Once you are an effective tribal chieftan, the door will open to the next level of leadership opportunity – that of leading a city.
Here we need to be clear on our definitions.
For the Intrapreneur, this means moving from being a team leader to a leader of leaders.
In modern geography, a city is a population base with a minimum of 10,000 people.
In first century middle eastern times (when tribal leadership was at its zenith) a city could be much smaller.
If you were in a fixed location with some degree of fortification (city walls), then you were classified as a city.
As a modern example, say you're in manufacturing. A tribal leader would be a shift manager - someone who leads the tribe for some of the day. Your next promotion will be from a title like “General Manager” – where you get the opportunity to lead a group of tribal leaders (in this case, shift manager).
General Manager is actually the most common title for an intrapreneurial city leader.
Remember a tribe is a group of between 25 and 150.
A group of tribes can be any size from 75 (three small tribes) up to around 1,500 (10 large tribes), and may even have more than one location. The marker is normally that they meet within the walls of a single building, or a number of closely located sites.
Remember the different kinds of prenuership I wrote about in early June? Entrepreneurship, Infopreneurship, Socialpreneurship and Intrapreneurship? The thing is, all four of them can be “city” leaders – it’s just that their sphere of influence for their leadership will be different.
The entrepreneurial city leader is often the owner or a board member / strategic investor in a number of business entities.
The Infoprenuer has built a successful "recommender" base of 15 people who will position them in the mind of their market, 150 people who will happily refer or recommend their work to others, and 1,500 clients who will happily buy almost any product or service they create. They are often working with other infopreneurs at a similar level forming productive and profitable partnerships.
The socialpreneur will most often be a community leader – the president of a sports club, the founder of a charity, perhaps even a local shire or city council member who represents a city ward.
Whatever the sphere of influence, the point is that they are creating a halo effect by leading other leaders into higher levels of performance.
This is where a tool like Gallup's EP10 are incredibly useful in identifying people who have the "preneurial profile" of being able to link innovation to the market in a way that's ultimately profitable. The profit might be monetary or social in its currency, but the point a city leader is in a unique position to create a multiplying movement of leaders who can potentially grow into city leaders themselves.
You see the impact of intrapreneurs on a city when a large employer is based in metropolitan areas. It's the senior leaders within the organisation who create the momentum and culture that ripples outward in to the other areas of the marketplace, creating a vital and vibrant culture.
Make no mistake - prenuership, and especially the intrapreneurs who do this from within the organisation - are key people in transforming the health and wellbeing of the places in which we live.
What happens when you have a critical mass of cities being led at all levels by preneurs? Then you begin to impact a nation.
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Nathanael Small is passionate about strengths, performance and the world of the intrapreneur - the team leader or leader of leaders within the organisation - helping them move their career from high potential to peak performance.
Nathanael has over 25 years of acquired wisdom in leadership development. His unique perspective and combination of skills allows him to work with intrapreneurs to realise their ambition to be deeply engaged and leading with their strengths.