Professor Sarah Cabral
March 5, 2025
In our new first-year leadership course, MGMT 71 Foundations of Leadership: Clarifying Personal Values, I teach a number of students who are entrepreneurs or interested in becoming an entrepreneur. They shared with me that their interest in leadership came via an interest in entrepreneurship.
The link between leadership and entrepreneurship is highlighted by our own Accolti Endowed Professor of Leadership, Barry Posner, and his co-author, Jim Kouzes, in The Leadership Challenge. They explain that “innovation means change and change requires leadership.” Change is hard, and you need inspiring leadership to get a team on board. Kouzes and Posner urge leaders to focus on what is going right and not just on what is going wrong in the midst of change. Changing the way we see things can be the first step towards overcoming obstacles.
" Finally, both leaders and entrepreneurs adhere to what some might consider a paradox: they believe they will be successful while knowing they might fail."
I witnessed my twelve-year-old daughter, Charlotte, engage in the leadership behavior of reframing problems as opportunities during a recent family reunion trip to Walt Disney World. Charlotte is terrified of waterslides and rides with drops, so suffice it to say that theme parks are not her thing. However, to my surprise, she ended up enjoying the waterslide at our hotel. When I asked her what changed, she said that instead of screaming “AHHH” with her mouth turned down in a state of panic, she chose to scream “AHHH” with a smile on her face. Instead of telling herself the slide was scary, she told herself that it was fun! This did not mean that Charlotte was ready to hit the roller coasters, however. Similarly, leaders and entrepreneurs need to break up larger projects into small steps so that they don’t stress out their team.
Finally, both leaders and entrepreneurs adhere to what some might consider a paradox: they believe they will be successful while knowing they might fail. However, as any good entrepreneur realizes, even failed projects can be part of a larger success story. If the project does fail, leaders dust themselves off, discover what there is to learn, and try again, for not only every problem but also every failure is an opportunity for a better solution and lasting success.