Startups as a Way to Build Community Leaders

A few weeks ago I was having lunch with a successful entrepreneur that had sold his business for a large sum of money over a year ago. During the conversation I asked him why he started the company and what were some of the reasons for being. He cited some of the more common ones like being his own boss and financial independence by age 45, but then he mentioned one of his top five purposes as a business was to build community leaders.

As I hadn’t heard this community leaders example before I drilled in to collect more information. Here are some reasons building community leaders was important to him:

• Every person has leadership abilities at some level and their internal programs to train their people to be leaders helped their business
• The startup can only grow as fast as the leaders in the company grow
• Leadership training helps people be better leaders at home, their children’s schools, church, non-profits, and more, making for a better community
• Career development happens faster with more leadership training, making for an even greater positive impact on people’s lives

Like self-actualization of a person, I now view self-actualization of a startup as one of the important goals and growing team members is tightly related.

What else? What are your thoughts on startups as a way to build community leaders?