Entrepreneurial Mindset and Leadership

In today’s dynamic world, social entrepreneurs need to equip themselves with the concept of a growth mindset, resilience, and adaptability to develop the essential traits and characteristics for success. To achieve this goal, ASEAN Social Enterprise Development Program (SEDP) 2.0 by ASEAN Foundation with support from Tik Tok and SAP and in collaboration with DKK Consulting, conducted virtual training for all its participants, who came from social enterprises in 10 ASEAN countries. One of these training, Entrepreneurial Mindset and Leadership, was aimed to instill an entrepreneurial mindset and effective leadership among social entrepreneurs in driving social impact and achieving organizational success.?

The training took place on 6 October 2023, led by Priya Thachadi as speaker. Priya Thachadi is a gender equality advocate, investor, and entrepreneur. She is the co-founder and CEO of Villgro Philippines, an early-stage impact incubator that funds, mentors, and nurtures social entrepreneurs.?

Priya also co-founded Unlock Impact, a social impact venture focused on scaling inclusive solutions that address gender and climate action across South and Southeast Asia. In 2020, she was recognized as a Youth Gender Champion by the UN Women WEPs Awards for Asia Pacific.

According to Prof. Rowena Barret from Queensland University of Technology, an entrepreneurial mindset helps leaders create value by recognizing and acting on opportunities, making decisions with limited information, and remaining adaptable and resilient in conditions that are uncertain and complex.?

An entrepreneurial mindset includes several traits. First, it is solutions-oriented, meaning individuals with entrepreneurial mindset have optimistic interpretations of adverse events and see problems as potential opportunities. Second, they also embrace change while keeping one’s eyes on their mission. And lastly, being resilient is also essential to go through chance and take risks by having the confidence, understanding, skillset, resources, and community to undergo such process.?

Assistant Professor Scott Livengood from W.P. Carey School of Business mentioned that with an entrepreneurial mindset, learners are able to recognize potentially profitable opportunities, generate creative solutions to important problems, assess and minimize risk, gather critical resources, and present solutions to interested stakeholders.?

Apart from entrepreneurial mindset, individuals with a growth mindset enjoy challenges, strive to learn, and consistently see potential to develop new skills. They tend to believe their talents can be developed through hard work, good strategies, and input from others. This concept of growth mindset has its impact on personal and organizational development by encouraging the individuals with this mindset to be more adept at overcoming challenges and setbacks through a growth-oriented perspective.

A social impact leader having an entrepreneurial and growth mindset, employing a certain leadership style, and possessing resilience and adaptability can play a crucial role in the scope of the impact being created. Social impact leaders are leaders who use their expertise, resources, passion, and influence to create positive social change. They may come from non-governmental organizations, social enterprises, the government, or corporations.?

Growing as social impact leader with an entrepreneurial and growth mindset involves 6 steps:

1. Define your purpose. To understand what problem you are solving and your plan for solving it.
2. Learn continuously. Keep up with the latest trends and continue developing your skills.
3. Experiment and iterate. Try new methods, learn from existing or collect data, and involve stakeholders.?
4. Collaborate and network. Amplify your impact with like-minded organizations and access potential mentors and partners.
5. Practice self-care. Take care of yourself and celebrate your wins, to you can do what you do for longer.
6. Keep growing. Mentor others, share your stories, embrace change, and set new goals.

After learning in this training, participants were expected to have an entrepreneurial mindset, embrace a growth-oriented perspective, and identify their leadership style for personal and organizational development.?

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