NEW RESEARCH | Learning leadership – the key to successful social enterprises

Providing opportunities for learning and involving employees in decisions is central to the success of social enterprises. Researchers at Stockholm University have demonstrated this – and are advising social entrepreneurs how to think.

People who start social enterprises or organizations are often driven by a commitment to create a more inclusive and sustainable society. And, of course, the successful social entrepreneurs have an innovative solution to a social problem. But a good idea is not enough to make a company fly. Nor is it successful to think that you will run the social enterprise on your own.

– Traditional entrepreneurship research portrays the image of an entrepreneur as a hero who knows everything and solves everything within the company itself. But in a social enterprise, we can see that it is extremely important for the leader to involve the employees in decision-making processes,” says Morteza Eslahchi, a recent PhD student at the Department of Education, Stockholm University.

The importance of learning

In his doctoral thesis, he studied what it means to be a good leader in a social enterprise/organization. All organizations in the study work with integration issues, but the results apply to all social enterprises/organizations regardless of their focus. The study shows that learning should be a central part of the social entrepreneur’s role.

– A good leader creates conditions for learning at individual and organizational level. This can be done through external training for staff, but also by sharing internal knowledge. And successful social enterprises are also characterized by giving their employees the chance to use their new skills.

Creating resilient businesses

Those social enterprises and organizations that have leaders committed to learning are good at dealing with different types of crises. During the COVID-19 pandemic, all the organizations in Morteza Eslahchi’s study had to adapt their operations.

– They started working together more than they had done before. The skills and experience of all employees created a collective learning process that generated many new ideas that were quickly implemented. The team spirit that emerged took them through the pandemic crisis. In one to two months, they switched from 100 percent physical activities to 100 percent digital.

Consultants vs employees

It is common for social enterprises to bring in external consultants to develop and help the organization in various ways. And the experience is usually good, consultants have a lot of knowledge and practical experience in working with social sustainability business models. But if social entrepreneurs swallow the consultant talk hook, line and sinker, they miss out on valuable in-house knowledge, according to Morteza Eslahchi.

– It is important to remember that the people who choose to work on social issues do so because they genuinely care. Most staff are highly committed to the issue and bring with them a wealth of experience and knowledge. It is therefore essential that leaders involve them in decision-making processes.

– You shouldn’t stop doing what consultants say, but there needs to be a balance between how much a leader listens to them and how much they listen to employees.

Need to feel listened to

Otherwise, there is a risk that committed individuals will lose confidence in the leadership and leave the company.

– But this does not mean that the leader should always do what the employees say. However, it is important that employees feel that their views are important and are involved in the decision-making process. It’s okay to make a different decision than the one they wanted as long as employees feel they are being listened to. So a big part of a social entrepreneur’s daily life is about building trust in the organization,” says Morteza Eslahchi.

Contact morteza.eslahchi@edu.su.se

More about the thesis
Morteza Eslahchi recently published her thesis Learning Together, Leading Change: Understanding Collective Learning in Social Entrepreneurial Organizations at the Department of Education and Didactics, Stockholm University.

See also: Social entrepreneurship | Shared positive emotions good for cooperation