Q&A with Bill Drayton, Founder of Ashoka

This interview with Bill Drayton, founder of Ashoka, was conducted as part of a series of profiles of "America's Best Leaders" selected by an independent committee of judges assembled by the Center for Public Leadership at Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government.

When questioned about the lack of leadership in the world, Drayton discusses how around 1980 social needs became so strong and highly recognised, that the citizen sector went through the same kind of structural revolution in 25 years that took business 300 years. As it became entrepreneurial, this sector began to quickly close the productivity gap–cutting it in half roughly every 10 to 12 years. As a result, resources have been flooding into this sector, generating jobs at 2.5 to three times as fast as the rest of society. The U.S. more than doubled the number of Internal Revenue Service-recognised charities in a decade. Brazil grew from somewhere between 500 and 3,600 citizen groups in 1980 to an estimated more than 1 million by the year 2000. According to Drayton, because this is the fastest-growing, most vibrant sector now, it is where the talent is flowing. The best, most entrepreneurial leaders go where they can have the biggest impact for the good, where they will find the most ethical and engaged colleagues, and where they will be most challenged. For example, over half of Ashoka social entrepreneurs have changed national policy within five years of their launch. Roughly 90 percent have seen independent organisations copy their innovations. "There is no decline in leadership – but you must look for it in new places," he says.

Drayton also mentions that Ashoka's two core constituencies are leading business and social entrepreneurs. "We are also serving a historical transformation that is moving so fast that almost everyone in Ashoka must be creating and entrepreneuring at a very high level if we are to succeed. As a result, we must be a community of collegial entrepreneurs. And, to attract and hold such extraordinary people, we must be an integrated, decentralized organization that in every way enables and strongly encourages each of us to fly and yet that channels all that energy to serve the organization's goals." Drayton has found that in order to be successful in these core principles, even the hiring process and staffing of the organisation must keep the spirit of entrepreneurship in mind.

Drayton concludes the interview by stating "More important still, consider the impact a successful social entrepreneur has on one local community after another. Their new idea disrupts existing patterns and the sense that things cannot change. Moreover, their idea is designed to be as user friendly as possible precisely to encourage someone in that community to step forward to implement the entrepreneur's innovation in that community - i.e., to become a local change maker. The example of these champions in turn encourages their family and friends to follow suit with other ideas later."