4.12.07

selfless leadership

The Richmond Region is fortunate enough to have a legacy of so many wonderful presidential, academic, athletic and business leaders. I have always viewed a leader as someone who is able to serve the needs of others. A person who is able to envision positive change. However, vision does not exempt actionable behavior.

I think that the best leaders have followers and they don't even know it. They feel called to act and do so because they feel that it is in the best interest of their brand, their community, their team, or all three. Often, their vision is unpopular at the time he or she decides to act. Elizabeth Scott Bocock was one of these leaders.

In 1956 she founded the Historic Richmond Foundation. This was at a time when sprawl was consuming the region and neighborhoods like southside's Salisbury were very en vogue. Today, the people who are making decisions to live in historic districts such as the Fan or businesses that decide to have their culture be a part of Shockoe Slip, Adcenter included, are following the mood and mechanisms that ESB put in place half a century ago. She led selflessly.

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