The 12th Annual Higher Ground Women’s Leadership Conference gave an outstanding opportunity for ELI Vice President Rob Herndon and SERCAP President Hope Cupit to partner and present a breakout session on the ways that an entrepreneurial mindset can be a powerful tool for leaders to positively impact the culture of an organization.
Hosted by Virginia Commonwealth University, this conference exposed attendees to innovative leadership development ideas. In the session, Rob explained how leadership culture must adapt to current economic realities. He then gave attendees ideas on how to be more entrepreneurial in their own lives while supporting an entrepreneurial environment in their workplaces.
As leader of an impactful nonprofit organization that is part of the Rural Community Assistance Partnership, Hope used her experience to explain how SERCAP is dedicated to providing their services in a more entrepreneurial fashion across the seven southeastern states in their service area. Hope then used extensive examples from her own experience to illuminate the possibilities that arise when an entrepreneurial mindset forms the basis of action for individuals, organizations, and communities.
To wrap up the session, participants put their talents to work to begin brainstorming ways to define and analyze some difficult problems that they cared deeply about in their work. Groups centered on bringing more diversity into the K-12 system, making college more affordable and teaching financial responsibility enjoyed the opportunity to use ELI’s Opportunity Discovery Process to refine understanding of their problems and help plan a way forward to address them.