What a room full of investors and CEOs learned about business leadership from actress and activist Kerry Washington

Although she’s best known as an actress, producer and activist, Kerry Washington has all the qualities and perspectives that I see in the highest-potential entrepreneurs and founders, and it was a pleasure sharing the stage with her at our recent Upfront Summit and hearing her perspective on leadership, performance and personal growth.

As you’ll see in the video of our discussion, Kerry approaches her work and life with the same qualities we hope for from our founders (and ourselves):

• Connecting authentically to her end user and how she did this uniquely through Twitter (hint: it involves actions in the real world that made Twitter 100x more valuable)
• Altering her key performance indicators according to the role she fills and practically how she changes hats when she moves from being Olivia Pope in front of the camera to Kerry Washington behind the camera
• Learning constantly when others might fall victim to flattery and ego
• Leading from the front, often in environments in which leadership is not expected or role modeled

On this last point, hearing Kerry’s views about leadership from the front was particularly resonant for me and relevant to any business audience — watch and you will see. It was a great reminder that we each have the opportunity to be a leader in every role we occupy, whether or not LinkedIn or the power structure deems you a leader. As she says, when you know your values and your brand as a person, this may be more natural than you expect.

Part of the beauty of Los Angeles is that leadership and entrepreneurship are everywhere, not just in VC-funded tech businesses. And when we listen to groundbreaking innovators like Kerry who may operate in other industries but who share many of the same challenges and experiences, we can be shaken out of our cognitive models and learn more deeply about how to be authentic, successful and fulfilled in each of our professional lives.

Watch the video here for all the inspiring details. (And if you enjoy Kerry’s work as much I do, you will not want to miss her new series “Five Points”, coming soon on Facebook Watch.)

View more Upfront Summit content here.