei, founder of City Year. His
guest speaker was former Senator Gary Hart for whom both Alan and I once
worked. Gary and Alan and I had coffee and then walked over together. On
the way, we bumped into Peter Hart, the pollster, who predicted the
Democrats’ successful efforts to regain control of Congress. The three
of them stopped to chat, a striking tableau: the pollster, the
politician, and the social entrepreneur.
Each in a way represented a different facet of leadership. Gary Hart was
promoting his new book called The Courage of Our Convictions, a
manifesto for Democrats reminding them what strong leaders do, which is
take the risks of thinking hard about what they really believe and then
saying so without regard to polls or political consequence. He had been
a fiercely idealistic and independent senator and presidential
candidate, attributes that sometimes win more admiration than votes. His
style of leadership was focused on ideas and the power they have to move
people to action.
Peter Hart, not related to Gary, has built a business, brand, and career
by using polling data to find out what voters think and then selling
that information to political candidates who all too often take the
shortcut of thinking the same things. Used one way, such information can
make leaders more effective by helping them connect their views to the
values of those they seek to represent. But instead it often helps the
weak among them to be followers more than leaders.
After Gary Hart’s presidential campaigns, Alan Khazei sought to lead
outside the political system, founding City Year and empowering young
people to create social change through direct community service. He came
to identify with and ultimately epitomize the social entrepreneur.
Gary Hart’s session began with students seated around the packed room
introducing themselves. A few were political junkies. Some were there
because of their passion for national service, which both Hart and
Khazei had championed. But most interesting was that the majority said
they came because they were interested in social entrepreneurship.
That’s a term Hart’s probably never used in his life, although it is
frequently associated with those like Alan Khazei whom he were inspired
and mentored.
It’s remarkable to see how social entrepreneurs have taken their place
in the ranks of public leadership. Last month U.S. News and World
Report published its second annual list of America’s Best Leaders, and
alongside American icons like Warren Buffett, former Supreme Court
Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, and Wynton Marsalis, it included social
entrepreneurs like Khazei and Michael Brown, who co-founded City Year
with him, and Wendy Kopp from Teach for America, just as last year’s
issue showcased Ashoka’s Bill Drayton and Geoffrey Canada from the
Harlem Children’s Zone.
Just 10 years ago the odds of such social entrepreneurs being included
in any such ranking would have been exceedingly slim. But as Gary Hart
told the students assembled that afternoon as he described the need for
what he called civic virtue, “When not challenged, noble minds will find
other ways to contribute. We must earn our rights by the performance of
our duties.”
In a tribute dinner hosted by U.S. News at New York’s St. Regis Hotel,
both Alan Khazei and Michael Brown indicated that imagination -- the
courage to dream -- is the first act of leadership. That is one of the
critical ingredients in accomplishing the ultimate measure of
leadership: getting people to a place they would not get to on their
own. It is what entrepreneurial organizations like CWV client
Discovering Justice has done in pioneering a fee-for-service curriculum
about democracy and justice for Boston Public Schools or like what Share Our
Strength is about to do in opening a retail wine shop in Washington,
D.C., as part of the WineStyles franchise system.
It is too soon to tell what impact the Democrats' success will have on
the country and which way the political winds will blow as we head into
the 2008 elections. Regardless, politicians will increasingly be sharing
leadership alongside today’s emerging social entrepreneurs.
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