Last night I attended the inaugural Red Winged Leadership Award ceremony created by Seattle University MBA students in the Graduate Leadership Formation Certificate program.  The Red Winged Leadership Award was created to recognize Seattle area business leaders for their social impact.

More for-profit companies should have a focus on social change.  This is the premise of the statement I provided @AlbersatSU to get into next year’s graduate leadership cohort.  In starting a business the choices of profit (focus on bottom line) or non-profit (focus on service goals) should not be mutually exclusive.  I believe building a profitable, service oriented business isn’t easy, but achievable through a people oriented culture which can create unique value to the community.

People are sick of the status-quo at work and want something more.  I just finished reading Rework http://37signals.com/rework/ and Linchpin http://www.squidoo.com/linchpin which both reached similar conclusions that people are looking for something that inspires them to do their best work.  Listening to the stories of the Red Winged Leadership finalists http://bit.ly/bdiCOR inspired an auditorium of people last night.  My hope is the cohort I am a part of next year is able to foster the awards program created by this year’s team to inspire even more.

@BrookBuchanan