What is heropreneurship, and why is it a problem?

Forget being a teacher, doctor, or lawyer: the kids of today (and their parents) have other ambitions, even if they don’t go quite as far as enrolling in this entrepreneurial summer camp.

We have always raised aloft inspirational innovators, from Thomas Edison to Richard Branson. But the scale of today’s environmental and social challenges, combined with a generational desire for freedom — and an innate mistrust of ‘big business’ — has led to what Daniela Papi-Thornton, deputy director at the Skoll Centre for Social Entrepreneurship, terms a culture of ‘heropreneurship’.

When writing about social entrepreneurship, the media often overemphasize the ‘who’ over the real stories behind the ‘why’ or the ‘how’. This, in part, has led to a false assumption of hierarchy — with rockstar/startup founder at the top, and an inference that those playing more traditional parts have somehow fallen short.

Tempting though it is, we can’t blame everything on the media: the myth of the ‘heropreneur’ is reflected in everything from educational focus and awards culture to government-led measurement initiatives.

Besides, it’s only a real problem when:

• It begins to impact on talent diversity. If the brightest and best always aspire to be founders, the rest of the commerce and industry ecosystem loses out.
• It fails to recognise that there are a whole spectrum of roles — some glamorous, others (like accounting, for example) not so much — needed to enact social change and make it happen.
• It ignores the principles of scale. In her report Tackling Heropreneurship, Papi-Thornton gives the example of an environmentalist who may have far more impact reducing water resource usage within a manufacturing company than as head of a small-scale social enterprise.
• Social entrepreneurship is seen as a sector, career choice, or end goal in itself. Entrepreneurs — ‘social’ or otherwise — are most effective when applying their own personal expertise to a problem: before Kerstin Forsbergco-founded Planeta Oceano she practiced conservation biology (and so on…)

The world is not short of problems to solve. But that doesn’t necessarily mean we need more founders. What we do need more of, however, is:

• Leaders with a social conscience — like Microsoft’s Satya Nadella — and workplaces that embrace corporate empathy (The Empathy Index’s Top 10 includes Netflix and LinkedIn).
• Entrepreneurial spirit — enthusiasm, disruption, and a fearless drive to fuel collective impact — is most definitely needed in abundance: in business, government, and society at large.

The idea behind Firm Ethics is the belief that everyone, in every business, can have an impact.

While there are plenty of brilliant entrepreneurs — that I deeply admire — doing wonderful things for people and planet (many of whom I have or will be highlighting here), there are just as many inspirational intrapreneurs, turning the cogs of change from within.

None of us are superheroes. But together we can change the world.

P.S. Know a kid who wants to be the next Blake Mycoskie? Ask them to sign up to get Firm Ethics in their inbox each week.