Entrepreneurial Leadership - Research Paper Example

Entrepreneurial Leadership Entrepreneurial Leadership An entrepreneur is an individual who searches for a profit generating opportunity to make and run a business by taking necessary risks. Leadership is inspiring people to achieve organizational goals. Entrepreneurial leadership is managing a set of people to attain a common goal using practical, entrepreneurial behavior by taking risks and maximizing opportunities. This paper focuses on entrepreneurial leadership approach by examining two leading entrepreneurs in both the social-responsibility oriented and profit-oriented approaches to business.

Social entrepreneurship is the procedure of identifying and pursuing business opportunities to build social values (Cleveland, 2002). Social entrepreneurs are resourceful, innovative, and results oriented. Dr. Jordan Kassalow is a superb example of social oriented entrepreneur. Dr. Kassalow is the CEO and Founder of Vision Spring. Also, he is the founder and co-founder of the Global Health Policy Program Scojo New York respectively. His social entrepreneurship skills started back in 1984 when he volunteered to treat and help patients in rural Mexico (Kassalow, 1991).

Seventeen years later, he formed a non-profit organization called Vision Spring. Vision Spring has sold almost six hundred thousand pairs of reading glasses in seven different countries. In the last year, Vision Spring gathered an annual income of $290,000 and still was on charitable donations. In 2010, they amassed $ 1700000. Three years later, he combined forces with a global microfinance organization called BRAC, in Bangladesh. BRAC has an eighty thousand strong sales force of women, who got hired to sell baskets of Band-Aids and Aspirin.

Kassalow figured out on how to use the sales force to help him sell reading glasses, which in the process would help him save money on administrative and training costs. In the same year, Vision Spring sold ninety thousand pairs of glasses, but he still got losses. In the following year, Vision Spring sold two hundred and one thousand pairs bust made losses, which would now force Vision Spring to sell millions of pairs of reading glasses to break even (Stephen, 2008). A good example of a profit oriented entrepreneur is the late Steven Paul.

Steve was an American businessman, inventor and designer. He was the chief executive officer, chairman, and a co-founder of Apple Inc (Brashares, 2001). He was also the chief executive officer and a co-founder of Pixar Animation Studios. In 2006, The Walt Disney Company acquired Pixar, and he became a member of Disney board of directors. In 1997, Steve got elected as an interim chief executive officer. He saved Apple from near bankruptcy situations and made it one of the most profitable and thriving company in the world.

He oversaw the growth of the iPod, iMac, iTunes, iPhone and iPad under his stewardship. On the service side, he developed the company’s App Store, iTunes Store, and the Apple Retail Stores (Gallo, 2009). Steve was a demanding perfectionist manager, who aspired to place his products and businesses at the front position of the ever growing information technology industry by predicting and setting trends in innovation and style. Steve became a symbol of both his company and industry after Apple’s founding.

He was also the most admired entrepreneur of the decade because of his ability to innovate and predict technological trends in the world (Imbimbo, 2009).ReferenceBrashares, A. (2001). Steve Jobs. Minneapolis: Twenty-First Century Books.Cleveland, P. M. (2002). 50 Steps to Business Success: Entrepreneurial Leadership in Manageable Bites. Toronto: ECW Press.Gallo, C. (2009). The Presentation Secrets of Steve Jobs: How to Be Insanely Great in Front of Any Audience. New York: McGraw-Hill Professional.

Imbimbo, A. (2009). Steve Jobs: The Brilliant Mind Behind Apple. New York: Gareth Stevens.Kassalow, J. (1991). Providing Low-cost Spectacles: A Practical Guide. New York: Helen Keller International.Stephen W. Gibson, W. G. (2008). MicroFranchising: Creating Wealth at the Bottom of the Pyramid. Massachusetts: Edward Elgar Publishing.