Is Entrepreneurship The New Frontier of Leadership in Built Environment Decarbonisation

Barbara Kellerman, renowned leadership scholar and author of “The End of Leadership”, has long argued that the balance of power between leaders and followers is shifting. In her view, the cultural and technological revolutions of the past few decades have made leaders weaker and followers stronger. But what comes next in this evolution? Kellerman’s work suggests that entrepreneurship may be the new frontier of leadership, particularly in the urgent quest to decarbonize the built environment.

The traditional leadership model, centered on the heroic individual leader commanding a group of followers, is increasingly obsolete. As Kellerman notes, followers are becoming more empowered, entitled and emboldened. They are less willing to blindly follow orders and more likely to question authority. In this context, the old command-and-control leadership style is losing its effectiveness.

Enter the entrepreneur. Entrepreneurs are leaders who don’t wait for permission or rely on positional authority. They see a problem or opportunity and take initiative to address it, often outside of traditional organizational structures. They are comfortable with ambiguity and risk, and skilled at mobilizing resources and building coalitions around a shared vision.

In the race to decarbonize the built environment, this entrepreneurial leadership is sorely needed. The scale and urgency of the challenge demands bold, innovative thinking and rapid, decisive action. It requires leaders who can challenge the status quo, disrupt entrenched systems, and catalyse transformative change.

Importantly, entrepreneurial leadership in this context isn’t just about starting new green building companies, though that is certainly part of it. It’s about bringing an entrepreneurial mindset and skill set to all facets of the decarbonization effort – from designing sustainable cities to retrofitting existing buildings to developing new clean technologies.

This entrepreneurial approach to leadership upends the traditional leader-follower dynamic. Rather than simply directing subordinates, entrepreneurial leaders in the built environment must inspire and empower a network of stakeholders to co-create solutions. They must be skilled at building bridges between disparate groups – architects, engineers, developers, policymakers, communities – and finding win-win value propositions.

In this model, the line between leader and follower blurs. Everyone is a potential changemaker, bringing their unique expertise and perspective to bear on the shared challenge. The entrepreneurial leader’s role is to create the conditions for this collective innovation and impact – to be a convener, catalyst and coach rather than a commander.

This is not to say that entrepreneurial leadership in decarbonizing the built environment is a flat, “leaderless” endeavor. There is still a critical need for vision, decision-making and accountability. But it is a more adaptive, collaborative and empowering form of leadership than the traditional top-down approach.

Kellerman’s work suggests that this shift towards entrepreneurial leadership is not just a nice-to-have, but a necessity. In a world of rising stakeholder expectations and declining trust in institutions, the old models of leadership are failing us. Entrepreneurship offers a way forward – a means of harnessing the collective intelligence and agency of followers-turned-partners.

For the built environment, this couldn’t come at a more critical time. With buildings accounting for nearly 40% of global greenhouse gas emissions, we need all hands on deck to accelerate the net zero transition. We need entrepreneurial leaders in every corner of the ecosystem – innovating, collaborating and driving change.

The future of leadership in the built environment belongs to the entrepreneurs – those willing to challenge convention, take risks and empower others in service of a sustainable future. As Kellerman’s work makes clear, this isn’t just a shift in leadership style, but a fundamental rewiring of our understanding of leadership itself. In the age of the empowered follower, entrepreneurship may be our best hope for transformative impact.

…the future of built environment leadership belongs to entrepreneurs.