A small incident that disturbed me for almost one full day
Very recently an ex-colleague (read "Employee") called me by name instead of "sir" primarily as a sign of independence from me (though he still called me "sir" on call). I felt really bad, asking myself "why shall i get this disrespect, when i have always done my very best to handhold my team and even handle the separation with complete sincerity".
Error of Assumption
I think the fault emanates from your believing in the "Goodness" of your work. "Goodness" means the constant encouragement from friends and family that you are doing some really great (read "Noble") work by quitting corporate job and being in rural India. You start believing it yourself and you end up developing an EGO of being good.
I think the answer is simple, once you correct the paradigm. It is for you to stay away from the mis-placed EGO of considering yourself a "good person" with selfless motives, and hence expecting people to develop the same sentiment for you.
Define your work
Any social entrepreneur needs to understand and rationalize to herself / himself the reason for their work. If someone is working for charity and feeling good factor, they might be happier running (/ supporting) a grant based NGO.
If someone like myself, wants to establish a Social Enterprise that is profitable (Socially, environmentally and most definitely financially), than business principals will drive the work. Make sure that the business model has role for relevant stakeholders (rural indians in my case), and then focus all your energy in doing good business.
Working with People
You need to understand that not everybody you work with is socially motivated, and they are not expected to be. People want to work to make their living and your job as a social enterprise to give them that fighting chance. In case you find some people (employees / clients etc) counter productive to company growth, drop them. Don't expect them to understand it, get your big picture vision, or respect you for your overall intentions.
Know Yourself Better
Most of my ex-coworkers and some of the mentors who have been helping me in my rural foray would refer to me as a "Social Worker" with a passion to do social good, and I always used to aggressively defend my stance as a "Businessman". I did not want to get labelled as an NGO guy and emphasize on my purely commercial interest in being in rural India.
I never wanted to admit that there is a soft side of me, driving me to come to rural India. My wanting to run a "for-profit" companies is a business instinct which need not be isolated from my social interest.
Know what you are trying to do is Smart Business in a socially concious way. Let people who like you, speak highly of you as a "Change Agent" in this BAD materialistic world. However, don't gloat in this "Goodness" feeling, and focus on providing the very same "materialistic" needs to your stake holders which was the objective of your Social Enterprise.
There is no shame in being materialistic (well most of us anyway feel proud of our possessions), and there is a possibility and again no demerits in achieving these materialistic goals with an identified social interest.
