The past couple of years might come to be known as the Kickstarter era. Across the nation, ideas have been converted from potential into real value. The breakthrough that powers this new era of commerce is the openness that connects innovators directly to their market. This is a shift from having to be vetted by established players before gaining access to capital, peer networks and other resources that first-time founders often have trouble acquiring.
In the same way that crowdfunding is taking over financing, a merit-based style of leadership is taking over our city. The next generation of nonprofit and business leaders are developed by promoting their ideas and creating real-world progress instead of navigating institutional hierarchies and playing political games. Leadership is not bestowed in Lexington by being hired or voted into a position with some amount of assumed authority — the potential for leadership exists in anyone willing to work hard to make change.
This new breed of leadership is already having a huge impact on our city. While a few big developers are spending capital developing Fayette Mall and Hamburg to make way for more franchises, the growth of Limestone, Jefferson and National avenues is happening in a way that reflects our culture.
Our local businesses are creating value and experimenting with the local market instead of following corporate guidelines built elsewhere. Starting with a minimal budget and finding a home in whatever repurposed building is suitable, they turn their dreams into success by connecting with their peers and winning them as customers. Instead of establishing themselves in a cluster around a larger, established anchor, this new breed of leaders consists of cultural ambassadors. They are building neighborhoods where you can expect authentic interactions, well-produced goods and services and otherwise experience the tone of what is quickly becoming the heart of Lexington.
Entrepreneurs deserve a lot of the credit for their visible impact in this cultural shift, but the change we’re seeing isn’t limited to founders and executives. Less visibly, professionals working in larger businesses in non-managerial roles are finding ways to express themselves and get their peers to engage in building a more open community. Blood drives, fundraisers and volunteer efforts are being led by employees when there is a lack of direction from their managers, or when the goals of the boardroom don’t match the desires of the employees. Lexington’s plethora of young professionals’ organizations deserve the credit for a lot of this rabble-rousing and self-organizing.
It is a credit to many businesses that their employees are successful with their internal campaigns for local involvement. Business participation in the traditional ways, such as offering paid leave for volunteering and sharing underutilized resources such as office space, has always been healthy in the region. Recently, there has been a transition to setting company-wide community objectives in a way that includes employees in determining the areas of interest and investment. The businesses that encourage employees to build direct connections to community organizations, instead of participating in the regifting schemes of older workplace-giving programs, are promoting happy employees who build a vibrant Lexington and strengthen our culture of openness and accessibility.
There are signs the city government understands this shift toward openness and wants to empower each person to make a change in his or her own way. As this article gets ready for press, we are in the final contention for a grant from the Knight News Challenge. Our elected officials want to develop a system for promoting change in which our citizens can become leaders and find pathways to push through or avoid interference by the government and other regulators.
The city’s proposal generated some negative feedback when it was proposed to the Bloomberg Mayor’s Challenge. It was considered generic and missing an opportunity to have our elected officials create and lead a strong identity and brand for our city. What Lexington needs is not to have an administration claim an identity and try to capture it with their limited time in office, but to build an enduring legacy of empowerment and openness. An open community builds more leaders and creates more value than a community that rallies around a few favored industries.
Some challenges remain while this model of decentralized leadership continues to become the dominant mode of growth for our city. We’ve always found it easier to boast about the successes of particular companies or industries than to promote the value of openness and community. The identity that Lexington projects to our visitors is based on a few sectors of our economy and heritage that are, for the most part, neither representative of the lives of our residents nor opportunities for continued growth that are available to the entire city. As the conversation changes about the value of being in Lexington, the institutions that interface with visitors and newly relocated residents must tap into the resources that are driving this cultural shift.
What hurdles remain, and any backlash from the entrenched organizations that are losing relevance, will quickly be swept aside or overcome. The path forward for Lexington is knowing that the path forward is constantly in flux, but anyone can have an effect on its trajectory. In an egalitarian city, the future is built by the best ideas with the best leaders, and we’re fortunate to have plenty of both.
Todd Willey is a serial startup founder and employee. He is CEO of CirrusMio, where he oversees the CivChoice workplace-giving program.