Common Elements

Steve Case discussed how innovation, risk taking and entrepreneurship are essential to get the economy back on track. He states that entrepreneurship is essential for the countries’ underline economic future (Case, 2010). He mentions that a successful entrepreneur has three main characteristics: People, Passion, and Perseverance. Case believes that the right people need to be aligned to the right priorities and that the underlying passion cannot survive with only the founder and CEO (Case, 2010), “Therefore, when times get tough, as they sometimes do, they will have the courage to see it through it” (Case, 2010). Case used real life examples to show how lack of innovation can be harmful to a company. One example he gave was the merging of AOL and Time Warner. He mentioned that the merger happened at the peak of the Internet frenzy and the failure of the economy. He used the three P’s to explain why the merger was a failure: People- people began to focus on their own issues rather than innovation; Passion-that AOL lost its original drive and that the innovating, pioneering people started to become more corporate; and Perseverance- they assumed that the Internet was a fleeting phenomenon and preceded to back away from it. Case then concludes with a quote by Thomas Edison, although the P’s are necessary that “vision without execution is hallucination” (Case, 2010).

James Kouzes’ theory consisted of five characteristics of an effective leader and how to achieve exemplary leadership. Like Case, Kouzes had specific characteristics to explain what a leader should possess. Kouzes five points were model the way, inspire a shared vision, challenge the process, practice of enabling others to act, and encourage the heart. He then described a way to achieve all of his points. “Model the way” is achieved by establishing a clear set of values and expectations