| Community Tool Box

• Why do you need a plan for building leadership?

• When do you develop a plan for building leadership?

• How do you develop a plan to build leadership?

In working to improve our communities, leadership is one of our most important resources.

Leadership does not belong only to a director, Board chair, supervisor, elected official, or other person with a formal title. Organizations and community initiatives need many people who are willing and able to take initiative, exercise good judgment, coordinate work, solve problems, share knowledge, make decisions within their authority, follow through on commitments, and help others contribute effectively.

Complex community problems rarely depend on one exceptional leader. Whether you want to create more jobs, prevent child maltreatment, improve tenants' rights, strengthen neighborhood health, or accomplish another community goal, you will usually need many people exercising leadership in different ways and working together.

That is why leadership development should be an ongoing organizational activity rather than something that begins only when a leadership position becomes vacant.

You can develop leadership capacity around you. People can learn new skills, take on progressively greater responsibility, lead projects, mentor others, develop professional judgment, and prepare for future organizational or community roles.

In this chapter, we will focus on many aspects of leadership development. In this first section, we will discuss how to develop an overall leadership plan for your group or organization and how to create meaningful development opportunities for individuals.

Why do you need a plan for building leadership?

Leadership development is easier to sustain when it is intentional. A plan does not have to be complicated or technical. It should help the organization identify the leadership capacity it needs, decide how people can develop that capacity, and track whether development is actually occurring.

Here is a simple example:

Bakersville Arts Council: Leadership Plan for Volunteers

Goal	Leadership Development Activities	Timeline
Volunteers will develop skills for speaking publicly about Bakersville's historic sites	Training and guided practice with an experienced trainer, followed by opportunities to co-present	This month
Volunteers interested in outreach will learn how to recruit and welcome other volunteers	Training, observation, and supervised outreach led by the volunteer coordinator	Next month
Strengthen shared planning and project leadership	Rotate appropriate facilitation and project-lead responsibilities, with preparation and feedback	Throughout the year

A basic leadership plan may identify leadership-development goals, activities, responsible people, timelines, and ways to review progress. A more detailed plan may also identify competencies, resources, measures, succession needs, and checkpoints.

Involve people in planning their own leadership development whenever possible.

First, it communicates that their goals and interests matter. Leadership development should not be something done to people based only on what another leader thinks they should become.

Second, involving people in planning models collaborative leadership. People learn not only from formal instruction but also from how decisions, responsibility, communication, and feedback are handled around them.

Third, individuals often know what they want to learn, where they feel uncertain, and what kinds of responsibilities they are interested in taking on.

Finally, people should have meaningful input into development decisions that affect their responsibilities, workload, career, volunteer experience, or community role.

A leadership-development plan also supports continuity. Organizations can identify responsibilities that depend heavily on one person and begin preparing others to understand or assume those functions before a sudden departure, leave, promotion, or organizational change creates a crisis.

When do you develop a plan for building leadership?

Ideally, leadership development begins early and continues throughout the life of an organization or initiative. If you have not developed a plan yet, you can begin now.

Don't wait until a director resigns, a Board chair's term ends, a project leader burns out, or the only person who understands an important system becomes unavailable. Think ahead about the skills, relationships, knowledge, and decision-making capacity the organization will need.

Leadership development is an ongoing process. New responsibilities, changing technology, organizational growth, new community needs, policy changes, and lessons from experience will continually create new development needs.

Review the plan periodically rather than treating it as a document that is written once and forgotten.

How do you develop a plan to build leadership?

Envision the leadership capacity you need

Whether you are part of a small group or a large organization, begin by considering what leadership functions and capabilities your work requires.

Questions might include:

• Which leadership responsibilities are currently concentrated in one or two people?
• What skills, knowledge, judgment, relationships, and experience does the organization need?
• Do people exercising leadership understand the communities involved and have meaningful ways to hear perspectives different from their own?
• How will leaders support one another, share information, and avoid unnecessary dependence on a single person?
• How will people understand the organization's mission while still being able to question strategies and raise concerns?
• Which responsibilities need succession or backup coverage?
• What authority can appropriately be delegated?
• Where are additional leadership opportunities likely to emerge?

Don't define leadership development only in terms of filling a fixed number of formal leadership positions. Many people can exercise leadership in different situations without becoming supervisors or executives.

Someone may lead a project, facilitate a meeting, coordinate volunteers, mentor a colleague, manage a community partnership, analyze data, respond to an emergency, or temporarily take responsibility when another leader is unavailable.

Set leadership-development goals for your group or organization

Compare the organization's current leadership capacity with what it will need.

Consider:

• Current strengths
• Skills that are missing or concentrated in too few people
• Upcoming retirements, transitions, or term limits
• New programs or responsibilities
• Technology changes
• Community relationships
• Governance needs
• Communication and collaboration
• Decision-making and accountability
• Accessibility and inclusive participation
• Safety, safeguarding, confidentiality, or other role-specific responsibilities

Once you identify a need, define what improvement would look like.

For example, instead of setting a broad goal such as "improve facilitation," you might decide that several staff members and volunteers should be able to plan an agenda, facilitate a structured discussion, manage disagreement respectfully, summarize decisions, and identify follow-up responsibilities.

Instead of "increase diversity awareness," a leadership goal might focus on accessible communication, nondiscrimination, recognizing barriers to participation, working respectfully across differences, and making development opportunities available fairly.

Here is another example:

Leadership plan for staff and volunteers of Sunnyside Metro Food Pantry

Goal	Leadership Development Activities	Timeline
Staff responsible for operations will strengthen digital collaboration, privacy, and information-security skills	Role-specific training followed by guided use of the organization's approved systems	This quarter
People who lead community meetings will strengthen facilitation skills	Workshop, observation, co-facilitation, and feedback from an experienced facilitator	Next three months
Expand shared project leadership across staff and volunteers	Assign supported project-lead and meeting-lead opportunities based on interest, readiness, and role	Throughout the year
Strengthen inclusive and accessible leadership practices	Review communication and participation practices, provide relevant training, and identify barriers that prevent people from participating fully	Review quarterly

Your plan may look very different. The format matters less than whether the organization knows what it wants to develop, why it matters, what actions will be taken, who is responsible, and how progress will be reviewed.

Make development opportunities accessible and fair

Leadership opportunities are often distributed informally. One person is invited to an important meeting, another receives mentoring from a senior leader, someone else is assigned a visible project, and another person is encouraged to attend a conference.

Informal opportunities can be valuable, but they can also repeatedly benefit people who already have the strongest connections.

Periodically review who is receiving:

• Leadership training
• Mentoring or coaching
• Stretch assignments
• Project leadership
• Conference or professional-development funding
• Visibility with senior leaders or the Board
• Opportunities to represent the organization

For employees, leadership-development opportunities should be administered consistently with applicable employment and nondiscrimination requirements.

Make training, meetings, materials, technology, and other development activities accessible to participants with disabilities and provide an appropriate way to request communication support or other accommodations.

Pick your methods

Leadership develops through a combination of learning and experience. Different people and responsibilities may need different methods.

Possible approaches include:

• Modeling effective leadership
• Explaining your reasoning while you work
• Mentoring
• Coaching
• Job shadowing
• Rotational assignments
• Stretch assignments
• Project leadership
• Peer learning
• Leadership groups or communities of practice
• Workshops and training
• Orientation
• Retreats
• Conferences
• Self-directed learning
• Feedback and reflection

Modeling effective leadership

People notice how leaders behave in everyday situations. They see how leaders make decisions, respond to mistakes, share credit, handle disagreement, communicate during uncertainty, treat people with less organizational authority, and respond when someone raises a concern.

That means current leaders should try to model the practices the organization wants to develop.

At the same time, the goal is not to create copies of existing leaders. People should be exposed to different effective leadership approaches and encouraged to develop sound judgment and an approach that fits their responsibilities and strengths.

Teaching as you lead

Everyday work can create valuable learning opportunities.

If you are preparing for a negotiation, planning a difficult meeting, developing a budget, deciding how to respond to a problem, or organizing a community event, you may be able to involve someone who is learning that responsibility.

Explain:

• What you are trying to accomplish
• What information you considered
• What options you rejected and why
• What risks you see
• What you would do if circumstances changed

Use judgment about what information can appropriately be shared. Personnel matters, confidential negotiations, participant information, legal advice, health information, security information, or other sensitive material should not be disclosed merely because the situation would make an interesting learning opportunity.

Mentoring

Mentoring is a developmental relationship in which a more experienced or knowledgeable person helps another person reflect, learn, navigate responsibilities, build confidence, and consider future opportunities.

Useful mentoring relationships are built on clear expectations.

Consider discussing:

• What the person wants to learn
• How often you will meet
• What confidentiality can and cannot be expected
• What the mentor can realistically provide
• How feedback will be handled
• When the mentoring relationship will be reviewed

For example, after someone facilitates a focus group for the first time, a mentor might help them reflect on what went well, what was difficult, what feedback they received, and what they want to try differently next time.

Mentoring should support a person's development rather than create dependency on one senior leader or serve as an informal gatekeeping system for opportunities.

Coaching

Coaching can help someone strengthen a specific skill, improve performance, work through a leadership challenge, or clarify a goal.

Coaching may be provided by a supervisor, experienced colleague, trained internal coach, or outside professional depending on the purpose.

Job shadowing, rotations, and developmental assignments

People can learn leadership by seeing how other parts of the organization or another organization operate.

Possibilities include:

• Shadowing someone in another role
• Temporarily participating in another team
• Leading a time-limited project
• Serving on a cross-functional group
• Visiting or partnering with another organization
• Taking responsibility for a new process with appropriate supervision

Define responsibilities carefully when people temporarily work across programs or organizations. Confidentiality, safeguarding, data access, supervision, safety, and other role requirements continue to apply.

Orientations

Whenever someone joins the organization as a staff member, volunteer, Board member, or other participant, orientation helps create a foundation for future leadership.

People should receive:

• The training needed for their responsibilities
• Relevant information about the organization's history and current work
• An understanding of the mission, structure, policies, procedures, and decision-making processes
• Information about supervision, support, and where to get help
• Opportunities to meet people and understand how different parts of the organization work together
• A respectful welcome and clear expectations

Workshops and training sessions

Workshops and other training can strengthen specific leadership competencies such as facilitation, budgeting, supervision, decision-making, fundraising, communication, conflict resolution, project management, accessibility, governance, or community engagement.

Training should address an actual learning need. If the underlying problem is unclear authority, inadequate staffing, poor systems, lack of resources, inconsistent policy, or another organizational issue, training alone is unlikely to solve it.

Retreats

Retreats can create protected time for strategic planning, reflection, relationship-building, governance, organizational change, or other work that benefits from sustained attention.

A useful retreat should:

• Have a clear reason for being held
• Include the people needed to accomplish its goals
• Give participants enough notice to plan
• Use an accessible setting or format appropriate to the participants
• Have clear objectives
• Be realistic about what can be accomplished
• Include participant input when appropriate
• Provide meaningful ways for people to participate
• Allow appropriate time for reflection and relationship-building
• Use facilitators with the skills needed for the retreat
• End with clear decisions, responsibilities, and follow-up

Peer leadership groups

People exercising leadership often benefit from relationships with others facing similar responsibilities.

A peer leadership group can create a structured place to:

• Discuss challenges
• Share strategies and resources
• Reflect on decisions
• Ask for feedback
• Learn from mistakes and successes
• Reduce isolation

These groups may involve leaders from different organizations or people with leadership responsibilities inside the same organization.

Set a meeting schedule appropriate to the group rather than assuming one frequency works for everyone. Establish expectations concerning confidentiality, participation, conflicts of interest, and when serious concerns need to be addressed outside the peer group.

Set leadership-development goals for individuals

In addition to an organization-wide plan, individuals may benefit from their own development plans.

Development should connect three things:

• The person's interests and goals
• The competencies or experiences they want or need to develop
• Opportunities that are useful to the organization or community

Recognize leadership potential broadly

Leadership does not require one personality type.

Someone who speaks frequently in meetings may be an effective leader, but so may someone who listens carefully, analyzes complicated information, builds trust one-on-one, coordinates details reliably, notices risks others miss, or helps a group reach agreement.

Avoid making assumptions about leadership potential based on race, color, religion, sex, national origin, disability, age, income, education, communication style, or other characteristics unrelated to the person's ability and interest in the work.

Formal leadership development should also not be limited automatically to the people who already have the most visible assignments or strongest relationships with current leaders.

Identify the skills and experiences the organization needs

Ask what responsibilities people may need to assume.

Examples might include:

• Leading a fundraising campaign
• Recruiting and supporting volunteers
• Facilitating meetings
• Supervising staff
• Managing a budget
• Coordinating a project
• Building community partnerships
• Presenting publicly
• Making operational decisions
• Managing a technology or data system
• Serving in a governance role

Then consider:

• Who is interested in developing this capability?
• What knowledge or experience does the person already have?
• What support, training, supervision, or practice would help them succeed?
• What realistic developmental assignment could give them experience?
• How will progress be reviewed?

Don't always choose the person who already has nearly all of the required skills. Leadership development should also create pathways for people who could become capable with appropriate preparation and support.

Invest in each person's development

Leadership development requires more than encouragement. People need meaningful opportunities, information, feedback, resources, coaching, and enough authority to practice what they are learning.

Meet periodically to discuss:

• Current goals
• Experiences since the last conversation
• Skills the person wants to strengthen
• Feedback they have received
• Barriers they are encountering
• New responsibilities they may want to try
• Support they need

Stretch opportunities can be valuable, but they should be supported and appropriately scoped. Invite people to take on new challenges rather than pressuring them into responsibilities they do not want or are not prepared to handle safely.

Write the individual leadership plan

Individual development plans do not need to be complicated, but they should be specific enough to guide action.

Leadership Plan for Keisha, staff person at Sunnyside Metro Food Pantry

Goal	Development Activity	Support and Measure	Review Date
Learn how to plan and lead a small donor campaign	Shadow a campaign lead, help develop the plan, then lead one defined part of the campaign	Coaching from Lisa; review the campaign plan, timeline, communications, and results afterward	Next quarter
Strengthen meeting-facilitation confidence and skill	Co-facilitate staff meetings, then independently facilitate selected agenda items	Receive structured feedback from participants and supervisor after each opportunity	Review in six months

Development plans can identify:

• A goal or competency
• Why it matters
• Development activities
• Resources or support
• Target dates
• A way to observe or measure progress
• A review date

Review plans periodically and revise them as responsibilities and interests change.

Recruit new people and create pathways to leadership

Recruiting new members, volunteers, staff, or other participants can strengthen long-term leadership capacity.

People eventually leave organizations for many reasons. They relocate, retire, change jobs, finish a term, experience new family responsibilities, or simply become interested in something else.

If important knowledge and authority remain concentrated in a few people, the departure of even one person may create serious disruption. Recruiting, documenting work, cross-training, mentoring, and developing others can reduce that risk.

New participants also bring new knowledge, relationships, questions, and perspectives that can challenge assumptions and improve the organization's work.

Broad participation can strengthen community relationships and organizational capacity. The goal is not simply to accumulate members, but to create meaningful ways for people to contribute.

When someone joins the organization, give them an appropriate role that matters and provide the onboarding and support needed to succeed.

Ask what they are interested in. Invite their ideas. As they gain experience, make additional leadership responsibilities available when they want them and are prepared for them.

Plan for succession and continuity

Leadership development and succession planning are closely connected.

Ask:

• Which responsibilities would be difficult to cover if someone left tomorrow?
• Does more than one person know how critical systems and processes work?
• Are important relationships documented and shared appropriately?
• Are there people who could assume temporary leadership during an absence?
• What preparation would potential successors need?
• Are transition procedures documented?

Succession planning should not mean privately selecting one predetermined replacement for every position. Its broader purpose is to create enough organizational knowledge and leadership capacity that transitions do not depend on finding a single indispensable person.

Evaluate your leadership-development plan

Periodically ask whether the plan is producing the capacity the organization needs.

Questions might include:

• Are people gaining the intended competencies?
• Are people actually receiving opportunities to practice leadership?
• Are critical responsibilities covered by more than one person?
• Are participants using mentoring, coaching, training, or other development opportunities?
• Are development opportunities being distributed fairly?
• Are accessibility or other participation barriers preventing people from taking part?
• Are people prepared for upcoming transitions?
• Which methods are producing useful results?
• What leadership needs have emerged since the plan was created?

Use what you learn to change goals, opportunities, resources, or methods.

Develop yourself as a leader

Current leaders need continued development too.

As responsibilities change, you may need new knowledge in areas such as supervision, governance, finance, technology, accessibility, conflict management, community engagement, communication, strategy, or organizational change.

Develop a plan for yourself as well. Possible activities include:

• Training and education
• Coaching
• Mentoring
• Peer leadership groups
• Conferences or professional associations
• Reading and self-study
• Feedback from staff, peers, supervisors, Board members, volunteers, or community partners
• Stretch assignments
• Reflection on decisions and outcomes

Leadership development also includes recognizing your limits. Sustainable leadership means delegating appropriately, asking for help, developing other people, maintaining reasonable boundaries, and creating systems that do not depend on one person's constant availability.

In Summary

Leadership development is not simply the process of finding a few people who can take charge. It is the deliberate development of the knowledge, judgment, relationships, skills, and shared responsibility an organization or community needs to accomplish its work over time.

A leadership plan helps an organization identify the capabilities it needs, create development opportunities, prepare for transitions, and avoid unnecessary dependence on a small number of people.

Leadership can be developed through formal training, mentoring, coaching, job shadowing, rotational assignments, project leadership, peer learning, retreats, conferences, feedback, and experience. The best combination depends on the person, the responsibility, and the organization.

Individual development plans should reflect both organizational needs and people's own interests and goals. Development opportunities should be meaningful, accessible, and fairly available rather than distributed only through informal relationships.

Finally, building leadership means developing enough capacity that the organization continues to function, adapt, and grow even when particular leaders change. When many people know how to take initiative, exercise sound judgment, support one another, and accept appropriate responsibility, leadership becomes a durable strength of the organization rather than a quality concentrated in a few individuals.

___You have identified the number and types of leaders needed for your team.

___You have identified desired skills.

___The leadership team reflects the community in which your organization serves or works.

___The leadership team knows how to support each other and you.

___The leaders are committed to the goals of your organization.

___You have identified the strengths of your group.

___You have identified the difficulties of your group.

___You have identified the areas for your group as whole can use leadership training.

___You have identified the added skills that will move your organization ahead most quickly.

___You have identified skills that are not already present in your organization.

___You have identified individuals ready to learn the needed leadership skills.

___You have identified individuals interested in learning the needed leadership skills.

___You have chosen the appropriate leadership development method for each goal.

___You have decided who will be responsible for training.

___You have chosen a date by which each goal will be accomplished.

___You have determined how long will it take to achieve each leadership development goal

___You have made sure that your organization has the resources to achieve these goals.

___You have made sure your timelines are realistic.

Ideal Leadership Team

Here is what one organization came up with when members tried to envision their ideal leadership team.

Ideal Leadership Team for Bakersville Arts Council

How many leaders do you want on your team?	An overall leader, someone in charge of fundraising, someone in charge of media relations, someone in charge of programming, and someone in charge of recruiting, training, and overseeing staff and volunteers.
What kinds of skills will they have?	Great organizational skills, good communication skills, computer skills (we'd like to start our own web page), a strong understanding of and appreciation for the fine arts.
Will your leadership team reflect the community in which your organization serves or works?	Bakersville has large Asian-American and Italian -- American communities; we would like them to be represented.
How will your leadership team support each other and you?	Weekly meetings to keep each other up to date, including "debriefing" time for each member of the leadership team. The overall leader will formally evaluate the others every six months/year. Finally, we'll try to get together more casually (perhaps for lunch) at least once a month.
How will your leaders be committed to the goals of your organization?	Each of our leaders must have a firm belief in the importance of enhancing the arts in Bakersville, as well as a sense of community. Together, we will define our goals in concrete terms, and form an action plan detailing how each of us (and those we work with) can work together to reach those goals.

 

A Power Point presentation summarizing the major points in the section.

 

• What are the qualities of the servant leader?

• How do you become a servant leader?

• How do you sustain yourself as a servant leader?

Note: The modern concept of servant leadership is associated with Robert K. Greenleaf, who introduced the term in his 1970 essay The Servant as Leader.

Leadership gives people influence, decision-making authority, access to information, and the ability to shape the experiences of others. Those responsibilities can be used well or poorly.

Servant leadership begins from the idea that leadership should be used primarily in service of people, communities, and a larger purpose rather than mainly to increase the leader's personal status or control.

Greenleaf emphasized a fundamental question: Does the way we lead help people grow in their own capacity, judgment, freedom, and ability to contribute? That question remains useful for community organizations today.

Servant leadership is one approach to leadership, not a complete formula for every situation. Organizations still need clear roles, accountability, governance, professional standards, safety procedures, and people who are willing to make difficult decisions when necessary.

In this section, we will examine several practices associated with servant leadership, consider how people can develop them, and discuss how leaders can serve others without making chronic self-sacrifice a requirement of leadership.

What are the qualities of the servant leader?

Servant leaders need many of the same abilities required of other effective leaders: judgment, communication, decision-making, planning, problem solving, accountability, and the ability to help people work toward shared goals.

The difference is primarily in how leadership and power are understood and used. Servant leadership asks leaders to treat authority as a responsibility rather than a privilege.

The servant leader respects the equal dignity of others

A leadership position may give someone additional authority or responsibility, but it does not make that person more valuable than the people they lead.

Servant leaders recognize the knowledge, abilities, experience, and agency of others. They are willing to teach, learn, lead, follow, ask for help, and step aside when another person is better positioned to take responsibility.

This does not mean pretending that everyone has exactly the same role or authority. A director, supervisor, Board chair, volunteer coordinator, or project lead may have responsibilities that others do not. Servant leadership means exercising those responsibilities without treating authority as personal superiority.

The servant leader shares power appropriately

Servant leaders avoid concentrating decisions unnecessarily.

Where people have relevant knowledge or will be affected by a decision, leaders should look for meaningful ways to involve them. Where another person has stronger expertise, relationships, or experience, that person may appropriately take the lead.

Sharing power does not mean avoiding responsibility. Leaders should make clear:

• Which decisions are open to participation
• Who has final decision-making authority
• What legal, financial, safety, or policy requirements limit available choices
• How input will be considered

People should not be invited into a supposedly participatory process when the outcome has already been decided and their input cannot influence it.

The servant leader uses power ethically

Servant leadership does not eliminate power. Leaders may control budgets, hiring, schedules, information, access, opportunities, discipline, organizational priorities, or other important resources.

Ethical use of that power involves:

• Honesty
• Transparency
• Fair and consistent processes
• Appropriate confidentiality
• Accountability
• Attention to conflicts of interest
• Respect for people's rights and boundaries
• Willingness to explain important decisions
• Willingness to correct mistakes

Good intentions are not enough by themselves. Leaders also need to consider the effects of their decisions and whether organizational systems are treating people fairly and responsibly.

The servant leader pays attention to everyday leadership

Leadership is not mainly speeches, major announcements, or moments of public recognition.

Much of it happens through ordinary behavior:

• Following through on commitments
• Giving people useful information
• Responding to questions
• Handling conflict
• Preparing for meetings
• Giving and receiving feedback
• Sharing credit
• Addressing problems rather than ignoring them
• Making sure people have the resources they need

The servant leader listens and makes it safer to speak honestly

Listening means more than waiting for people to finish talking.

Servant leaders actively seek information from the people affected by the work. They ask questions, create more than one way for people to provide input, pay attention to perspectives that are easy to overlook, and listen when someone raises a problem the leader would rather not hear.

They also help create an environment in which people can:

• Ask questions
• Admit uncertainty
• Report mistakes
• Raise concerns
• Disagree respectfully
• Ask for help
• Challenge an assumption

A leader who says, "My door is always open," but punishes people who bring difficult information is not practicing meaningful listening.

The servant leader supports people's needs and agency

Servant leaders care about what people need in order to participate, contribute, learn, and succeed.

That may include:

• Information
• Training
• Reasonable autonomy
• Accessible communication
• Appropriate accommodations
• Equipment or technology
• Feedback
• Clear boundaries
• Recognition
• Opportunities to develop

Serving people does not mean granting every request or avoiding hard decisions. Leaders have responsibilities to the mission, other participants, the community, applicable law, safety, finances, and organizational sustainability as well.

The servant leader communicates honestly and persuasively

Leaders often need to persuade. They may believe one strategy is safer, more effective, more ethical, or more realistic than another.

Persuasion becomes a problem when it turns into manipulation: hiding relevant information, exploiting trust, misrepresenting alternatives, or inviting participation when a decision has already been made.

Responsible persuasion involves:

• Explaining the reasoning behind a recommendation
• Acknowledging important tradeoffs
• Listening to disagreement
• Correcting misinformation
• Adapting communication to people's language and level of familiarity
• Being willing to change your own position when better information emerges

Start where people are

Effective leaders first try to understand how other people see the situation.

Ask:

• What matters to them?
• What do they already know?
• What experiences have shaped their view?
• What risks are they concerned about?
• What barriers do they face?
• Where do we genuinely agree?
• Where do we genuinely disagree?

Starting where people are does not mean concealing disagreement. It means understanding the context well enough to communicate respectfully and identify where productive work is possible.

For example, two community organizations may agree on the goal of improving young people's health while disagreeing about particular strategies. A servant leader can acknowledge the disagreement openly, identify areas of genuine agreement, and explore whether collaboration is possible without asking either organization to misrepresent its position.

The servant leader helps people grow

One of the strongest ideas in servant leadership is that people should become more capable and autonomous, not more dependent on the leader.

Leaders can support growth by:

• Offering meaningful responsibilities
• Providing training and coaching
• Sharing information
• Giving useful feedback
• Creating opportunities to practice leadership
• Encouraging people to develop their own judgment
• Recognizing when someone else should lead

Challenging opportunities can be valuable, but they should come with appropriate support and should not be imposed simply because a leader believes someone "needs to be stretched."

The servant leader develops leadership in others

Servant leadership should not make one leader indispensable.

Strong leaders help other people become able to:

• Make decisions within their responsibilities
• Facilitate meetings
• Lead projects
• Solve problems
• Mentor others
• Build relationships
• Raise concerns responsibly
• Assume greater responsibility when appropriate

Leadership is more sustainable when knowledge, relationships, and authority are not concentrated in one person.

The servant leader adapts to the situation

Different circumstances require different levels of direction and participation.

During an immediate safety emergency, a person with appropriate responsibility may need to give clear instructions quickly. During strategic planning or organizational change, there may be time and good reason to involve people extensively in defining the problem and deciding what to do.

Good judgment includes knowing:

• How urgent the decision is
• Who has relevant expertise
• Who will be affected
• What authority the leader actually has
• What requirements cannot be changed
• When another person is better positioned to lead

How do you become a servant leader?

Servant leadership involves values, but values have to become visible in behavior.

Practices you can develop include:

• Listening carefully to others
• Involving people meaningfully in decisions that affect them
• Sharing authority and information appropriately
• Strengthening problem-solving and decision-making skills
• Explaining important decisions
• Inviting dissent and difficult information
• Giving credit to others
• Admitting mistakes
• Addressing conflicts of interest
• Providing clear expectations and boundaries
• Developing other people's leadership
• Removing unnecessary barriers to participation
• Seeking feedback on your own leadership
• Reflecting on how your use of authority affects other people

Ask yourself periodically:

• Are people able to tell me when I am wrong?
• Am I sharing information people need in order to make good decisions?
• Are opportunities concentrated around the same people?
• Have I created unnecessary dependence on me?
• Do people understand which decisions they can make?
• Do my actions match what I say I value?
• Whose perspective is missing?
• What effect are our decisions having on people with the least power?

How do you sustain yourself as a servant leader?

Service does not require self-neglect.

Leaders who consistently work beyond their capacity, remain available at all hours, absorb every problem personally, or refuse to delegate may eventually become less effective and may also create an organization that depends too heavily on them.

Exhaustion is not always a personal motivation problem. It can reflect:

• Excessive workload
• Insufficient staffing
• Unclear roles
• Constant emergencies
• Lack of authority to solve recurring problems
• Harassment, discrimination, or unsafe working conditions
• Unrealistic availability expectations
• Chronic conflict
• Inadequate supervision or support
• Failure to delegate

Personal renewal matters, but organizations should not use "self-care" as a substitute for addressing harmful working conditions.

Protect time outside the work

Rest, recreation, relationships, faith or spiritual practices, exercise, creative activities, hobbies, reading, travel, and other parts of life can help people maintain perspective and energy.

The particular activity matters less than having meaningful time in which you are not continuously responsible for organizational work.

Leaders can also model healthy boundaries by:

• Taking appropriate leave
• Avoiding unnecessary after-hours messages
• Delegating responsibility
• Developing backup coverage
• Making schedules as predictable as possible
• Respecting other people's time away from work

Build a support network

Leadership can involve decisions and responsibilities that are difficult to carry alone.

Useful support might come from:

• Friends and family
• Mentors
• Professional peers
• Supervisors or Board leadership
• Coaches
• Professional associations
• Peer leadership groups
• Appropriate professional support when needed

Be thoughtful about whom you rely on. Employees, volunteers, clients, or people with less organizational power should not be made responsible for carrying a leader's personal emotional burden.

Keep learning

Reading, training, conferences, mentoring, peer discussion, reflection, and exposure to ideas outside your immediate field can help you continue developing.

Learning also means being willing to discover that a practice you once relied on no longer works or that someone else has better information.

Use new challenges thoughtfully

New responsibilities can renew curiosity and develop leadership capacity, but adding another project is not always the answer to exhaustion.

Sometimes the appropriate next step is to:

• Stop doing something
• Delegate it
• Simplify a process
• Ask for additional resources
• Change an unrealistic goal
• Take leave

Reconnect with purpose without minimizing problems

Remembering why the work matters can help people maintain perspective during difficult periods.

At the same time, purpose should not be used to dismiss chronic problems. An inspiring mission does not make unreasonable workload, poor management, harassment, unsafe practices, or inadequate resources acceptable.

Notice and celebrate progress

Many community goals take years to advance and may never be fully completed by one organization or generation.

Recognizing meaningful progress can help people see that their work matters. Celebrate contributions, milestones, learning, improved relationships, solved problems, and other real accomplishments.

Recognition should complement healthy working conditions and appropriate support, not substitute for them.

Build systems that do not depend on your sacrifice

One of the most important long-term responsibilities of a servant leader is creating an organization or group that can continue without requiring the leader to be constantly available.

That means:

• Developing other leaders
• Delegating real responsibility
• Documenting important knowledge
• Establishing backup coverage
• Clarifying authority
• Creating fair and transparent processes
• Maintaining reporting and accountability systems
• Preparing for leadership transitions

In Summary

Servant leadership offers a way of thinking about leadership as responsibility and service rather than status. It asks leaders to consider whether their use of authority helps people and communities become stronger, more capable, and more able to exercise their own judgment.

A servant leader listens, shares power where appropriate, communicates honestly, uses authority ethically, pays attention to everyday responsibilities, develops others, invites difficult information, and is willing to step back when someone else is better positioned to lead.

Service does not mean pleasing everyone, avoiding difficult decisions, surrendering legitimate authority, or sacrificing yourself indefinitely. Leaders remain responsible for safety, law, finances, organizational purpose, professional standards, and the consequences of their decisions.

Sustainable servant leadership also requires boundaries. Leaders need rest, support, realistic workloads, delegation, feedback, and organizational systems that do not depend on one person's constant availability.

Finally, the strongest measure of servant leadership is not how devoted people become to the leader. It is whether leadership leaves people and organizations more capable: better able to speak honestly, make sound decisions, contribute their strengths, develop others, and continue the work when today's leader is no longer in the room.

___You are ready to accept and maintain the call of service

___You developed the qualities of the servant leader

___You see yourself as first among equals

___You use power honestly

___You know the importance of day-to-day details

___You care for your constituents

___You help people get what they want

___You reach your constituents

___You try to inspire others

___You adapt to fit situations

___You listen to others

___You involve others

___You promote teamwork

___You enhance problem-solving skills

___You know how to find inspiration

___You know that helping other is part of helping self

Example 1: Interview with Ann Liprie-Spence, Director, Servant Leadership Center of the Southwest, McMurry University (Abilene, TX)

Ms. Liprie-Spence is the Director of the Servant Leadership Center of the Southwest at McMurry University in Abilene, Texas. Here, she talks about their program and the meaning of servant-leadership.

McMurry is so special; it's a small [Methodist] liberal arts college. We have about 1400 students. It's hard to say what makes us unique. If you're here, you can feel it. It's a very caring atmosphere.

[A professor] said, "We've got to find some way to build our niche, because we are a very special place." He came back from a conference that had some information on servant leadership. This [was] in 1990. We devised a program in Servant Leadership, sought funding and then got our program under way.

One large component of our program is the course, "Concepts and Techniques in Servant Leadership." For the first two years, the class was free and students were encouraged to take it by invitation. After the grant ended, students were given the opportunity to enroll in the course. The last three years, enrollment has just soared.

What we do in the course is use the philosophy of Robert K. Greenleaf. We try to instill in our students [the idea] that the best leaders are those that serve others. By leading them, you're also serving them, and all of their concerns should be taken into consideration when you make decisions. We try to instill throughout the semester that everything you do is for the greater good of others. I think sometimes in society, the examples of leadership that some students see are examples where people have gained prestige and power because of more selfish purposes.

What we do on Mondays is lecture on the principles of leadership. We look at topics such as conflict resolution, team building, and time management. A second session each week is a small group seminar/discussion led by upper class students who have been specially trained in the servant leadership concept and in group dynamics.

One of the things we do the first day of class is ask them to list the characteristics of a servant. Then, we ask them to list the characteristics of a leader. Very seldom is there anything that is the same. Then we start trying to talk about what it means. To some people that term is a turn-off until they really understand it. You don't want these macho guys being called a servant leader--What would their friends think!--until they really understand what it means.

At the beginning of the semester I get eight agencies to come on campus, they talk about their agency, and we have a specific project lined up with each. The students pick a team that they're going to work with by picking an agency.

[So] their team is based on the fact that they all wanted to work with Abilene State School or with Habitat for Humanity or whatever. Then on their own each individual must give 30 hours to that project. They have to keep a journal. What we think is most important [is that] they reflect on what they learn in that project on a daily basis. Whenever they go out and they look at what they learned in class, can they relate those things? Did any of those issues come up?

They go through a training session where they're given a broad view of the agency. Then, the students look for need and for areas where they can be of value and of service to that agency. They make proposals; they take them back to the agency. If the proposals are approved then they have to find the means to carry them out using all the leadership principles [they have learned].

We want them to realize that need to go out there and make a difference, look for things to change and try to propose changes. Look for ways to do things rather than just walk in and say, "What do you have for me to do today?" or, "We want to see what we can do. Suggest ideas ways we can make things better, things that we might do that you hadn't thought about."

Some of their ideas have been shot down. We tell them welcome to the real world, that problem creates an opportunity for you to get back together and create another idea. So I can't tell you it's always roses. Their ideas are not always met with, "This is a wonderful idea, get started, what can we do for you." Sometimes they're told, "It's great but you're on your own. We don't have any resources. "

After they [finish] the class I send students a letter inviting them to be part of what we call the servant leadership mentors. So they get to extend their leadership beyond the class. The mentors go out and interview agencies because they know what it's like to be a team member. If the mentors say this project won't work, we don't do it. Part of the idea behind servant leadership is listening to others. I'd be less than honest with them if I say come with me and I ignored what they had to say. They learn by doing.

We've got a saying that we put in our co-curricular transcripts. It says: We believe in demonstrating our commitment to human potential by adding spiritual values, leadership and service to human kind. We've created a program believed to be unique in college setting: McMurry University Servant Leadership Program.

Here's what we tell the students is most important. We say the program is designed to equip our students with a firm moral and ethical foundation, one which they can make sense of the dilemmas they will face. Ones from which they can become leaders who give something back to the world.

The year before last on our campus alone faculty, staff and students gave 24,000 hours in one year of community service. That's on a campus of 1,400 students. I think a lot of it extends from once they see [this approach] as a way of life. They actually go out there and experience it and see how good it makes them feel. That's comment I get all the time, "I never knew how good it would make me feel, to truly live a life as a servant leader."

Example 2: Interview with Nancy Larner, Program Director at the Greenleaf Center for Servant-Leadership.

Nancy Larner is Program Director at the Greenleaf Center for Servant-Leadership. Here, she talks about the organization and their philosophy

The Greenleaf Center is [an international] non-profit organization. We are interested in trying to foster more caring and humane organizations. We work with health care, higher education systems, religious organizations, for profit/non-profit organizations--basically the whole gamut. We don't try to focus in one area--we try to reach out to everybody.

Our logo is the Mobius strip. The whole idea behind the Mobius strip and how it signifies servant-leadership is that there is not a beginning or an end. It all flows together--leading lends itself to serving, serving lends itself to leading. Servant-leadership is a hyphenated word because leading and serving are on equal levels.

Servant leadership is really a practical philosophy. It supports people who wish to serve first, and then lead as a way of expanding service to individuals and institutions. And it's not necessarily people who are in a position of power. Anybody can lead in the servant-leadership philosophy. What it takes is a lot integrity, trust, caring, and also some vulnerability. That is, you aren't the only one making the decisions. It's not about having all the answers. Servant leadership encourages a lot of collaboration, trust, listening and the ethical use of power.

It's kind of like [in jazz] where it's somebody else's turn to play their instrument and do an improv, or if somebody has an idea on how to take the music a little bit further. You let them go. They might not be the leader of the band but they've got a great idea and they're going with it. It's very subtle. It's hard to say exactly when you step down as leader and let someone else take over.

Robert Greenleaf is the gentleman who wrote about this philosophy back in the 1960s. His whole idea was that you take people where they spend the most time, whether it's in a religious institution or at work or whatever, and you teach or try to foster these basic principles. His hopes were that these would transfer into community at large so that you do create or you try to create a more caring and humane society.

Some people really get it from reading the material [written by Greenleaf]. Saying "Oh my goodness, this is how I've been feeling all of my life and I didn't know that there are people and organizations out here that really foster this sort of leadership." In some ways, that's a transformation, in the sense that you really feel like there's hope out there, that organizations can be run in a more humane way.

Are there things people can do to become servant-leaders or to become better servant-leaders?

People look for the bullet points or the ten step program to become servant leaders. And the fact of the matter is it's just working on your people skills. It's not so much OK, I need to do X,Y, and Z and then I'm a servant leader. It is more honing skills like empathy and listening, and trying to work with consensus and persuasion rather than coercion. I think that everybody can be a servant leader if they choose to.

If someone came up to you and said, "I would like to start using the principles of servant-leadership in my work or personal life." What advice would you give them?

Begin to be just a little more caring and supportive of your colleagues, perhaps by showing interest in their lives outside of work, or, if somebody comes to you and they're really bogged down with work, maybe you help them out a little bit. People start to feel a sense of empathy and trust, and maybe they will then treat their co-workers in the same manner. Servant-leadership can begin anywhere at any time. The choice is up to the individual.

Tool 1: Personal Plan for Learning and Serving

The Personal Plan for Learning and Serving is a dynamic, living document to guide learning and service. Completing this guide can help you discern what matters to you, what your particular gifts are and to what ends they can be directed, and how to enhance your abilities to use them in serving others. As part of an ongoing process of reflection, it can and should be reviewed and revised periodically.

Tool 2: Active listening

As we come to understand ourselves and our relationships with others better, we rediscover that "communication is not just saying words; it is creating true understanding." Active listening is an important skill in that process. Chances are that those who influence us most are powerful listeners. Whether instinctively or through practice, they have developed the skill of empathy. Special thanks goes to the Center for Rural Studies for granting us permission to use this activity.

Use the directions that follow to practice some of these basic active listening skills:

• Attending Skills (verbal and non-verbal)
• Questions, Reflections, Summarization
• Skills of Self-expression: "1-2-3 Pattern"
• Practice Session on Effective Confrontation

The group should be divided into subgroups of three. There will be three roles in each subgroup: speaker, listener, and observer. Everyone will take each role once in this practice, so divide into your subgroup and decide who is going to take which role first.

Directions:

Objective - The point of the practice session is to give each person the opportunity to learn how to use verbal and non-verbal minimal encouragers and become a better listener.

To the speaker - Your task is to talk about something that is important to you: your job, your family, a decision, or a question. The practice will be more helpful if you talk about something you really care about, although role-playing is possible. You may find yourself in the midst of discussing something important when the allotted time runs out. If this happens, you could make an agreement with the person listening to carry on later, after work or during a break.

To the listener - Your task is to practice the skills of the session: eye contact, body language, silences, and verbal minimal encouragers. Don't panic! Just concentrate on following the speaker's train of thought. Try to limit your responses to the skills discussed in this session.

To the observer - Your task is to observe the listener's verbal and non-verbal skills. Observe and count only as many behaviors (eye contact, body posture, verbal minimal encouragers, topic jumps) as you can manage and still be relatively accurate.

Procedure:

The first speaker will talk with the listener for three or four minutes. The listener will then discuss the listening experience with the two other members of the subgroup. (To the listener: What was comfortable? What was difficult? Did you stay with the speaker?) Then the speaker will share his or her feelings about the listener's listening. (To the speaker: Did you feel listened to? Was it helpful? Did the listener have any habits you found distracting?) The observer will then share observations. This sharing process should take about three or four minutes.

Now everyone change places. Have the listener become the speaker, the speaker the observer, and the observer the listener. Go through the five minutes of talking and listening and five minutes of exchanging remarks twice more so that each person takes each role once. The entire practice session should take about 25 minutes.

When you are finished, form a large group. Your facilitator will help you share your practice experiences. How are these skills relevant to your work? Where else would they be useful? Go around the group, so that the participants have a chance to share at least one thing they have learned about themselves in this practice session.

The following exercises discuss the principles of leadership and conflict resolution. They look at time management and team building. They are situational-type exercises to let people evaluate what to do in the presented situations.

Tool 3: Team building

Create a situation based on a school board meeting. Chose random names for the characters. In this fictitious case, one of the leading employees in the school district called a meeting about a particular change they wanted to make. The change is controversial and is causing a bit of conflict in the community. Some opposed the change and some thought it was a good idea. So, the meeting is scheduled to see how folks feel about the proposed change. All the parents came to the meeting but the individual who called the meeting was late. That created hostility right off, coupled with the conflict that was already in the air. When this individual walked in, he was rattled to start with because he was late and knew he would meet a hostile audience, and the night didn't go very well. Create a script on the addressed issues, how the parents treated those issues and how the school representative treated those issues.

Divide the group into two sides. One representing the school district, the other representing the parents. This will help look at it from both perspectives. Bring the groups back into a larger group and discuss the conflict resolution process. Talk about how the conflict could have been solved better.

Here are some questions to help the discussion:

• What did your group think?
• What suggestions did you make?
• You know what were some of the issues here?
• What are some of the things that you think could have been done differently and why?
• What would have been a better approach?
• What could that official have done as a leader?
• How could he have done things that would have resolved some conflicts?
• How could he have made everybody feel a little bit better when they got there?
• What would you do in a situation like that?
• What might a servant-leader have done?
• Did that individual act like as a servant-leader?
• How the individual could have handled the situation better?

Tool 4: Tower of Babel

This exercise is called the Tower of Babel, and it's a case on communication. It gets participants excited and helps them learn the importance of including others. Gather a small group and distribute sheets containing different roles. The participants cannot look or talk to anybody else. Each role sheet has very specific instructions such as "all you can do is speak Spanish," "all you can do is be sarcastic and negative." You know that everyone has a different role, but the students don't know what the others' roles are. One of them gets a role that says, "you are the leader. You must communicate to your group without talking that they have to build the tallest tower they can that will support a book on top of it when they finish. They can't talk and they can't write, unless specified in their role sheet. They have to find some way to communicate and there are all different dynamics going on. One of them is being really sarcastic, another one is being really positive, the other one can only babble, another one only speaks French, another one is blind, another one is paraplegic. See if the leader tries to include everybody.

When the activity is completed, talk about it in the group. Sometimes the group that had the least communication will have the smallest, sloppiest tower. These are exaggerated handicaps but everybody has strengths and weaknesses and if you're communicating you need to find ways to let everybody participate and consider everybody's thoughts and ideas. Stress the importance of getting everyone's input because they may have some very important things to say and great ideas. Stress the importance of inclusion. Talk about some of the problems that they had with communication. Did they even realize that that was a problem?

A Power Point presentation summarizing the major points in the section.

• What is leadership style?

• Why pay attention to leadership style?

• What are some conceptions and methods of leadership?

• What are some ways of looking at leadership style and what are their effects on an organization?

• How do you determine what is an appropriate style?

• How do you choose and develop a leadership style?

Leadership style describes recurring patterns in how a person or leadership group uses authority, communicates, makes decisions, involves others, handles conflict and uncertainty, responds to risk, and helps people accomplish shared work.

Understanding leadership style can help you recognize your own tendencies and understand how they affect other people and the organization. It can also help you decide when a different approach is needed.

No single named style describes everything an effective leader does. Most leaders use several approaches depending on the situation, and leadership may be exercised by one person, a leadership team, or different people at different times.

What is leadership style?

Leadership is the process through which people provide direction, exercise responsibility and influence, coordinate work, make or support decisions, and help a group pursue shared purposes.

Leadership style is the recurring way those responsibilities are carried out.

Questions about leadership style include:

• How does the leader make decisions?
• When and how are other people consulted?
• How is authority distributed?
• How much autonomy do people have?
• How does the leader respond when someone disagrees?
• How are mistakes handled?
• How does information move through the organization?
• How are performance and accountability addressed?
• How does the leader respond to uncertainty or emergencies?
• How are people supported in developing their own judgment and leadership?

Much of the discussion in this section refers to individual leaders, but leadership can also be shared among several people or distributed across a team.

Formal authority still matters. Organizations need to know who is accountable for budgets, hiring, safety, legal responsibilities, program decisions, and other important functions. But the person with the highest title does not necessarily need to lead every conversation, project, or decision.

Why pay attention to leadership style?

Leadership behavior affects organizational culture, but it is not the only factor that shapes an organization. Governance, policies, incentives, staffing, history, workload, funding, organizational systems, and the behavior of many people also matter.

Even so, leaders can strongly influence what becomes normal.

If leaders punish people for raising problems, important information may stop reaching them. If they hoard information or opportunities, other people may have difficulty developing. If they invite questions, acknowledge mistakes, explain decisions, and treat people consistently, those practices can help establish similar expectations throughout the organization.

Leadership style also affects relationships with people outside the organization. Community partners, residents, funders, participants, volunteers, public agencies, and other organizations may experience the organization's openness, reliability, responsiveness, and willingness to collaborate through the behavior of its leaders.

Leadership practice should therefore fit both the organization's responsibilities and its stated values.

An organization that values community participation should create meaningful ways for community knowledge to influence relevant decisions. An organization that values accessibility should make its own meetings, communication, leadership opportunities, and decision processes accessible. An organization that values accountability should not create leadership structures in which important decisions cannot be questioned or reviewed.

Conceptions of leadership

People approach leadership with different assumptions about what leadership is for.

Some common orientations include:

• Direction and accountability. Leadership means making sure people understand priorities, responsibilities, standards, and what must be accomplished.
• Operational stewardship. Leadership means maintaining the systems, resources, staffing, finances, policies, and coordination needed for the organization to function.
• People development. Leadership includes helping others gain skills, judgment, responsibility, confidence, and opportunities to exercise leadership themselves.
• Participation and shared ownership. Leadership means involving people with relevant knowledge or responsibility in defining problems and making decisions.
• Service and stewardship. Leadership means using authority responsibly for the benefit of the mission, community, and people affected by the work.
• Vision and change. Leadership includes helping people understand why change is needed and creating a credible direction for the future.

These orientations are not mutually exclusive. An effective organizational leader may need to clarify direction, maintain operations, develop people, involve stakeholders, and help the organization adapt—sometimes within the same day.

Methods of leadership

Leaders also differ in the methods they use.

Direction

A leader may make a decision and clearly tell people what needs to happen.

Direction is not inherently abusive or autocratic. It may be necessary when:

• An emergency requires immediate action
• A legal, safety, or contractual requirement leaves little discretion
• One role clearly carries responsibility for the decision
• The task is routine and well understood

Directive leadership becomes problematic when authority is used unnecessarily, questions are punished, relevant expertise is ignored, people are threatened or humiliated, or decisions cannot be reviewed despite serious consequences.

Consultation

A leader may seek information and advice from others while retaining responsibility for the final decision.

Consultation can improve a decision when people closer to the work understand practical consequences that senior leaders may not see.

Consultation should be genuine. If the decision has already been made, say so rather than inviting feedback that cannot influence anything.

Collaboration

People may work together to define a problem, develop alternatives, and reach a decision through an agreed process.

Collaboration is particularly useful when:

• Several people hold important pieces of information
• Implementation depends heavily on coordination
• Several organizations or groups share responsibility
• The problem is complex and no one person has enough expertise to solve it alone

Delegation and shared leadership

A formal leader may assign authority for a project or decision to someone else, or leadership may shift among team members according to expertise and situation.

Shared leadership works best when responsibilities, information, decision authority, and accountability are clear. It should not become a way for formal leaders to avoid decisions for which they remain responsible.

Modeling

Leaders influence organizational norms through their own behavior.

If leaders expect people to acknowledge mistakes, ask for feedback, respect confidentiality, prepare for meetings, treat people fairly, or follow safety requirements, their own behavior should demonstrate those expectations.

Ethical influence and persuasion

Leaders often need to persuade people that a particular approach is useful or necessary.

Responsible persuasion involves:

• Accurate information
• Clear reasoning
• Honest discussion of tradeoffs
• Listening to objections
• Respect for people's right to disagree
• Willingness to reconsider when better information emerges

Personal loyalty, withheld information, fear, retaliation, favoritism, deception, or manipulation should not be treated as legitimate substitutes for leadership.

Relationships

Trusting relationships can make cooperation easier. People are more likely to share difficult information and work through disagreement when they believe leaders are reliable and respectful.

Relationships should not be used to create personal debts, reward loyalty to the leader over performance or mission, or pressure people into decisions they would not otherwise make.

Clarify how decisions will be made

Many leadership problems that appear to be about "style" are actually problems of unclear decision authority.

For important decisions, clarify:

• Who provides information?
• Who should be consulted?
• Who develops recommendations?
• Who makes the decision?
• Does the group use majority vote, consent, consensus, or another rule?
• Who is responsible for implementation?
• How can a decision be reviewed or challenged?

Not every decision needs the same process.

Some ways of looking at leadership style, and their effects on an organization

Leadership literature contains many frameworks and labels. They can provide useful language for examining behavior, but none should be treated as a complete description of real leaders or as a universal ranking from worst to best.

The categories below are simplified patterns. Most leaders combine elements of several of them and change their approach according to the situation.

Four simplified leadership patterns

1. Highly directive leadership

A highly directive leader makes many decisions personally, establishes clear expectations, and closely controls how work is carried out.

This approach can support speed and coordination when:

• The situation is urgent
• Responsibilities are highly standardized
• Safety requires immediate compliance
• The leader has information or authority others do not have

Overused, however, highly directive leadership can suppress useful information, discourage initiative, concentrate too much decision-making in one person, and make people reluctant to raise concerns.

Direction should not be confused with intimidation, humiliation, retaliation, discrimination, arbitrary punishment, or unchecked personal control.

Effects on the organization. A strongly directive environment may produce clear roles and rapid execution, but it may also reduce learning and initiative if people believe that questioning a decision is unsafe or pointless.

2. Operational or managerial leadership

An operationally focused leader emphasizes reliable systems, staffing, budgets, schedules, procedures, coordination, risk management, and consistent execution.

These responsibilities are essential. Organizations cannot achieve ambitious missions if payroll fails, information systems are unreliable, legal requirements are ignored, or no one coordinates day-to-day work.

The limitation appears when maintaining existing systems becomes the goal rather than a means to accomplishing the mission.

Effects on the organization. Strong management can create clarity, reliability, and stability. Without regular examination of outcomes and changing conditions, however, an organization can become very efficient at work that no longer meets the needs it was created to address.

3. Consultative leadership

A consultative leader actively seeks ideas and information from others but retains responsibility for making the final decision.

This can work well when:

• One role is clearly accountable for the result
• Other people have important information or experience
• The decision requires more input than a single person possesses
• Time does not permit full collaborative decision-making

Effects on the organization. Meaningful consultation can improve decisions and help people understand the reasoning behind them. Superficial consultation can have the opposite effect if people discover that their participation was merely symbolic.

4. Collaborative or shared leadership

Collaborative leadership distributes important parts of leadership across several people and uses joint processes for selected decisions.

People may contribute according to expertise, responsibility, lived experience, relationship to the issue, or role in implementation.

Collaborative approaches can:

• Bring more information into decisions
• Develop leadership capacity
• Improve coordination across roles or organizations
• Increase understanding of why decisions were made
• Build commitment to implementation

They can also become slow or confusing if the group has not established clear decision rules, if every person is expected to participate in every decision, or if no one is ultimately accountable.

Effects on the organization. Shared leadership can strengthen learning and ownership, particularly in complex work, but it requires good information, trust, facilitation, clear roles, and accountability.

Consensus and other group decision processes

Collaboration does not necessarily require unanimity.

Groups may use:

• An accountable leader deciding after consultation
• Majority vote
• Supermajority vote
• Consent, in which members identify whether they can live with a proposal even if it is not their first choice
• Consensus-oriented discussion followed by another defined decision rule
• Unanimous agreement for a limited set of decisions where that standard is genuinely necessary

Decide which process applies before conflict occurs rather than debating the decision rule every time the group disagrees.

Transactional and transformational leadership

Another influential way of examining leadership distinguishes between transactional and transformational behaviors.

Transactional leadership emphasizes explicit expectations and exchanges. Leaders establish responsibilities, monitor performance, recognize successful work, and respond when agreed standards are not met.

These behaviors are a normal part of many organizations. Clear expectations, compensation, feedback, accountability, and performance management are not inherently inferior forms of leadership.

Transformational leadership emphasizes purpose, change, motivation, development, and helping people connect their work with a broader direction or shared vision.

Transformational leadership can contribute to commitment, trust, creativity, and performance in many contexts, but it should not be treated as universally superior. Different work, organizational cultures, roles, and situations may change how effective particular behaviors are.

Combining approaches

Leaders frequently need both transactional and transformational practices.

For example, a community organization introducing a new service may need:

• A clear explanation of why the service is needed
• Participation from staff and community partners in shaping implementation
• Defined budgets and responsibilities
• Training
• Performance expectations
• Feedback and evaluation
• Adjustments as the organization learns what works

The question is therefore less "Which named style am I?" and more "What does this situation require, and how can I respond in a way that is effective, ethical, and consistent with our responsibilities?"

How do you determine what is an appropriate style?

Effective leaders usually change their behavior according to circumstances rather than applying one approach rigidly everywhere.

Consider several factors.

Urgency

How quickly must the decision be made?

A life-safety emergency may require immediate direction from the person responsible for the response. A strategic decision with consequences lasting several years may justify a much more deliberate and participatory process.

Stakes and risk

What happens if the decision is wrong?

High-stakes decisions involving safety, law, finance, safeguarding, privacy, or professional obligations may require particular expertise, review, or formal authority.

Expertise

Who understands the problem?

Formal authority and expertise are not always located in the same person. Leaders should know when to rely on technical specialists, frontline staff, community knowledge, or other expertise.

Who is affected

People who will experience the consequences of a decision may hold information that decision-makers need.

Their involvement may also be important as a matter of fairness, trust, or organizational values.

Decision authority

Who is legally, professionally, financially, or organizationally responsible for making the decision?

Participation should not obscure accountability.

Reversibility

Can the decision be tested and changed?

When a decision is relatively low-risk and reversible, an organization may be able to pilot an approach and learn from experience. Irreversible or high-cost decisions may justify more analysis and review.

Need for implementation commitment

Does successful implementation depend on several people changing how they work or coordinating closely?

If so, involving them before the final decision may reveal practical barriers and improve implementation.

Organizational history and trust

People interpret leadership through past experience.

A team that has repeatedly been asked for input and then ignored may reasonably distrust another "participatory" process. People who have experienced retaliation may hesitate to speak candidly simply because a new leader says disagreement is welcome.

Rebuilding trust usually requires consistent behavior over time rather than a new leadership label.

Psychological safety

Ask whether people can raise important information without unnecessary interpersonal risk.

Can they:

• Admit a mistake?
• Ask for help?
• Question a plan?
• Report a safety concern?
• Disagree with someone who has more authority?

Leaders strengthen psychological safety by showing curiosity, responding constructively to difficult information, acknowledging their own uncertainty, and not punishing reasonable questions or good-faith disagreement.

Psychological safety does not mean avoiding accountability or allowing harmful behavior. People can be expected to meet standards while still being able to speak honestly about problems.

Mission, values, and obligations

Leadership practices should fit the organization's mission and values, but values do not override legal, ethical, financial, safety, or professional obligations.

An organization committed to community participation should create meaningful participation where appropriate. An organization committed to fairness should examine whether some people have less access to information, leadership opportunities, or decision processes. An organization committed to safety should make it possible for people to report risks even when doing so is inconvenient.

How do you choose and develop a leadership style?

Rather than selecting one label and trying to become that type of leader, identify the leadership practices you want to strengthen and learn when to use them.

Start with yourself

Reflect on your own patterns.

Questions might include:

• When I am under pressure, do I become unnecessarily controlling or avoid decisions?
• How well do I delegate meaningful responsibility?
• Do I explain important decisions?
• How do I respond when someone disagrees with me?
• Do people bring me bad news early, or do they wait until they have no choice?
• Whose advice do I seek most often?
• Whose perspectives am I likely to overlook?
• Do I ask for input when it can actually affect the decision?
• Do I give people enough information to exercise the authority I delegate?
• Do I acknowledge mistakes?
• Do I apply expectations consistently?
• Do I distinguish a true emergency from a situation in which I simply prefer a faster decision?

Seek feedback

Self-assessment is limited because leaders cannot fully experience their own impact from another person's position.

Seek relevant feedback from:

• People you supervise
• Peers
• Supervisors
• Board members
• Volunteers
• Community partners
• Participants or other people affected by the work
• Mentors or coaches

Depending on the organization, feedback may come through individual conversations, surveys, structured reviews, 360-degree feedback, debriefs, or other methods.

Feedback is useful only if leaders can hear difficult information without retaliating against the person who provides it.

Think about the needs of the organization or initiative

Leadership should respond to the work that actually needs to be done.

A coalition may need strong facilitation, clear governance, and participation across independent organizations. An emergency-response team may need rapid role-based decisions while still requiring team members to communicate safety-critical information immediately. A growing nonprofit may need stronger financial and operational systems. A community initiative facing declining trust may need much more listening and relationship-building.

Don't assume that one leadership approach will solve problems caused primarily by inadequate staffing, unclear policy, weak governance, insufficient funding, outdated technology, discrimination, inaccessible systems, or other structural problems.

Learn from other leaders without copying them

Observe how different leaders operate.

Ask:

• How do they make decisions?
• How do they communicate uncertainty?
• How do they respond when challenged?
• How do they handle mistakes?
• How do they delegate?
• What happens to the team when they are absent?
• Which behaviors work well in that particular context?
• Which behaviors would not transfer well to your situation?

Find mentors, coaches, and peers

A mentor or coach can help you examine difficult situations, recognize patterns in your behavior, consider alternatives, and reflect on the effects of your decisions.

Peer relationships can provide another useful source of perspective. People with comparable responsibilities may understand challenges that are difficult to discuss elsewhere.

Use research thoughtfully

Leadership research can provide useful concepts, but avoid treating any single framework as a universal formula.

Research findings may vary according to:

• Type of work
• Organizational level
• Team structure
• Culture and context
• Task complexity
• Outcome being measured

Use research alongside organizational data, feedback, professional judgment, and the experience of people affected by the work.

Build credibility rather than relying on confidence alone

Confidence can help a leader communicate and decide, but people do not need a leader who simply appears certain.

Credibility is strengthened through:

• Competence
• Integrity
• Consistency
• Follow-through
• Honesty about uncertainty
• Appropriate transparency
• Fair treatment
• Willingness to learn

Be prepared to change

Effective leadership develops over time.

Review not only whether people seem to like your approach but whether it is producing the outcomes the organization needs.

Ask:

• Are decisions improving?
• Are people receiving the information they need?
• Are important problems raised early?
• Are people able to exercise appropriate autonomy?
• Are leaders developing others rather than creating dependence?
• Are conflicts addressed constructively?
• Are people treated fairly?
• Are meetings and decision processes accessible?
• Are staff, volunteers, partners, and community members able to contribute relevant knowledge?
• Is the organization accomplishing its mission sustainably?

When a pattern is not working, identify what needs to change. That may mean changing your own behavior, clarifying responsibilities, improving organizational systems, involving different people, strengthening management, or choosing a different decision process.

Maintain ethical guardrails regardless of style

No leadership style justifies:

• Harassment or discrimination
• Retaliation
• Deception
• Favoritism that violates organizational or legal requirements
• Unsafe practices
• Misuse of confidential information
• Suppression of legitimate concerns
• Avoidance of financial or governance accountability

Style describes how leadership is practiced. Ethics and accountability establish boundaries on what leadership should be permitted to do.

In Summary

Leadership style is the recurring pattern through which a person or leadership group uses authority, communicates, involves others, makes decisions, manages work, responds to uncertainty, and helps people accomplish shared purposes.

Leadership frameworks such as directive, managerial, consultative, collaborative, transactional, transformational, and shared leadership can provide useful ways to examine behavior, but they should not be treated as fixed personality categories or ranked as universally better or worse.

Different circumstances call for different combinations of leadership behavior. Urgency, risk, expertise, decision authority, who is affected, task complexity, organizational history, and the need for implementation all influence the appropriate approach.

Effective leaders also create conditions in which useful information can move upward and across an organization. People should be able to ask questions, raise safety concerns, admit mistakes, disagree respectfully, and contribute relevant expertise without unnecessary fear of retaliation.

Leadership can also be shared. Formal leaders remain accountable for responsibilities attached to their roles, but other people can lead projects, decisions, discussions, and areas of work where they have the appropriate expertise or responsibility.

Developing your leadership therefore does not mean choosing one style and using it everywhere. It means understanding your tendencies, seeking feedback, learning from research and experience, clarifying decision rights, building appropriate management systems, adapting to context, and changing when the results show that another approach would work better.

The most useful question is not simply, "What kind of leader am I?" It is, "What does this situation require, whose knowledge and participation matter, what responsibilities do I hold, and how can I lead in a way that is effective, ethical, accountable, and consistent with our purpose?"

What is leadership style?

___You understand that a leader's style is the way in which she carries out the process of convincing people to pursue particular goals, and to keep them at that task until the goals have been reached.

Why pay attention to leadership style?

___You know that its leader's style usually sets the tone for an organization.

___You know that the style of an organization's leader needs to be consistent with the organization's philosophy and mission if both the leader and the organization are to be effective.

Conceptions and methods of leadership.

___You're familiar with the following conceptions of leadership:

• Exercising power.
• Gaining and exercising the privileges of high status.
• Being the boss.
• Task orientation.
• Taking care of people.
• Empowerment.
• Providing moral leadership.

___You're familiar with the following methods of leadership:

• Pure exercise of power.
• Political scheming.
• Using relationships.
• Setting an example.
• Persuasion.
• Sharing power.
• Charisma.
• Involving followers in the goal.
• Various combinations of these and other methods.

___You understand that a leader's conception(s) of leadership and his preferred method(s) of leading do much to create his leadership style.

Some ways of looking at leadership styles and their effects on an organization

___You can recognize four leadership styles and their effects on an organization :

• Autocratic
• Managerial
• Democratic
• Collaborative

___You understand the difference between transactional and transformational leadership .

___You understand that a transactional or transformational stance can interact with any leadership style.

How do you determine what is an appropriate style?

___You know that different styles are appropriate at different times and in different circumstances.

___You know that a style, to be effective, has to be consistent with the expectations of people in the organization, at least initially.

___You know that a style needs to be consistent with the goals, mission, and philosophy of the organization.

How do you choose and develop a leadership style?

___You start with yourself.

___You think about the needs of the organization or initiative.

___You observe and learn from other leaders.

___You use the research on leadership.

___You believe in what you're doing.

___You are prepared to change.

A Power Point presentation summarizing the major points in the section.

• What are teams and team building?

• What are the advantages and disadvantages of teams?

• When should you build teams?

• What makes a good team?

• How do you build a team?

In sports, talented players do not automatically create an effective team. People also have to understand their roles, coordinate with one another, communicate, adapt, and work toward a shared outcome.

Community work is different from competitive sports in important ways, but the same basic lesson applies: many important tasks depend on several people's knowledge and work fitting together.

Teams can bring together expertise, community knowledge, relationships, practical skills, and perspectives that no one person possesses. They can also create coordination costs, unclear responsibility, conflict, or unnecessary meetings when a team is used for work that one person could accomplish more effectively.

One important task of leadership is therefore not simply putting people into teams, but deciding when teamwork is actually useful and creating the conditions in which people can work together effectively.

What are teams and team building?

What is a team?

A team is an interdependent group of people who coordinate their work toward a shared purpose, outcome, or responsibility.

Many groups share a general goal without functioning as a team. People attending the same coalition meeting, working for the same organization, or supporting the same cause may still perform largely independent work.

Teamwork becomes especially important when:

• One person's work depends on another person's work
• Several kinds of expertise are needed
• Information must move among people for decisions to be accurate
• Work has to be coordinated across roles
• People share responsibility for an outcome

Effective teams generally understand:

• What they are trying to accomplish
• Why the work matters
• What each member is responsible for
• How members' responsibilities depend on one another
• How information and decisions will be shared
• How progress and quality will be assessed

A team does not have to behave like a single person. Members may have different responsibilities, professional obligations, communication styles, schedules, perspectives, and areas of expertise. Healthy teamwork allows those differences to contribute to the work rather than requiring everyone to think or behave alike.

Team success also does not require people to give up appropriate individual recognition. Some accomplishments belong to the group; others depend heavily on the work or expertise of particular members. Good teams recognize both.

What is team building?

Team building is the process of designing and developing the conditions that help people coordinate effectively toward a shared purpose.

That may mean assembling a new team for a particular task or helping an existing group improve how it works.

Team building can involve:

• Defining the team's purpose
• Identifying needed roles and capabilities
• Clarifying responsibilities and authority
• Establishing communication systems
• Developing teamwork skills
• Building trust through reliable work
• Creating ways to raise concerns and resolve conflict
• Making meetings and information accessible
• Reviewing performance and learning from experience

Team building is not synonymous with games, retreats, social events, or bonding exercises. Those activities may sometimes support relationships, but teams are built primarily through repeated experience working together with clear expectations, useful communication, appropriate support, and accountability.

What capabilities does a team need?

The exact combination depends on the work, but teams may need:

• Technical or functional expertise. Knowledge and skills necessary to perform the team's substantive work.
• Problem-solving and decision-making skills. The ability to define problems, examine information, evaluate alternatives, and learn from results.
• Communication and coordination skills. The ability to share relevant information, manage handoffs, communicate uncertainty, and keep dependent work aligned.
• Interpersonal and conflict-management skills. The ability to disagree constructively, give and receive feedback, and address problems without unnecessary personal conflict.
• Adaptability. The ability to respond when circumstances, evidence, or priorities change.
• Self-management. Reliability, appropriate boundaries, organization, and responsibility for agreed work.

Few individuals will excel in every area. The purpose of a team is partly to combine complementary capabilities.

Selecting or assigning people to teams

Where you have a choice about membership, begin with the work rather than with a preferred personality type.

Ask:

• What knowledge and skills are required?
• What community or lived knowledge is relevant?
• Which roles require particular authority or credentials?
• What capacity and availability will members need?
• What different perspectives will help the team understand the problem?
• Can members communicate and work respectfully with the people involved?
• Are important responsibilities unnecessarily concentrated in one person?

Avoid relying heavily on vague judgments about "personality fit," body language, social similarity, or whether a person seems like someone the existing team would naturally like.

People do not have to become friends to work effectively together. They do need to meet legitimate role expectations, communicate respectfully, and be willing to coordinate their work.

In employment settings, selection criteria should be connected with the role and administered consistently with applicable nondiscrimination requirements.

Developing an existing group into a team

Often you do not get to choose the members. An existing staff, coalition, Board, working group, or partnership may need to function more like a team.

In that situation, don't begin by deciding which members have the wrong personalities. Look first at the conditions under which people are being asked to work.

Problems may come from:

• Unclear goals
• Conflicting responsibilities
• Poor information flow
• Unresolved disagreements
• Unequal workload
• Lack of authority
• Missing skills or resources
• Historical mistrust
• Inconsistent supervision
• Competition among programs or organizations

Some team problems are interpersonal, but many are structural. Team-building activities will have limited effect if the actual problem is that two people have been given incompatible responsibilities, no one knows who decides, or the team lacks the resources to accomplish what it has been assigned.

What are the advantages and disadvantages of teams?

Teams can be powerful, but they are not automatically the best way to organize every task.

Potential advantages

• Teams can combine different kinds of expertise. Complex work may require knowledge that no individual possesses.
• Teams can bring more information and perspectives into decisions. This advantage depends on members being able to share and examine what they know rather than simply having diverse information present in the room.
• Teams can coordinate interdependent work. Clear coordination can prevent duplicated effort, gaps, and conflicting actions.
• Team members can learn from one another. Observation, cross-training, feedback, and collaborative problem solving can expand people's capabilities.
• Teams can create backup and resilience. Cross-training and shared knowledge may make the work less dependent on one person.
• Teams can support leadership development. Members can lead projects, meetings, analyses, or particular areas of work according to expertise and responsibility.
• Teams can strengthen implementation. People who help understand a problem and develop a solution may be better prepared to implement it.

Potential disadvantages

• Coordination requires time. Meetings, communication, handoffs, and joint decision-making create overhead.
• Responsibility can become unclear. "The team" should not become a substitute for identifying who actually owns a decision or task.
• Groups can overlook information. Members may withhold concerns, defer too quickly to authority, or assume someone else has already raised an issue.
• Conflict can interfere with the work. Unresolved disagreements about goals, roles, workload, quality, or behavior can consume substantial time.
• Teams can develop groupthink or excessive conformity. Strong cohesion is not always beneficial if members become unwilling to question the group's assumptions.
• Participation can become unequal. Some voices may dominate while others' expertise is ignored.
• Uneven workload can create resentment or burnout.
• Teams can continue after they are no longer needed. Periodically ask whether the work still requires a team.

Team versus working group

Not every group needs to become a highly interdependent team.

A working group may be appropriate when people mainly perform independent tasks, exchange information occasionally, or coordinate only at specific points.

A more integrated team is useful when members depend substantially on one another to produce the result.

The goal is not to turn every committee, department, coalition, or staff group into one tightly bonded unit. It is to use enough coordination and shared responsibility for the work that actually needs to be done.

When should you build teams?

Teams are particularly useful when the work is interdependent, complex, or requires several kinds of expertise.

Consider a team when:

• Several roles must coordinate closely
• The problem crosses professional, organizational, or community boundaries
• Different types of knowledge are necessary
• Implementation requires several people to act consistently
• No single person has enough information or capacity
• Ongoing adaptation requires information from several sources
• Shared ownership is important to the work

A team may be unnecessary when:

• One person can perform the task effectively and independently
• Coordination costs would exceed the value of collaboration
• The work is routine and does not require ongoing joint decisions
• An immediate decision must be made by the person with clear responsibility

Even when one person performs the core task, others may still provide review, implementation, technical expertise, or oversight. The question is how much interdependence the work actually requires.

Examples of useful team applications

• Developing a strategic plan when several groups hold relevant knowledge or responsibility
• Starting a new organization or initiative
• Planning or implementing a new program or intervention
• Building or operating a coalition
• Planning and carrying out a community assessment
• Evaluating an organization, initiative, or intervention when several forms of expertise or stakeholder knowledge are needed
• Planning and conducting advocacy
• Running a fundraising campaign or community event
• Coordinating a complex program or organizational function
• Delivering interprofessional health, education, human-service, or community support
• Managing long-term community development or organizing efforts

What makes a good team?

Effective teams vary considerably. A temporary event-planning team, an emergency-response team, a health-care team, and a community coalition should not be expected to operate in exactly the same way.

Several conditions, however, are useful across many types of teams.

A clear and meaningful purpose

Members need to understand what the team exists to accomplish and how its work connects with the larger organization or community.

Purpose does not require every member to feel the same degree of emotional passion. People can contribute excellent work because they understand their responsibilities and believe the work is worthwhile.

Appropriate composition

The team should collectively possess the knowledge, skills, authority, capacity, and community understanding required by the work.

More individually accomplished members do not automatically create a better team. The important question is whether the team's capabilities match its responsibilities.

Complementary perspectives

Different professional backgrounds, lived experiences, organizational roles, and viewpoints can help a team identify possibilities and risks that a more homogeneous group might miss.

Diversity by itself does not guarantee better decisions. The team also needs conditions that allow people to contribute their different information and have it considered seriously.

Role clarity

Members should know:

• What they own
• What others own
• Where responsibilities overlap
• Which work depends on them
• What they depend on from others
• Who makes which decisions

Clear roles reduce duplication and gaps while still allowing people to help one another when circumstances change.

Useful information sharing

Team members need access to the information required for their responsibilities.

Establish how the team will:

• Share updates
• Document decisions
• Escalate urgent issues
• Manage handoffs
• Store shared information
• Protect confidential information

Do not assume that copying every team member on every message creates good communication. Effective information sharing means the right information reaches the people who need it in a usable form and at the right time.

A shared understanding of the work

Members should have compatible understandings of the team's objectives, roles, major processes, and how their work fits together.

This does not require identical opinions. It means that members understand enough of the same operating picture to coordinate effectively.

Psychological safety

Team members should be able to raise work-related concerns without unnecessary fear of embarrassment, retaliation, or personal punishment.

They should be able to:

• Ask questions
• Admit uncertainty
• Ask for help
• Report mistakes
• Identify safety or quality problems
• Disagree with a more senior person
• Suggest another approach

Psychological safety does not mean that performance standards disappear or that any behavior is acceptable. Accountability and candor should reinforce one another.

Constructive conflict

Good teams do not eliminate disagreement.

They distinguish disagreement about the work from personal attacks and establish ways to examine competing ideas.

Members should know what happens when they cannot reach agreement and who has authority to decide or escalate the issue.

Clear decision processes

Not every decision needs full team consensus.

Depending on the situation, a team may use:

• An accountable leader deciding after consultation
• A delegated subject-matter expert
• Majority or supermajority vote
• Consent
• Consensus

Identify the decision rule before major disagreement occurs.

Leadership appropriate to the work

Some teams have one formal leader. Others distribute leadership among members.

Leadership functions may include:

• Setting or clarifying direction
• Coordinating work
• Facilitating discussion
• Making particular decisions
• Maintaining relationships with other groups
• Providing specialized expertise
• Monitoring quality or safety

Those responsibilities do not necessarily have to belong to the same person.

Mutual accountability

Team members need clear expectations for quality, deadlines, communication, and follow-through.

Accountability should focus on responsibilities and results rather than shame or labels about who is the team's "weak link."

Realistic workload and adequate resources

Team cohesion cannot compensate indefinitely for inadequate staffing, insufficient time, outdated technology, inaccessible systems, or unrealistic workloads.

Teams need the tools, information, training, authority, staffing, and time required to do what they have been assigned.

Learning and adaptation

Effective teams periodically examine what is happening and change when necessary.

They ask:

• What did we expect to happen?
• What actually happened?
• What helped?
• What got in the way?
• What should we do differently next time?

How do you build a team?

Building a team involves much more than selecting members. In many situations, you will be working with an existing group and will have little or no control over membership.

The following guidelines are not a rigid sequence. Different teams will need different emphasis depending on their purpose and history.

Define the work before defining the team

Clarify:

• What outcome the team is responsible for
• Why a team is needed
• What work is inside and outside its scope
• What authority it has
• How long the team is expected to exist

Avoid creating a team because teamwork sounds desirable when responsibilities could be handled more simply by one person or an existing organizational role.

Choose or assign members according to the work

Where membership can be selected, identify the capabilities and perspectives the work requires.

Consider:

• Technical expertise
• Practical experience
• Community and lived knowledge
• Decision-making authority
• Communication and coordination ability
• Capacity and availability
• Ability to work through disagreement
• Relevant professional or legal qualifications

A team benefits from people who can work respectfully together, but do not confuse respectful collaboration with having similar personalities or backgrounds.

Clarify the purpose

Members need a shared understanding of what the team is trying to accomplish.

Depending on the situation, the purpose may come from:

• The organization's mission or strategic plan
• A Board or governing body
• A grant or contract
• A community planning process
• Law or policy
• The team itself

Clarify which parts of the purpose are already established and which the team has authority to shape.

Define roles, dependencies, and authority

Each member should understand:

• Their responsibilities
• Relevant deadlines and standards
• What decisions they can make independently
• When they need consultation or approval
• Who depends on their work
• Which information they need from others

Cross-train where useful so important work does not stop whenever one person is absent.

Establish team norms

Teams benefit from explicit agreements about how they will work together.

Topics may include:

• Respectful communication
• Meeting preparation
• Response-time expectations
• Information sharing
• Confidentiality
• Decision processes
• Conflict resolution
• Giving and receiving feedback
• How concerns are escalated
• Accessibility
• Remote and hybrid participation

Norms should not override organizational policy, employment requirements, safeguarding responsibilities, professional duties, or legitimate complaint procedures.

Create psychological safety

Leaders and team members build psychological safety through repeated behavior.

Useful practices include:

• Asking for concerns before making important decisions
• Responding constructively when someone reports a mistake
• Admitting uncertainty
• Thanking people for raising risks
• Separating disagreement from disrespect
• Avoiding retaliation
• Making clear how serious concerns can be reported

Build relationships through the work

Trust grows when people see that colleagues are competent, honest, reliable, willing to help, and able to follow through.

Optional relationship-building activities may also be useful, but they should fit the team and should not require unnecessary physical activity, personal disclosure, alcohol, after-hours participation, or other conditions that create barriers.

A retreat, shared meal, informal conversation, or social activity may help some teams. Participation outside required work or volunteer duties should not become an unofficial test of commitment or belonging.

Establish communication systems

Decide where different kinds of communication belong.

For example:

• What needs a meeting?
• What can be handled asynchronously?
• Where are decisions recorded?
• Where are current documents stored?
• How are urgent matters communicated?
• Which information is confidential?

Remote and hybrid teams should also clarify:

• Time-zone expectations
• Working-hour boundaries
• Messaging and response expectations
• Camera expectations
• Meeting accessibility
• How decisions made in informal conversations will be documented for people who were not present

Address conflict early and appropriately

Teams do not need to eliminate all conflict.

Address problems such as:

• Unclear or overlapping responsibility
• Unequal workload
• Repeated missed commitments
• Poor communication
• Disrespectful behavior
• Strategic disagreement
• Competition over resources or authority

Some disagreements can be resolved directly among members or with facilitation. Harassment, discrimination, retaliation, threats, safeguarding concerns, or other serious misconduct may require a formal process rather than informal team mediation.

Make disagreement useful

Encourage members to challenge ideas without attacking people.

Ask members to explain:

• What evidence supports their view
• What risk they see
• What assumption they think may be wrong
• What alternative they recommend

Teams sometimes need a person whose role is to question assumptions, review risk, or bring in information from outside the group's usual perspective.

Start with meaningful work

Early work can help members learn how they coordinate and build confidence in one another.

Choose something appropriately scoped and genuinely useful rather than inventing a meaningless task simply to produce an easy win.

Provide the resources people need

Support may include:

• Training
• Appropriate staffing
• Clear supervision
• Technology
• Accessible materials and communication
• Flexible scheduling where possible
• Reliable information
• Appropriate workspace
• Backup coverage
• Time to do the work

Team enthusiasm cannot compensate indefinitely for missing resources or unreasonable workload.

Recognize both team and individual contributions

Celebrate collective accomplishments when the outcome genuinely depended on collective work.

Also recognize individual contributions when someone provided distinctive expertise, solved an important problem, carried additional responsibility, or produced work for which individual attribution matters.

Recognition should be specific and fair rather than based mainly on visibility, seniority, charisma, or closeness to the team leader.

Give useful feedback

Praise and corrective feedback both matter.

Useful feedback is:

• Timely
• Specific
• Connected to observable behavior or results
• Respectful
• Focused on improvement

Don't save needed corrective feedback until a problem becomes serious merely because criticism is uncomfortable.

Review the team's work regularly

After significant activities, consider an after-action review or retrospective.

Ask:

• What were we trying to accomplish?
• What happened?
• What worked?
• What did not?
• What information did we miss?
• Did our roles and communication work?
• What should we change next time?

The purpose is learning, not automatically finding someone to blame. Accountability may still be necessary when standards were knowingly ignored or harmful conduct occurred.

Evaluate how the team itself is functioning

Periodically examine:

• Progress toward the team's objectives
• Quality of work
• Role clarity
• Information sharing
• Coordination
• Workload
• Psychological safety
• Conflict
• Accessibility and participation
• Stakeholder or community experience
• Whether members have the needed resources

Ask whether the current structure is still useful. Teams may need to add expertise, change roles, revise processes, or sometimes stop operating altogether.

Close temporary teams deliberately

A project team should not simply disappear after the final task.

Before closing:

• Confirm that agreed work is complete
• Transfer unfinished responsibilities
• Document important decisions and lessons
• Transfer files, records, credentials, or relationships appropriately
• Recognize contributions
• Identify any follow-up responsibilities

In Summary

A team is more than several people assigned to the same project. Teamwork becomes important when people are interdependent and need to coordinate their knowledge, decisions, responsibilities, and actions to accomplish a shared purpose.

Teams can combine expertise, perspectives, community knowledge, and capacity in ways that individuals cannot. They can also create coordination costs, conflict, unclear responsibility, unequal workload, conformity, and unnecessary meetings. Use a team when the work genuinely benefits from interdependence.

Strong teams generally have a clear purpose, complementary capabilities, role clarity, useful information sharing, appropriate decision processes, psychological safety, constructive conflict, adequate resources, accountability, and the ability to learn and adapt.

Team building is therefore not mainly about finding people with matching personalities or organizing bonding activities. It is the ongoing work of designing responsibilities, communication, authority, relationships, resources, and learning processes so that people's contributions can fit together effectively.

Good teams also preserve individual judgment. Members should be able to question assumptions, raise risks, admit mistakes, and disagree with one another without being treated as disloyal to the group.

Finally, team effectiveness should be evaluated rather than assumed. Review both what the team accomplishes and how it accomplishes it. Good team design improves the conditions for success, but no team structure can guarantee the outcome.

___You know that a team is a group of people with a commitment to one another, to the team, to a high level of achievement, to a common goal, and to a common vision.

___You know that team members need three kinds of skills:

• Technical
• Problem-solving
• Interpersonal

___You pay attention to how people fit together.

What are the advantages and disadvantages of teams?

___You know that advantages include:

• A team broadens what individuals can do.
• Several heads mean a wider range of ideas.
• Teams can have a greater array of talents and skills than can be found in a single individual.
• Team members learn new skills from their colleagues.
• Teamwork is more efficient than a number of individuals working singly.
• Teamwork provides relief when someone's having a problem.
• The fact that each member knows he's responsible to others works to make him more effective.
• A team member has more ownership of what she's doing.
• Good teams can build leaders.
• A shared vision keeps everyone moving forward.

___You know that disadvantages include:

• Team decision-making takes longer than individual decision-making.
• Depending on the task or problem, team effort can be wasted effort.
• The team's success may hang on the work of the weakest or least effective team member.
• Once a team gets rolling in a particular direction, even if it's the wrong direction, it develops momentum.
• The work of teams can bog down in interpersonal issues, resentments, and blame.
• Once team members are bonded and committed to one another, they may be reluctant to tell others when their work is unsatisfactory, or to point out that the team isn't getting anywhere.
• Individuals on the team may lose motivation because of the lack of recognition for the value of their work.

When should you build a team?

___You know the guidelines for when a team is more effective than individuals working alone:

• People have the skills to tackle the task at hand.
• The task requires the complementary skills of a number of people.
• The task specifically requires several people.
• The success of the task is not based on the performance of the weakest team member.
• Team members have experience working in teams.
• The perceived importance of the task is high.
• Group commitment to the task is high.

___You recognize times when teams might work well:

• Creating a strategic plan for addressing community issues.
• Starting up a new organization or initiative.
• Starting a new program or intervention within an organization or initiative.
• Starting a coalition.
• Planning and carrying out a community assessment.
• Evaluating an organization, initiative, or intervention.
• Spearheading an advocacy campaign with a specific goal.
• Running a fundraising event or campaign.
• Staffing and running an organization or initiative.
• Engaging in ongoing advocacy.
• Performing a particular function within a community program or initiative.
• Changing the community over the long term.

What makes a good team?

___You're familiar with the Rules for Great Groups from Bennis and Biederman:

• Greatness starts with superb people.
• Great Groups and great leaders create each other.
• Every Great Group has a strong leader.
• Leaders of Great Groups love talent and know where to find it.
• Great Groups are full of talented people who can work together.
• Great Groups think they are on a mission from God.
• Every Great Group is an island -- but an island with a bridge to the mainland.
• Great Groups see themselves as winning underdogs.
• Great Groups always have an enemy.
• People in Great Groups usually have blinders on.
• Great Groups are optimistic, not realistic.
• In Great Groups, the right person has the right job.
• The leaders of Great Groups give them what they need and free them from the rest.
• Great Groups ship (deliver real tangible results).
• Great work is its own reward.

How do you build groups?

Choosing a team:

___You start with the best people you can find.

___You choose team members so they'll have a good fit.

___You look for members with a diversity of backgrounds and perspectives.

___You look for members with a commitment to the concept of working as a team.

___You look for team members committed to the team's guiding vision.

___You find people with a sense of humor.

Building a team:

___You start with the vision.

___You build team bonds.

___You make sure the concept of a team is absolutely clear.

___You involve the team in jointly planning how it will function, and what the team and each of its members will do.

___You address personal issues.

___You establish team norms.

___You hash out the logistics of working as a team.

___You start the team with a task that is both doable and requires teamwork to accomplish.

___On a regular basis, you go back over both successes and failures to understand what happened and learn for the future.

___You provide both individual and team support.

___You give people something extra for working as a team.

___You reward accomplishments like crazy.

Example #1: Building leadership within historically marginalized populations

In Finney County, Kansas, where over half the population is Latinx, women and people of color have historically been underrepresented in local leadership, with decisions often made by a small, non-diverse group. To promote community decision-making that reflects everyone’s needs, LiveWell Finney County focused on expanding leadership opportunities and gender equity, especially for Latinx women.
With support from the Kansas Health Foundation, LiveWell hosted an on-site Latinx leadership training in Finney County. They worked with Tyson plant leadership to make it possible for shift workers to attend, and further removed barriers by providing childcare and food for attendees and their families. Recruitment was supported by local promotoras and trusted community partners to ensure strong community participation.
 

A Power Point presentation summarizing the major points in the section.

• What is service-learning?

• What is a community leadership corps?

• Why develop a community leadership corps?

• When is a good time to develop a community leadership corps?

• Who should be involved in developing a community leadership corps?

• How do you go about developing a community leadership corps?

What is service-learning?

Service-learning is an educational approach that connects meaningful community work with intentional learning. Participants apply knowledge and skills in real settings, contribute to work identified with community partners, reflect on what they experience, and connect that experience with academic, professional, civic, or leadership goals.

Service-learning can take many forms, but high-quality experiences generally include:

• Meaningful service or community-engaged work
• Clearly defined learning goals
• Preparation and orientation
• Collaboration with community partners
• Appropriate participant voice in planning and carrying out the experience
• Ongoing supervision and support
• Structured reflection
• Assessment of both learning and community benefit

Service-learning is more than sending students or young people somewhere to volunteer. The educational purpose and community purpose should be connected intentionally.

Participants may receive academic credit, wages, a stipend, another form of support, or participate as genuine volunteers depending on the program. Those arrangements should be determined before the work begins and should comply with applicable employment, education, and volunteer requirements.

For example, a school might partner with a community organization so students can help analyze neighborhood environmental data while learning research and civic-engagement skills. A college course might work with a local nonprofit to evaluate a program, develop communication materials, conduct community outreach, or support another project identified with the host organization.

What is a community leadership corps?

A community leadership corps is one model of service-learning in which students or other developing leaders spend a defined period working with community organizations or initiatives.

Programs may use other names, such as:

• Community-engaged learning program
• Community fellowship
• Service-learning placement program
• Youth leadership program
• Community-based field experience

Participants may work during a summer, academic term, school year, or another defined period. Placements may be in person, virtual, or hybrid when the work and supervision make that appropriate.

The experience should provide participants with meaningful responsibilities while giving host organizations useful support. It should not treat participants as temporary replacement staff or give inexperienced participants responsibilities beyond their preparation and supervision.

The relationships created through a placement may continue beyond the formal program. Participants may remain involved as volunteers, employees, community members, researchers, mentors, or partners, and host organizations may continue collaborating with the educational institution or coordinating organization.

Why develop a community leadership corps?

A well-designed program can benefit participants, host organizations, educational institutions, and communities.

It may:

• Provide meaningful experience applying knowledge in real settings
• Develop leadership, communication, teamwork, problem-solving, and professional skills
• Strengthen civic knowledge and community engagement
• Help participants understand community strengths, challenges, institutions, and systems
• Create pathways into community-based careers or future volunteer leadership
• Strengthen partnerships among schools, colleges, community organizations, public agencies, and other institutions
• Bring useful participant energy, skills, and perspectives to community projects
• Help organizations complete appropriately scoped projects
• Give community organizations opportunities to help educate future practitioners and leaders
• Connect academic or professional learning with community knowledge and experience

These benefits are not automatic. A placement that provides little supervision, assigns meaningless work, displaces paid staff, exposes participants to avoidable risk, or creates more work for the host than value can fail both as education and as community service.

When is a good time to develop a community leadership corps?

Develop a program when you have enough organizational and community capacity to provide worthwhile placements.

Useful conditions include:

• Clear learning and community-engagement goals
• Strong potential host partnerships
• Staff time for program coordination
• Resources for training and supervision
• A plan for participant safety and support
• Appropriate compensation or volunteer arrangements
• Accessible participation
• A system for reflection and evaluation

An existing strategic plan can help identify community priorities and partner organizations, but a program does not need to wait for a particular stage of organizational development if the necessary partnerships and support are already in place.

Who should be involved in developing a community leadership corps?

Strong partnerships are central to the program.

Depending on the model, planning may involve:

• Schools, colleges, universities, or training programs
• Community-based and nonprofit organizations
• Public agencies
• Youth-serving organizations
• Community members
• Students and prospective participants
• Workforce-development programs
• Foundations or funders
• Businesses or other organizations when an appropriate educational and legal arrangement exists

Participants themselves should have a meaningful voice in program design. They can help identify what preparation they need, what community issues matter to them, what barriers might prevent participation, and what kinds of experiences would support their learning.

Community partners should also help define what useful service looks like. A placement should respond to real organizational or community priorities rather than assuming that any student project will automatically be helpful.

How do you go about developing a community leadership corps?

Secure appropriate resources and organizational support

Even a small program requires time and coordination.

Possible resource needs include:

• Program coordination
• Participant compensation or stipends where applicable
• Training
• Host supervision
• Transportation
• Technology
• Accessibility services
• Background or other screening where required
• Insurance or risk-management support
• Materials
• Evaluation

Funding may come from educational institutions, host organizations, foundations, public agencies, grants, donors, community organizations, or other sources.

Don't design an unpaid program simply because funding is limited. Determine first whether the proposed arrangement legally and ethically supports unpaid service or whether participants should be treated as employees or paid interns.

Clarify participant status and compensation

Before recruiting participants, determine what kind of arrangement you are offering.

Participants may be:

• Students receiving academic credit
• Paid employees
• Paid interns or fellows
• Stipended participants
• Volunteers serving nonprofit, civic, religious, or community purposes where applicable

The title alone does not determine the legal arrangement. Consider the actual work, host organization, educational connection, compensation, participant expectations, supervision, and applicable federal and state requirements.

For minors, determine what work and schedule are legally permitted for their age and whether state law imposes additional requirements.

Identify and prepare host organizations

Hosts should be selected because they can provide meaningful learning and responsible supervision, not simply because they need additional labor.

Assess whether a potential host can provide:

• Appropriate projects and responsibilities
• A designated supervisor
• Necessary training
• Safe working conditions
• Accessible participation
• Appropriate technology and equipment
• Clear confidentiality and data-handling practices
• Emergency procedures
• A respectful environment
• Time for feedback and reflection

If minors participate, also determine whether the host has appropriate youth-safety policies, supervision, transportation procedures, screening practices where required, and procedures for responding to concerns.

Explain the educational purpose of the program. Hosts should understand that their responsibility is not simply to assign work but also to help participants understand why the work matters and what they are learning.

Identify meaningful host needs and projects

Work with each host to identify projects that are useful to the organization and appropriate for participants.

Ask:

• What real organizational or community need would the participant address?
• What would the participant learn?
• Is the scope realistic for the placement period?
• What knowledge or training is required?
• Who will supervise the work?
• What decisions may the participant make?
• What information or systems will they access?
• Are there safety, privacy, accessibility, or legal concerns?

Avoid two extremes. Participants should not spend most of the placement doing repetitive tasks with little educational value, but they also should not be given complex responsibilities for which they have not been prepared.

Participants can perform routine work as part of learning how an organization functions, but the overall experience should include substantive opportunities to learn and contribute.

Recruit participants broadly

Use recruitment methods that reach more than the students who already have the strongest academic records, professional networks, or extracurricular résumés.

Possible recruitment channels include:

• School and college websites
• Academic and career advising
• Community organizations
• Youth programs
• Workforce-development programs
• Student organizations
• Community and professional networks
• Email and social media
• Direct outreach to people who may not already see themselves as likely applicants

Make program information and the application process accessible.

Explain:

• Who is eligible
• What participants will do
• The expected schedule
• Compensation or academic credit
• Transportation expectations
• Accessibility and accommodation procedures
• Selection criteria
• Key dates

Use fair and relevant selection criteria

Not every successful participant will have the highest grades or the most extensive résumé.

Depending on the program, useful criteria might include:

• Interest in community work
• Reliability
• Relevant experience or knowledge
• Interest in learning
• Ability to meet the placement schedule
• Communication skills
• Readiness for the responsibilities involved

Consider what participants could become capable of with reasonable training and support, not only what they have already had an opportunity to demonstrate.

At the same time, do not place someone into responsibilities for which they cannot yet be prepared safely. Developmental opportunity should be matched with appropriate supervision.

Request only the application information needed to make the selection. Different programs may use an application, résumé, short statement, interview, reference, transcript, or other materials, but every requirement should have a clear purpose.

Identify participant interests, goals, and support needs

Talk with participants about:

• Issues they care about
• Skills they want to develop
• Career or educational goals
• Communities or types of organizations they want to learn about
• Previous experience
• Schedule and transportation
• Accessibility or other support needs

Don't use interviews to judge private values, personality, or willingness to defer to authority when those characteristics are not relevant to the placement.

Protect information collected during recruitment and placement. Educational institutions and hosts should determine what student information may appropriately be shared and how it will be protected.

Train participants

Preparation should reflect the work participants will actually perform.

General orientation may address:

• Program purpose
• Participant roles and responsibilities
• Community engagement and leadership
• Respectful communication
• Working across differences
• Community strengths and context
• Professional boundaries
• Confidentiality and privacy
• Data and technology security
• Harassment and discrimination policies
• Accessibility
• Conflict resolution
• Safety and emergency procedures
• How to report concerns
• Reflection and learning expectations

Programs serving minors should include age-appropriate information about youth safety, transportation, contact with adults or clients, prohibited work, emergency procedures, and how to get help.

Host organizations should then provide role-specific onboarding before participants begin substantive work.

A participant creating a website, conducting interviews, working with confidential records, organizing a public event, supporting clients, or handling data will need different training.

Match participants with host organizations

A good placement should align several factors:

• Participant learning goals and interests
• Host needs
• Participant skills and readiness
• Quality of supervision available
• Schedule
• Transportation
• Accessibility
• Location
• Technology needs
• Safety and confidentiality requirements

Where practical, let the participant meet the potential supervisor and learn about the proposed work before accepting the placement.

Don't match participants primarily according to perceived personality or whether they seem naturally suited to the host organization's culture. Clear expectations and good supervision matter more than personality similarity.

Examples of appropriate projects might include helping analyze community survey data, developing accessible outreach materials, supporting a neighborhood event, conducting background research for a policy initiative, updating a resource directory, assisting with program evaluation, creating digital communications, or supporting a community-engagement project.

Projects should be designed around actual community and organizational needs and the participant's level of preparation.

Develop a written service-learning agreement

The participant, host, and coordinating program should understand the arrangement before work begins.

A written agreement may include:

• Learning objectives
• Project responsibilities and deliverables
• Participant status and compensation or credit
• Schedule and placement duration
• Host supervision responsibilities
• Coordinator responsibilities
• Training requirements
• Accessibility arrangements
• Transportation responsibilities
• Confidentiality and privacy
• Data and system access
• Safety requirements
• Communication and check-in procedures
• How concerns will be reported
• How progress will be evaluated
• Procedures for changing or ending the placement

Participants should have meaningful input into their own learning goals and responsibilities.

Monitor, support, and supervise participants

Experiential learning requires regular support.

The frequency and form of supervision should reflect:

• Participant age and experience
• Complexity of the work
• Safety and confidentiality risks
• Length of the placement
• Educational requirements

Regular check-ins give participants an opportunity to:

• Review progress
• Ask questions
• Receive feedback
• Discuss challenges
• Connect experience with learning goals
• Raise concerns about supervision, workload, safety, or treatment

Participants should also know how to reach someone between scheduled meetings if an urgent concern arises.

Program coordinators should communicate regularly with host supervisors as well. The purpose is not simply to ask whether the host is satisfied with the participant. Ask whether the project remains appropriate, whether supervision is adequate, what the participant is learning, and whether either side needs changes or additional support.

Site visits or virtual check-ins can help coordinators understand the actual placement environment and identify problems that may not be obvious through written reports.

Create safe ways to report concerns

Participants should not have to rely only on their immediate host supervisor when a problem involves that supervisor or organization.

Establish a way to report:

• Harassment or discrimination
• Unsafe work
• Inappropriate supervision
• Confidentiality or privacy concerns
• Requests to perform prohibited or inappropriate work
• Excessive or substantially different responsibilities
• Other serious problems

Explain what will happen after a report is made and what confidentiality can and cannot be provided.

Support reflection throughout the experience

Reflection turns experience into learning.

It can occur during and after the placement through:

• Individual reflection
• Group discussion
• Journals
• Portfolios
• Presentations
• Project logs
• Case discussions
• Structured supervision

Reflection should go beyond asking whether participants enjoyed the experience or what they would do differently next time.

Questions might include:

• What did I learn?
• What assumptions changed?
• What did community partners teach me?
• What strengths did I observe in the community?
• What systems or policies shaped the issue?
• How did power or professional roles affect the work?
• What ethical questions arose?
• What effect did our work actually have?
• What would I need to learn before taking on greater responsibility?

If journals or other reflections are submitted to supervisors or educators, tell participants clearly who will read them and what privacy they should expect.

Use approved communication and collaboration systems for participant support rather than assuming personal email or informal social-media channels are appropriate for sensitive placement information.

Evaluate progress during the placement

Don't wait until the experience ends to discover that the placement is not working.

Review:

• Learning objectives
• Project progress
• Quality of supervision
• Workload
• Participant well-being
• Accessibility
• Transportation
• Host needs
• Safety
• Whether responsibilities remain appropriate

Revise the agreement when the scope or learning goals change substantially.

Evaluate community benefit as well as student learning

A service-learning program should not judge success only by what participants learned.

Ask hosts and community partners:

• Was the participant's work useful?
• Did the project address a genuine organizational or community priority?
• Was the supervision burden reasonable?
• Did the participant have enough preparation?
• Were community members treated respectfully?
• Were there unintended negative effects?
• What should change before another placement?

Participants should also be asked whether the host provided a meaningful, safe, accessible, and educational experience.

Close the placement carefully

At the end of the placement:

• Complete or hand off unfinished work
• Transfer agreed files and materials
• Return organizational property
• Remove system and account access that is no longer needed
• Protect or delete confidential information appropriately
• Review learning goals and outcomes
• Collect participant and host feedback
• Clarify whether any continuing relationship is expected

Recognize contributions

Recognition can help participants and partners reflect on what was accomplished and acknowledge the time and effort involved.

Recognition might include:

• A closing gathering
• Certificates
• Participant presentations
• A public showcase
• Letters of recognition
• A digital project portfolio
• An informal thank-you event

Choose an approach appropriate to the participants, budget, community, and accessibility needs. A formal banquet is not necessary for a meaningful closing.

When publicizing participant accomplishments, obtain appropriate permission before sharing names, photographs, personal stories, or placement information.

Evaluate and improve the program

After each cycle, review the overall program.

Consider:

• Whether participants achieved the intended learning outcomes
• Whether hosts received useful contributions
• Whether community partners considered the work relevant and respectful
• Whether participants received appropriate supervision
• Whether selection procedures created unnecessary barriers
• Whether placements were accessible
• Whether transportation or financial costs limited participation
• Whether compensation and participant status were handled appropriately
• Whether safety, harassment, privacy, or other concerns arose
• Whether any placement displaced work that should have been performed by paid staff
• What changes should be made before the next group begins

In Summary

Service-learning connects community work with intentional education. A community leadership corps or similar placement program can help participants develop practical skills, civic knowledge, leadership capacity, professional judgment, and stronger understanding of community life while contributing useful work to host organizations.

Strong programs are reciprocal. They are designed not only around what students can learn but also around what community partners identify as useful and appropriate.

Effective programs require more than finding students and placing them with organizations. Coordinators need to establish suitable partnerships, determine participant status and compensation, recruit fairly, create meaningful projects, provide training, address accessibility and safety, protect information, support supervisors, monitor placements, provide ways to report concerns, and create structured opportunities for reflection.

Programs involving minors require additional attention to supervision, transportation, youth-employment restrictions, safeguarding, emergency procedures, and other applicable requirements.

Finally, evaluate both sides of the experience. Participants should gain meaningful learning and development, and host organizations and communities should receive work that is useful, respectful, and responsibly carried out. When both learning and community benefit are built into the design from the beginning, service-learning can become a strong way to develop future community leadership while contributing to current community work.

What is service-learning?

___Service-learning is an educational method that emphasizes learning through community service

What is a community leadership corps?

___A community leadership corps connects students with an organization or initiative in his or her community

Why develop a community leadership corps?

___Provide educational experience for students

___Teach positive values, leadership, citizenship, and personal responsibility

___Encourage students to become active community members

___Teach job skills to students

___Contribute your outreach efforts to local community, the state, and beyond

___Increase school-community collaboration

___Help with community education

___Contribute many hours of service to people in need, non-profit agencies, private sector companies, and governmental agencies

When is a good time to develop a community leadership corps?

___A community leadership corps may be most useful for you after your organization has created its strategic plan and developed relationships with strategic partners

Who should be involved in developing a community leadership corps?

___The institution or organization that recruits and supports the students or youth

___The individual organizations where the students or youth will be placed

How do you go about developing a community leadership corps?

___If possible, secure resources and support

___Identify host organizations and any additional partners

___Identify host organization needs

___Recruit students

___Identify student interests

___Train students

___Match students with host organizations

___Monitor and support students during their placements

___Allow students, hosts, and sponsors to reflect on the experience

___Celebrate!

Example #1: A Corps Participant's Weekly Journal Entry

Each participant writes an entry for his or her Critical Reflection Journal. Each week's entry is prepared before the end of the week (1-2 double-spaced typed pages total). A journal entry consists of weekly comments on an idea important for building healthy communities, overall reflections on problems or challenges in carrying out the work, and overall how insights from the ideas could be used to improve your efforts to build healthy communities.

A copy of each journal entry has to be faxed or emailed to the director by the end of each week. Each journal entry is reviewed by the director and returned the following week. Participants are encouraged to use a loose leaf binder to store journal entries for the summer.

The following is an excerpt from one participant's journal.

Through my second week at the initiative, I have discovered that each of the tasks, or activities, performed by the staff members, as well as myself, is a small building block through which wide and encompassing visions are established. I began the week completing the county substance use report. The work was very involved, and at many times seemed tedious, but I have begun to see the value of this very time consuming process. These substance use reports were composed of carefully selected data from a huge bulk of information, gathered through surveys and compiled into thick, heavy, notebooks. Each of the county notebooks contained a wealth of information, including an enormous amount of statistics that could be extremely useful in defining and analyzing community problems, yet they were so very cumbersome.

The staff members of the initiative were quite familiar with the facts presented within the notebooks and the areas of concern pertaining to substance use within the community, yet the task of distributing this data was nearly impossible. The initiative needed something that would simplify the process of informing a mass number of people about the significant facts pertaining to youth within the community. These substance use reports, which I spent so many hours forming, would be used in many group meetings and discussions, programs, and grant requests. The single sheet of paper would help to educate and influence, while proceeding toward an action plan to better the situations defined through the data.

Besides the extensive work with the substance use reports, I attended and recorded the city prevention coalition meeting that was held in a conference room of the initiative. The coalition is formed of representatives from various prevention organizations, such as county regional prevention centers, MADD, and court services. I was impressed with the proficiency and involvement of the meeting. All of the individuals present were very informative, flexible, and committed. Each representative volunteered services and was engaged within the coalition's goals and task at hand. At this particular meeting, the organization of a workshop pertaining to methamphetamines was intensively discussed.

Towards the end of the week, I was asked to observe an educational program taught by Barbara, one of the initiative's staff members, at the county juvenile detention center. The class focused on the harmful effects of alcohol. I was amazed at the behavior of many of the, youth whom attended the class, as I was admirable of Barbara's patience and collected manner in which she spoke. Although there were many guards within the room, the juveniles often blurted out inappropriate comments or personal testimonies, made fun of others who asked questions, or simply ignored Barbara altogether. However, I watched with appreciation as Barbara tried to help change the views of many of these individuals. They will never make any improvement if they are not exposed to the harmful consequences of their behavior as well as to the healthy alternatives to these behaviors. These youth are still quite young and can definitely turn their lives around. It may be an extremely difficult change in direction, yet there is a tremendous amount of hope and possibility that they will each progress.

Lastly, I was also invited to attend a town meeting in Anytown. This was very beneficial to me, as I am not quite familiar with small towns and the order in which they are run and organized. I found the issues discussed and the opinions of the attendees very interesting. Even though Anytown is a much smaller community than I am used to, I found that they are faced with many of the same problems, such as substance use and poor communication between adults and youth. However, the methods suggested to improve these situations were somewhat different from that which might work within larger communities. I found that because all communities are different, there is no best way to approach a problem. Each issue should be viewed and addressed as contextual.

Example #2: Interview with Wendy Wilson

Wendy Wilson is the Director of Rosedale Development Associates (RDA). She has been working with RDA for eight years. RDA served as a host organization for the Kansas Community Leadership Corps in the summer of 1999. RDA is a neighborhood revitalization organization in the Kansas City, Kansas metro area.

CTB: What interested you in becoming a host organization for the Kansas Community Leadership Corps?

Wilson: We need all the hearts we can get to help us do what we are trying to do in this community which is to improve the community and make it more livable-- safe from crime, economically viable, helping people fix their homes, those kind of things. So, any opportunity I have to have someone else involved, I'm going to reach out for that. And also it was an opportunity to mentor and develop other people to do the work that we do which is important. There's nothing that tells people how to do it, you just have to jump in and do it.

CTB: So it gives you an opportunity to learn how to do the work hands on. Could you tell me about your Leadership Corps member and what she did during her placement with your organization?

Wilson: Her name was Erica Swanholm. And the same day that I got the call about Erica coming here, I also got a call from the Board of Public Utilities here locally and they were going to make a grant to us to have a summer youth employment program. We, we're pretty much a two-person office: myself and then a staff secretary. And my fear was how in the world are we going to get this done, how are we going to manage this program, this is not something we had planned. And we had to get this program up and running within two weeks. And so I said, "Erica, have I got a deal for you" and turned it over to her. So she ran that program very, very well. We did interviews with youth, we found job placements for youth and their parents that were in their area of interest if we could. We ended up being able to pay twenty-two youth and then another thirty youth were tutored over the summer. So we impacted fifty-two youth.

CTB: Was the tutoring some sort of apprenticeship or actual tutoring?

Wilson: No, like school. They taught math and other subjects. They were young kids. Some of the students that we hired worked in a program where they tutor younger children in reading and math, those kind of things. We had Erica come in and fill out an application form; she also met with the employers... Most of these youths were from fourteen to sixteen, and we had a couple that were eighteen. And some of them worked in area businesses, like a veterinary hospital and a printer.

CTB: How did you advertise?

Wilson: We had no time to really advertise. What we did was call up some people that I knew had been active with youth projects in our community and had them put the word out for us to the youth in the area, and that was great. We had plenty of youth, we had a diverse group. We ended up sharing some of our money with the neighboring community which is Argentine. Our youth were African-American, Hispanic, Latino, and Anglo-American. We didn't plan it that way, but our community is diverse enough and communication is diverse enough we ended up that way.

So it was a wonderful program. Erica did the payment scale, made sure they got their paycheck legally, figured out their timesheets, dealt with their employers and with the students. We also had a couple of sessions where all the students got together and talked about issues of drug and alcohol usage and avoidance and other issues that they wanted to talk about.

CTB: Was it modeled after any other program?

Wilson: Nope. It was out of my head. But we thought it would be good for the kids in getting them ready to be active members of the workforce down the road. Erica also organized a Paint a Barrel project. We had decided before she came an to do an Adopt a Barrel where neighbors adopt a fifty-five gallon trash barrel, put it out in a high traffic area, and they're responsible for changing the bags out when it's full and putting it in the back.

We had families who wanted to adopt the barrels but we didn't have the actual barrels yet--so Erica also organized that and then the playground across from our office. We had I think it was twenty-six youths that came, some with parents, on a Saturday morning to do artwork on the trash barrels. Erica also brought in an artist from Manny Rhodes Center, which is a local non-for-profit group, and the artist worked with some of the kids. She went to the library and got books for the kids to get some ideas about what they wanted to do. We went and bought the materials because I had some money for that. And the kids had a wonderful time. There was paint everywhere, but they had a wonderful time and it really developed a sense of pride. Now the barrels are out in the community--it was a sense of kind of bringing them in and now when they go by the barrels they painted they see they're a part of our community--instead of doing an art project that you can just go home and hang on the wall, this is something that's now out in the community.

CTB: You definitely make an investment in the aesthetics of the community if you have a piece of it that you can see.

Wilson: Erica also worked with a student who couldn't figure out what she wanted to do, but she had considered writing. So Erica worked with her to develop a youth newsletter that we've since had published. And was distributed through the local schools.

CTB: What benefits does your organization receive as a host for the Kansas Community Leadership Corps?

Wilson: Well, it would have been very difficult for us to have summer youth employment. I really don't know how we would have done that program without someone from Kansas Community Leadership Corps.

CTB: So will it be continued next summer?

Wilson: Well, this was the first time (for the summer job program). But it was so successful with us and other groups they did it with that they are making it year -round starting in January, although I think the focus still will be summer. And they've increased the monies a little bit. So we would love to have another volunteer from the leadership corps' It was wonderful having her here. She still is in contact with the President of my board and the community police officer here. I think we made a long-term relationship here. And we did a lot of things. It isn't a large agency--it's a very small, very intimate group of people and she got to see all the people from the community that would walk in and need help.

CTB: What advice would you have for someone who works with an organization similar to yours who is thinking about getting involved in hosting a leadership corps participant?

Wilson: What advice would I have for them? Do it. I mean, it was such a wonderful experience. Erica is really bright, and very mature. She just took it over with little direction, was very creative. It was wonderful.

CTB: I think it's a great opportunity for everybody involved. You really get a chance to benefit from the help of apprenticing somebody to get involved in the work first hand.

Wilson: Erica was struggling with what she wants to do in graduate school. She had three or four areas, so I set up interviews with her, several, in those areas. She met with the Dean of the School of Social Welfare at KU, she met with the city administrator here and she talked with to another gentleman who is in urban planning. And so she got to sit down with them and talk to them about what those jobs entail are the areas she was thinking of going into, and I think she also got a good idea of what sort of thing she doesn't want to do as well.

Example #3: Interview with Vicki Collie

Vicki Collie was a participant in the Kansas Community Leadership Corps in the summer of 1998.

CTB: What interested you in participating in the Kansas Community Leadership Corps?

Collie: I think that my interest was rooted in the fact that I always wanted to work in an RPC--since high school. That's what I was going to school to do: to work in a regional prevention center.

CTB:What organization did you work with and what did you do there?

Collie: I worked at the Johnson, Miami, and Leavenworth Regional Prevention Centers and I did many different things. One of the things I did was I designed a resource manual that was distributed around 54 sites in Johnson County.

Another thing was when the secretary of Health and Human Services designed a program called Girl Power that was being being implemented in Johnson County. The neat thing about Girl Power is that every community can use it any way they want. And Johnson County had decided to do an essay contest, and so I designed a day-planner that could be distributed that was designed to reinforce girls' abilities and accentuate the strengths of being a girl.

I went to the juvenile detention center every other Thursday and observed the discussions that went all around drug and alcohol abuse prevention there, and I was a model for the Kansas Anti-Tobacco Coalition on one of their billboard campaigns.

CTB: Nice!

Collie: Yeah, so, I think that was a pretty unique experience for the leadership corps. (Laughs).

CTB: What sort of skills did you learn or improve on during your placement?

Collie: I learned a lot about community interventions. I don't think I had the knowledge of how vastly a community can work together. And I learned a lot, I mean a lot, about alcohol and drug abuse prevention, which is exactly what I wanted to learn. I learned about risk factors and protective factors and then also strength -based practices.

CTB: Was the community mobilized on its own or did you do a lot with mobilizing the community or building on the foundation?

Collie: Actually, I forgot to tell you one of the things I did. I worked with Merriam, Kansas. They had a coalition there that was really unique. About 3 years before I started working there they had a shooting that killed two kids at the swimming pool, and they were kids from the inner-city part of Kansas City, and the whole community pretty much detested kids after that. It was very strange; they were not trusting at all! So there was this coalition that the RPC was helping lead that was working to promote good relationships between the adults and children. So I worked with that coalition a little and we did do some mobilization in terms of trying to get different events that would bring adults and be trans-generational events. So, that's what I did, and it was really nice to see the community come together on that one.

CTB: Do you think the relations between the adults and kids have improved?

Collie: I think so, yeah, you could see definite changes. One of the things we did was we hosted painting parties. For example, we painted a house that was going to be used by developmentally-disabled people in Merriam and then the house of an elderly gentlemen who couldn't do it himself and stood to get fined by the city if he didn't paint his house.

CTB: That's wonderful!

Collie: It was really nice to see parents and their children and other parents and other children working together on that project--then one of the things that we wanted to do was have a pool party, and the pool was exactly where the shooting happened.

CTB: That must have been really high emotion.

Collie: Right. It almost didn't get passed because there were just too many concerns of safety issues and our country has seen more shootings of this sort and everything. Anyway, it got passed, which was a really big achievement because it said a lot about how the community is beginning to restore its faith in the youth.

CTB:What do you see as the benefits your host organization received for taking part in the corps?

Collie: I think that they had extra people power for one, and I think they also liked getting a different point of view--I was 18 at the time. I think I carried a different perspective, and I think that in teaching me they developed a sort of critical consciousness of what they were doing. The whole point of the resource manual and the reason why I designed it was because they kept telling me how in Johnson County they had the money to do tons of different programs, but they couldn't get the people to come to them. The knowledge wasn't getting out. So the idea of the resource manual was to take the information on all the programs that were available to the people--put in waiting rooms and employee break rooms and so on.

CTB: Is there anything that you'd like to add?

Collie: Hmm... I think that one of the things that I really valued about the leadership corps is that I got to meet some amazing professionals that were very influential in my understanding of community development and drug and alcohol abuse prevention. It was completely invaluable to me. I really enjoyed myself, and I learned so much !

Example #4: Kansas Community Leadership Corps 1999 Recognition Dinner Program

Kansas Community Leadership Corps Recognition Dinner 7:00 p.m. Tuesday, October 5, 1999 The Eldridge Hotel Lawrence, KS   Engaging future generations of leaders in creating healthy communities in Kansas   7:00 p.m. Welcome and introductions - Jerry Schultz, Ph.D., Director   7:10 p.m. Dinner   7:30 p.m. Speaker Presentations Reginald Robinson, Counsel to the Chancellor and Chair of the Public Service Taskforce at the University of Kansas Andrew O'Donovan, Commissioner, Kansas Office for the Advancement of Prevention 7:50 p.m. Recognition of Corps members by Host organizations 8:00 p.m. Kansas Community Leadership Corps Presentations and Recognition Ceremony Melinda Carden From Lenexa, KS. Worked with the Wyandotte County Regional Prevention Center Brooke Draper From St. Francis, KS. Worked with the Regional Prevention Center of Northwest Kansas. Kristen Elliott From Westchester, IL. Worked with the Social Norms Media Campaign. Amanda Langley From Salina, KS. Worked with Kansas Action for Children, Inc. Lori Legg From Olathe, KS. Worked with the Regional Prevention Center of Johnson, Miami, and Leavenworth Counties. Larisa Roemisch From Andover, KS. Worked with Kansas Family Partnership, Inc. Fermin Santos From Shawnee, KS. Worked with the Regional Prevention Center of Johnson, Miami, and Leavenworth Counties. Erica Swanholm From Stilwell, KS. Worked with Rosedale Development Associates. Ameshia Tubbs From Lawrence, KS. Worked with Big Brothers, Big Sisters of Douglas County. Emily Williams From Milford, IA. Worked with Safe Streets *Melinda Carden, Kristen Elliott, and Erica Swanholm participated in the Corps, but are currently not at the University. 8:45 p.m. Conclusion Our Thanks to... Host Community Organizations: Liz Baehner: Johnson, Leavenworth, & Miami Counties Jannette Berkley-Patton, Social Norms Media Campaign Sue Evans: RPC of Northwest Kansas Mary Beth Karlin: Big Brothers, Big Sisters of Douglas County Linda Stewart: RPC of Wyandotte County Michelle Voth: Kansas Family partnerships, Inc. Dodie Wellshear Johnson: Kansas Action for Children Wendy Wilson: Rosedale Development Associates Sally Zellers: Safe Streets Executive Advisory Board: Judge John Barker Debbie Castell Andrew O'Donovan Corelia "Cokie" Diggs Clay Edmands Elaine Johannes Harriet Lange James Tangeman Michelle Voth Technical Assistance: Preston Caprez Elayne Cinalli Judy Donovan Duane Dyer Barbara Gibson Mike Lowther Patty Martin Suzanne Woods The Kansas Community Leadership Corps is sponsored by the Center for Community Health and Development​ at the University of Kansas, and is funded through a grant from Alcohol and Drug Abuse Services of Kansas.   Our thanks to everyone who helped make this year's Kansas Community Leadership Corps project a success.

 

A Power Point presentation summarizing the major points in the section.

• What do we mean by the challenges of leadership?

• When are the challenges of leadership most obvious?

• What are some of the specific challenges that many leaders face, and how can you cope with them?

Leadership regularly presents difficult decisions, unexpected problems, competing responsibilities, and situations in which there is no perfect answer. Those challenges can provide opportunities to learn and improve, but leadership should not be treated as a test of whether one person can personally overcome every obstacle.

Effective leadership depends on judgment, preparation, communication, collaboration, self-awareness, and organizational systems that allow people to respond when circumstances change.

This section describes common leadership challenges and suggests ways leaders and organizations can respond to them responsibly.

What do we mean by the challenges of leadership?

Leadership challenges generally come from three overlapping sources: external circumstances, internal reactions or tendencies, and responsibilities created by the leadership role itself.

External challenges

Every organization operates in an environment it cannot completely control. Funding changes, staffing losses, public criticism, community conflict, policy decisions, economic conditions, technology failures, legal issues, public-health events, severe weather, misinformation, cybersecurity incidents, and other disruptions can affect the work with little warning.

The challenge for leaders is not to make every problem invisible or to appear completely in control. It is to help the organization understand what is happening, determine what matters most, make appropriate decisions, communicate clearly, and continue essential work as safely and effectively as possible.

Sometimes that requires immediate action. At other times responsible leadership means gathering information, consulting people with relevant expertise, activating an existing continuity or emergency plan, or intentionally delaying a decision until better information is available.

Internal challenges

Leadership can expose personal tendencies that are less noticeable when the stakes are lower.

A person who is normally decisive may become controlling under pressure. Someone who values harmony may avoid necessary conflict. A leader who is confident in familiar situations may become defensive when working in an area they do not understand well.

Common internal challenges may include:

• Difficulty receiving criticism
• Overconfidence
• Self-doubt
• Avoidance of difficult conversations
• Impatience
• Difficulty making decisions under uncertainty
• Reluctance to delegate
• Emotional reactions that interfere with judgment
• Bias or assumptions that go unexamined

These patterns are not fixed personality defects. Leaders can learn to recognize them, seek feedback, adapt their behavior, develop missing skills, and build teams and systems that reduce the effect of individual limitations.

A characteristic that helps in one situation can become a problem in another. Decisiveness can help during an emergency but become unnecessary control when other people need room to exercise judgment. Strong relationship-building can help a leader build trust but become a problem if the desire to preserve relationships prevents honest performance feedback.

Challenges arising from leadership itself

Leadership roles often carry responsibilities that other positions do not.

Leaders may be responsible for:

• Clarifying direction
• Making or approving important decisions
• Allocating resources
• Communicating with staff, partners, Boards, funders, or the public
• Managing risk
• Ensuring that important operational work gets done
• Developing other people
• Maintaining legal, financial, ethical, and professional responsibilities

Those responsibilities should not require one individual to carry the entire organization.

Strong organizations distribute leadership where appropriate, document critical knowledge, develop other people, establish backups, and clarify who has authority to act when a leader is unavailable.

Leaders also need boundaries. They do not have to appear enthusiastic every moment or remain continuously available simply because they hold a leadership role.

When are the challenges of leadership most obvious?

Leadership challenges can arise at any time, but they often become more visible during periods of change, uncertainty, pressure, or disruption.

Particular times include:

• When something new is beginning. A new program, intervention, partnership, funding arrangement, technology system, structure, or leader may create uncertainty about roles, expectations, and how work will be done.
• When something is ending. Projects, funding periods, programs, leadership terms, or partnerships may require decisions about closure, handoff, records, staff or volunteer transitions, unfinished responsibilities, and what comes next.
• When resources are under pressure. Funding loss, staffing shortages, unexpected expenses, declining participation, or increased demand may force difficult choices.
• During organizational transitions. Rapid growth, restructuring, mergers, leadership changes, new governance, changes in funding, or changes in community needs may require both operational stability and adaptation.
• During emergencies or major disruptions. Severe weather, technology outages, cybersecurity incidents, public-health events, facilities problems, violence, or other emergencies may require clear authority, rapid communication, and continuity planning.
• When trust is low. Leadership changes, previous broken commitments, conflict, secrecy, inconsistent treatment, or poorly handled decisions can make even ordinary organizational changes more difficult.

Imagine an organization that grows quickly while changing its governance structure and losing an experienced leader at the same time. The challenge is not simply for the new director to personally hold everything together. The organization may need clear interim responsibilities, communication with staff and partners, financial and operational review, documentation of critical knowledge, Board involvement, backup leadership, and a realistic transition plan.

Leaders cannot predict every challenge, but they can prepare the organization to respond without depending entirely on one person's improvisation.

What are some of the specific challenges that many leaders face, and how can you cope with them?

The strategies below correspond to the three broad categories already discussed: external challenges, internal challenges, and challenges created by the leadership role itself.

External challenges

External circumstances may include:

• Public criticism or loss of trust. Criticism may be accurate, inaccurate, incomplete, or based on misunderstanding.
• Conflict. This may involve interpersonal tension, role conflict, organizational disagreement, community controversy, or competing institutional interests.
• Organizational crises. Financial problems, program failures, public controversy, legal concerns, serious misconduct, loss of important staff, or significant operational breakdowns may require immediate leadership attention.
• Emergencies and disasters. Severe weather, fire, violence, public-health events, technology outages, or other disruptions can affect both people and essential operations.
• Opposition or competing interests. Other organizations, public agencies, businesses, residents, political actors, or community groups may disagree with the organization's plans or priorities.
• Unexpected opportunity. New funding, partnerships, publicity, rapid growth, or increased demand can create as much organizational strain as a negative event if the organization is not prepared.
• Collaboration. Partnerships may require negotiation about goals, authority, data, funding, communication, responsibilities, and organizational boundaries.
• Technology or cybersecurity incidents. System outages, data loss, account compromise, or other technology problems may affect communication, privacy, finances, or service delivery.
• Policy or regulatory change. New laws, regulations, funding rules, or contractual requirements may require rapid adaptation.

How to cope with external challenges

Assess before acting.

Leaders should respond promptly to important problems, but prompt response does not always mean immediate visible action.

First ask:

• What do we know?
• What remains uncertain?
• Who is affected?
• What requires immediate action?
• Who has relevant expertise?
• Who has authority to decide?
• What existing plan, policy, or procedure applies?

Deliberately gathering information can be more responsible than acting simply to create the appearance of control.

Prepare before a crisis.

Organizations should identify critical functions, backup responsibilities, emergency contacts, communication methods, important records, and delegations of authority before normal operations are disrupted.

Plans should be reviewed periodically and tested where the consequences of failure justify it.

Communicate what people need to know.

During uncertainty, people do not need false reassurance. They need useful information.

Communicate:

• What has happened
• What is known and not yet known
• What action is being taken
• What people are expected to do
• When the next update will come
• Where people can ask questions or report new information

Important emergency information should be accessible to the people who need it.

Be creative and realistic.

A serious problem can sometimes create a reason to reconsider outdated practices, diversify funding, form new partnerships, simplify systems, or change priorities.

That does not mean every crisis is secretly an opportunity. Begin with the actual harm and risk, then examine what options remain available.

Address conflict early.

Identify the actual disagreement rather than allowing resentment or confusion to grow.

Useful questions include:

• What exactly is disputed?
• Is this a disagreement about facts, values, priorities, roles, resources, or behavior?
• Who has authority to decide?
• What information is missing?
• Is facilitated discussion appropriate?
• Does the matter require a formal complaint, investigation, legal review, safeguarding action, or disciplinary process instead?

Some conflicts can be resolved collaboratively. Others cannot or should not be resolved through compromise.

Look for legitimate areas of agreement.

Organizations that disagree about one issue may still be able to cooperate on another.

Common ground is useful when it is real. Don't hide important disagreements merely to preserve the appearance of collaboration.

Use disciplined judgment.

Avoid assuming that critics or opponents are automatically acting in bad faith.

Examine:

• Their stated concerns
• The evidence involved
• Your organization's own interests and assumptions
• Whether a conflict of interest exists
• Whether an independent review would help

A facilitator may need neutrality between parties, while a supervisor, investigator, Board, or organizational leader may instead have a duty to reach conclusions and act.

Collaborate where it adds value.

Inside the organization, involve people whose expertise, responsibilities, or experience are relevant to the decision.

Outside the organization, partnerships may increase knowledge, capacity, legitimacy, reach, or resources.

Strong collaborations clarify:

• Shared goals
• Responsibilities
• Decision authority
• Funding
• Data and confidentiality
• Communication
• Areas where the organizations do not agree
• How the collaboration can be changed or ended

Internal challenges

Leaders bring their own habits, experiences, strengths, biases, emotions, and limitations into the role.

The goal is not to become a flawless person. It is to recognize patterns that affect the work and develop ways to manage them.

• Self-doubt. Uncertainty about your own ability can make it difficult to decide, delegate, speak honestly, or take necessary action. Some uncertainty is normal, particularly when the work is unfamiliar. Distinguish between ordinary self-doubt and an actual knowledge or skill gap that requires preparation or additional expertise.
• Defensiveness. Leaders may dismiss criticism, explain away every concern, argue reflexively, or become angry when people challenge their assumptions. Whatever the underlying reason, these behaviors reduce the amount of useful information that reaches leadership.
• Difficulty deciding. Some choices have to be made before all uncertainty can be eliminated. Identify what information is essential, determine who should be consulted, establish the deadline for a decision, and distinguish reversible decisions from those that require more caution.
• Avoidance of difficult conversations. Problems involving performance, behavior, expectations, workload, or relationships generally become harder to address when they are ignored.
• Distorted judgment under pressure. Leaders can become overly optimistic, catastrophize, rely on incomplete information, or focus narrowly on one risk while missing another.
• Impatience. Change, learning, relationship-building, hiring, community work, and organizational development often require time. At the same time, patience should not become an excuse for leaving a preventable problem unresolved.
• Reluctance to delegate. Leaders may continue performing work that others could appropriately own, limiting both organizational capacity and other people's development.
• Overconfidence. Past success can make it harder to notice that circumstances have changed or that another person knows more about the current problem.

Personal circumstances can affect leadership as well. Illness, caregiving, grief, financial stress, family changes, trauma, or other major life events can reduce anyone's available attention and capacity.

Leaders should not be expected to prove their commitment by pretending those circumstances have no effect. Depending on the situation, appropriate responses may include leave, delegation, temporary changes in responsibility, additional support, accommodations, or interim leadership.

Coping with internal challenges

Listen actively.

Seek input from people who see different parts of the work, including people who disagree with you.

Ask enough questions to understand why someone sees the situation differently rather than listening only for the part of the response you already expect.

Seek structured feedback.

Multi-rater or 360-degree feedback can help leaders see differences between how they understand their own behavior and how other people experience it.

Feedback is most useful when:

• Raters understand the behaviors they are evaluating
• The process protects appropriate confidentiality
• Several relevant perspectives are included
• Results are examined for patterns rather than treated as unquestionable facts
• The leader identifies specific development goals afterward

Hearing the same concern from several people deserves attention, but repetition alone does not prove that every interpretation is correct. Investigate the pattern and determine what behavior or system may need to change.

Pay attention to the environment you help create.

Look beyond whether people appear cheerful.

Ask:

• Do people bring problems forward early?
• Can people disagree respectfully with leadership?
• Are mistakes reported or hidden?
• Is turnover increasing?
• Are workloads sustainable?
• Do some people receive opportunities while others are repeatedly overlooked?
• Are complaints or conflicts recurring?
• Are people clear about priorities and responsibilities?

These patterns provide more useful information than a general impression that the workplace feels happy or tense.

Build psychological safety.

People should be able to ask questions, report mistakes, raise risks, admit uncertainty, and challenge assumptions without unnecessary embarrassment or retaliation.

Leaders contribute to psychological safety by:

• Showing curiosity
• Acknowledging their own uncertainty
• Thanking people for raising concerns
• Responding constructively to bad news
• Separating respectful disagreement from insubordination or disloyalty

Psychological safety does not eliminate accountability. People can still be responsible for performance and conduct.

Reach out for appropriate support.

Leadership development does not have to occur alone.

Depending on the issue, useful support may come from:

• A mentor
• A coach
• A supervisor
• Board leadership
• Professional peers
• A trusted colleague
• Family or friends
• A faith community
• An employee-assistance resource
• An appropriate health or mental-health professional

Different needs require different kinds of support. A coach can help with leadership behavior; an attorney may be needed for a legal question; a therapist may help with personal mental-health concerns. Don't expect one relationship to serve every purpose.

Challenges stemming from the nature of the leadership role

Some challenges exist because leadership roles carry continuing organizational responsibility.

• Keeping purpose and strategy visible. Leaders help connect everyday decisions with the organization's mission and goals. They also need to recognize when evidence, community needs, or changing circumstances justify revisiting strategy.
• Maintaining operations while pursuing longer-term goals. Leadership includes making sure essential systems work: staffing, payroll, finances, contracts, technology, data, facilities, compliance, communication, safety, and other infrastructure.
• Modeling expected behavior. Leaders influence organizational norms through how they communicate, respond to disagreement, handle mistakes, share information, treat people, and follow policies themselves.
• Maintaining effectiveness over time. Organizations need systems for monitoring results, learning, adapting, developing staff and volunteers, maintaining relationships, and responding to changing conditions rather than depending on the leader to continually generate enthusiasm.
• Preventing chronic overload and burnout. Excessive demands can affect judgment, health, relationships, and organizational performance. Both individual practices and organizational conditions need attention.
• Finding support. Leaders may encounter confidential decisions, organizational pressure, or responsibilities that are difficult to discuss with people they supervise. Appropriate peer, governance, mentoring, coaching, or professional support can reduce unnecessary isolation.
• Preparing for absence and transition. Leadership systems should continue functioning when a leader takes leave, changes roles, becomes unavailable, or leaves the organization.

Coping with challenges stemming from the nature of the leadership role

Create mechanisms to revisit purpose and strategy.

Review the organization's mission, priorities, and strategy at useful intervals and when important conditions change.

This might occur through:

• Strategic-planning meetings
• Board review
• Staff or community consultation
• Evaluation findings
• Retreats where appropriate
• Review after a major organizational change

The purpose is not simply to renew enthusiasm. It is to determine whether the organization's goals still make sense and whether current strategies are producing the intended results.

Share leadership responsibility.

Develop people who can lead projects, make decisions within defined authority, maintain important relationships, and assume temporary or permanent responsibility when necessary.

Delegation should include:

• Clear responsibility
• Necessary authority
• Relevant information
• Resources
• Support
• Accountability

Delegating only tasks while keeping every meaningful decision for yourself does little to reduce organizational dependence on one leader.

Plan for continuity and succession.

Identify:

• Essential functions
• Who can perform them if a key leader is unavailable
• Which decisions require delegated authority
• Where critical records and contacts are kept
• How staff, partners, and the public will receive important information
• What training backup leaders need

Succession planning is not only about replacing a director permanently. It also prepares the organization for vacations, illness, emergencies, family leave, temporary vacancies, and other ordinary interruptions.

Use peer and professional support.

Leadership peer groups, professional associations, mentors, coaches, supervisors, or Board members can provide a place to examine difficult decisions, compare approaches, and obtain perspective.

Maintain appropriate confidentiality and avoid making staff, volunteers, clients, or people with less organizational power responsible for managing the leader's personal emotional needs.

Protect time away from work.

Leaders need meaningful periods in which they are not responsible for routine organizational demands.

Organizations can support this by:

• Establishing backup coverage
• Encouraging appropriate use of leave
• Respecting boundaries around evenings, weekends, and vacations
• Limiting unnecessary after-hours communication
• Cross-training staff
• Avoiding systems in which one person must approve every routine action

Time away is not evidence of weak commitment. Organizations are generally more resilient when leaders can be absent without work collapsing.

Address burnout as an organizational issue as well as an individual one

Rest, relationships, hobbies, exercise, reflection, spiritual practices, and other forms of personal restoration may help people maintain well-being.

But individual self-care cannot correct every cause of burnout.

Examine organizational conditions such as:

• Excessive workload
• Persistent understaffing
• Role ambiguity
• Constant after-hours availability
• Unresolved conflict
• Lack of decision authority
• Unsafe working conditions
• Harassment or discrimination
• Lack of leave or backup coverage
• Repeated emergency work becoming normal operations

If those conditions are driving exhaustion, changing them may be more important than encouraging the leader to become more personally resilient.

Learn from major events

After a significant crisis, transition, project, or organizational failure, review what happened.

An after-action review might ask:

• What did we expect?
• What actually happened?
• What worked?
• What failed or created unnecessary risk?
• What information did we lack?
• Were authority and responsibilities clear?
• Did our communication systems work?
• What should change before a similar situation occurs again?

The goal is organizational learning, not automatically finding an individual to blame. Accountability may still be necessary where misconduct, negligence, or failure to follow required procedures occurred.

In Summary

Leadership challenges come from several directions. Some are external: funding changes, criticism, conflict, emergencies, policy changes, organizational transitions, or other circumstances outside a leader's immediate control. Others arise from a leader's own habits, assumptions, reactions, or limitations. Still others come from responsibilities attached to leadership itself.

These challenges often become most visible during uncertainty and change, but strong leadership does not mean one person personally absorbing every difficulty or appearing completely calm and confident at all times.

Leaders can respond to external challenges by assessing situations carefully, preparing continuity and emergency systems, communicating honestly, addressing conflict, finding appropriate areas for collaboration, and adapting when circumstances change.

Internal challenges can be addressed through self-awareness, structured feedback, reflection, coaching, support, skill development, and attention to how other people experience the leader's behavior.

Challenges created by the leadership role require organizational responses as well: delegation, succession planning, backup coverage, functioning operational systems, psychological safety, peer support, realistic workload, and meaningful time away from work.

Leadership should therefore be understood less as an individual test of endurance and more as the responsible use of judgment, authority, relationships, and organizational systems. Strong leaders help the organization become capable of handling challenges even when they are not personally present to solve them.

___You look for the challenges of leadership in external forces (people, situations, politics, etc.)

___You look for the challenges of leadership within yourself (insecurity, defensiveness, indecisiveness, impatience, intolerance, lack of objectivity).

___You look for the challenges of leadership in the circumstances of being a leader (communicating the vision, managing day-to-day, setting an example, avoiding burnout, etc.)

To cope with the external challenges of leadership, you:

___Are proactive

___Are creative

___Face conflict squarely

___Look for common ground

___Remain objective

___Are collaborative

To cope with the internal challenges of leadership you:

___Listen

___Invite 360-degree feedback

___Look at what's going on around you

To cope with the challenges that arise from the position of leadership itself, you:

___Create mechanisms to review the vision

___Share the burden

___Find mutual support with those who share your experience

___Take time for yourself

A Power Point presentation summarizing the major points in the section.

Opportunities to develop and exercise leadership can arise throughout a person's life. Some people begin taking initiative early. Others discover an interest in leadership through work, education, community involvement, caregiving, public service, volunteering, creative projects, or experiences that occur much later.

There is no single or "normal" path. Leadership development does not require attending college, moving steadily through management positions, becoming an executive, or holding a formal title.

Many people exercise leadership only in particular situations: coordinating neighbors during an emergency, organizing a community project, facilitating a difficult meeting, mentoring someone, solving an important problem, or taking responsibility when their knowledge or experience is needed.

Some people actively seek leadership roles. Others prefer to contribute without leading. Both choices can be valuable.

Most people can strengthen skills that support leadership when they have appropriate opportunities, experience, feedback, and support. This section discusses how leadership development can be encouraged at different periods of life without assuming that age determines who a person is, what they can contribute, or whether they should become a leader.

Who are potential leaders?

Potential leaders are found throughout organizations and communities, including among people who may not think of themselves as leaders.

Leadership does not belong to one personality type. Someone who speaks confidently in front of a crowd may exercise leadership, but so may someone who:

• Listens carefully and identifies what others have missed
• Organizes complicated work reliably
• Builds trust across different groups
• Helps a team resolve disagreement
• Brings important technical or community knowledge
• Notices a problem and takes appropriate initiative
• Helps others participate
• Makes a difficult decision when responsibility requires it
• Mentors or supports someone else

Leadership may be formal or informal, ongoing or temporary, individual or shared.

Rather than searching only for people who already display conventional "leadership traits," create opportunities for many people to learn, contribute, and take appropriate responsibility.

Some individuals will discover that they want larger leadership roles. Others will develop valuable leadership-related skills without seeking formal authority.

Leadership development should expand people's choices, not create a new expectation that everyone must become a leader.

Why look for and encourage potential leaders?

Communities and organizations need many kinds of leadership.

Important work may require people who can:

• Bring others together around a shared problem
• Coordinate work
• Represent community perspectives
• Facilitate decisions
• Organize resources
• Respond during an emergency
• Advocate for change
• Build partnerships
• Mentor others
• Lead a project or team
• Preserve important community knowledge
• Create new ideas or institutions

Leadership does not have to be dramatic.

A student who organizes classmates to address an accessibility problem, a neighbor who coordinates a response after a storm, an employee who improves a failing process, an older resident who preserves community history, or a volunteer who helps a coalition reach a difficult decision may all be exercising leadership.

Organizations are stronger when leadership capacity is not concentrated in a few people. Developing more people who can take responsibility, exercise judgment, and support others can improve continuity, succession, collaboration, and the community's ability to respond to change.

Leadership opportunities can also help people discover interests and capabilities they did not know they had.

Leadership development across the life span

Leadership can develop throughout life, but people need different kinds of opportunity and support at different times.

Age alone does not determine readiness. People of the same age can differ greatly in experience, interests, disability, culture, responsibilities, confidence, education, resources, and access to previous leadership opportunities.

The categories below therefore describe possible contexts for development rather than fixed stages that everyone experiences in the same way.

Childhood

Children can begin learning many foundations of leadership before they ever hold a formal leadership role.

These may include:

• Listening
• Cooperation
• Responsibility
• Fairness
• Planning
• Problem solving
• Helping others participate
• Speaking up respectfully
• Taking responsibility for mistakes

Adults can give children increasing opportunities to make appropriate choices and take responsibility while maintaining the structure, supervision, and safety children need.

Opportunities for encouraging leadership development

• Sports and games. Sports and games can provide opportunities to practice teamwork, communication, fairness, encouragement, problem solving, and responsibility. Leadership should not automatically be reserved for the strongest performer.
• School, camp, and other group settings. Children can help plan activities, make age-appropriate decisions, facilitate parts of meetings, organize materials, welcome new participants, or take responsibility for small projects.
• Community projects. Children can participate in projects involving the environment, neighborhood improvement, accessibility, community education, mutual aid, or other issues they understand and care about.
• Creative and technical projects. Art, music, theater, robotics, media, gaming, maker programs, and other activities can create leadership opportunities involving planning, collaboration, design, communication, and teaching others.

For example, children concerned about a neighborhood park might document accessibility or maintenance problems, talk with other park users, develop ideas, and present recommendations to an appropriate community body with adult support.

Give children real opportunities to contribute rather than assigning leadership titles with no meaningful responsibility.

At the same time, leadership development should not mean leaving children to handle situations beyond their age, authority, or safety. Adults should provide graduated autonomy: enough room for children to think, decide, solve problems, and learn while remaining available when support is needed.

Adolescence

Adolescence can provide many opportunities for leadership development, but adolescents should not be treated as one personality type.

Young people differ greatly in interests, confidence, energy, health, culture, disability, family responsibility, work experience, communication style, and previous access to opportunities.

A strong youth-development approach builds on young people's strengths and treats them as active participants in decisions that affect them.

Young people can contribute to planning, program design, implementation, and evaluation rather than simply participating in activities adults have already designed.

Opportunities for encouraging leadership development

• Athletics and recreation. Sports and recreational programs can create opportunities to lead warmups, mentor newer participants, communicate during competition, help organize events, resolve problems, or serve in formal team roles. Coaches and program leaders influence whether those opportunities promote respect, fairness, safety, and responsible teamwork.
• Music, theater, media, and the arts. Young people may perform, write, direct, design, produce, manage equipment, organize events, create media, or coordinate other participants. These roles can develop planning, communication, creative problem solving, and collaboration.
• Youth organizations and clubs. School, community, cultural, faith-based, civic, technology, and other youth groups can give young people real responsibility for agendas, projects, budgets, outreach, events, peer support, and organizational decisions.
• Community and civic engagement. Young people may organize around transportation, school policy, mental health, public space, environmental issues, violence prevention, accessibility, voting and civic education, or other issues that matter to them.
• Employment and entrepreneurship. Jobs, paid internships, small businesses, creative ventures, cooperatives, and other work experiences can provide opportunities to manage projects, communicate with customers, train peers, solve operational problems, and take responsibility.
• Technology and digital communities. Young people may organize online communities, create digital campaigns, build software or media projects, teach technology skills, or lead collaborative technical work.

Leadership opportunities should be meaningful but developmentally appropriate. Young people need adults who respect their ideas while providing safeguarding, resources, preparation, and support.

Programs should also make room for different levels of participation. A young person may want to attend, contribute ideas, help with a project, or lead. Leadership should be available, not compulsory.

Young adulthood

Young adulthood can include college, employment, military or national service, caregiving, family responsibilities, entrepreneurship, community involvement, vocational training, unemployment, travel, or many other experiences.

There is no single sequence and no reason to assume that everyone in this age range has similar priorities or available time.

Opportunities for encouraging leadership development

• Entrepreneurship and creative projects. Young adults may start businesses, nonprofits, community ventures, cooperatives, media projects, technology projects, or informal initiatives. These experiences can develop planning, finance, communication, decision-making, and team leadership.
• Civic and political participation. Campaigns, public boards, student government, advocacy organizations, community organizing, issue-based coalitions, and public-service roles can create opportunities to organize people, communicate publicly, analyze policy, and make decisions.
• Service-learning and community-engaged education. Well-designed programs can connect learning with meaningful community work, reflection, community partnership, and increasing responsibility.
• Employment. Work can provide leadership development through project assignments, mentoring, coaching, cross-training, supervision, professional education, and opportunities to improve processes or represent a team.
• National and community service. Structured service programs may provide substantial responsibility, exposure to new settings, training, and opportunities to develop professional and community-engagement skills.
• Nonprofit and community organizations. Young adults may lead projects, organize volunteers, conduct research, serve on advisory groups, coordinate communications, or participate in governance.

Leadership opportunities should not depend entirely on unpaid participation. Work schedules, transportation, caregiving, housing, disability access, and finances may affect who can participate. Stipends, wages, transportation support, flexible schedules, remote options, or other assistance may broaden access.

Adulthood and midlife

Adults may discover or deepen leadership at many different points. Career stage, family structure, education, health, community ties, and responsibilities vary too widely to assume a predictable age-based pattern.

Someone may become a supervisor for the first time in their twenties, start a nonprofit in their forties, join a neighborhood board in their fifties, change careers in their sixties, or never seek formal leadership at all.

Opportunities for encouraging leadership development

• Community organizing and advocacy. Community issues can create opportunities to convene neighbors, speak publicly, organize campaigns, negotiate with institutions, build coalitions, and lead projects.
• Organizations and associations. Professional associations, unions, cultural organizations, faith communities, sports and recreation groups, neighborhood organizations, and service organizations may provide governance and project-leadership opportunities.
• Employment. Leadership development may occur through supervision, project management, professional development, job rotation, mentoring, coaching, cross-functional assignments, and succession planning.
• Caregiving and family life. Parenting and other caregiving roles may involve planning, advocacy, mentoring, coordination, communication, and responsibility. These experiences can develop transferable skills without making caregiving a required or universal route to leadership.
• School and family-related community involvement. People may become involved in parent organizations, school boards, disability advocacy, neighborhood projects, youth programs, or other community efforts connected to people they care for.
• Volunteering. Volunteers may coordinate programs, mentor others, lead committees, serve on Boards, organize events, or move into paid community roles.
• Public service. Local boards, commissions, advisory groups, appointed roles, and elected office can create opportunities to exercise public leadership.

People with more experience can sometimes serve as mentors, but age or seniority alone does not make someone an effective mentor. Good mentoring requires relevant experience, listening, respect, appropriate boundaries, and attention to the other person's goals.

Mentoring can also be mutual. A more experienced person may offer organizational knowledge while learning from a colleague who brings different technical, cultural, professional, or community expertise.

Midlife and later-career adulthood

People in midlife and later career may have accumulated substantial professional, community, technical, or lived experience. Others may be entering a new field, returning to education, rebuilding after a career interruption, or taking on leadership for the first time.

Avoid assuming that age automatically produces wisdom, authority, community influence, seniority, or available time.

Opportunities for encouraging leadership development

• Employment. People may lead teams, manage projects, mentor colleagues, participate in succession planning, serve as technical experts, or develop new areas of responsibility.
• Organizations and associations. Professional, civic, faith-based, cultural, recreational, and other organizations may create opportunities for governance, mentoring, project leadership, and community connection.
• Volunteering and community service. People may contribute professional skills, lived experience, organizational knowledge, community relationships, or new interests.
• Public and civic leadership. Boards, commissions, elected positions, advisory councils, neighborhood groups, and advocacy efforts may provide new forms of leadership.
• Mentoring and knowledge transfer. Experienced people can help others learn while also continuing to develop their own skills and perspectives.

Employment-based leadership opportunities should be based on legitimate qualifications and development needs rather than assumptions about what someone can or should do because of age.

Older adulthood and retirement

Older adults are as varied as any other age group. Some continue working full time. Some retire from paid employment but remain highly active in community life. Others provide substantial caregiving, begin new work, return to school, volunteer occasionally, start organizations, participate remotely, or prefer not to take on additional responsibilities.

Leadership opportunities should reflect individual interests, skills, health, accessibility, schedule, and desired level of involvement rather than assumptions that older adults automatically have more free time.

Older adults may contribute:

• Professional expertise
• Community and institutional history
• Technical skills
• Mentoring
• Advocacy
• Governance experience
• Relationships across organizations or generations
• New perspectives developed after leaving a previous role or career

Opportunities for encouraging leadership development

• Community service. Boards, commissions, nonprofits, neighborhood organizations, mutual-aid networks, cultural groups, and community programs may offer meaningful leadership opportunities.
• Advocacy. Older adults may lead or support advocacy based on longstanding interests, lived experience, professional expertise, or newly discovered concerns.
• Public service. Older adults may serve on boards, commissions, advisory groups, or in elected and appointed positions.
• Volunteering and mentoring. Programs such as AmeriCorps Seniors and local community organizations can connect people with service opportunities based on their skills and interests.
• Continued learning and new leadership roles. Retirement from one career can create opportunities to learn new skills, work in another field, organize community projects, or take leadership in an issue that was previously outside someone's professional life.

Organizations should also make participation accessible. Mobility, hearing, vision, technology, transportation, caregiving, fatigue, or other needs should be addressed individually rather than assumed from age.

Some general guidelines for encouraging leadership development across the life span

Although people's circumstances differ, several principles apply across age groups.

Invite people.

Many people do not see themselves as candidates for leadership until someone recognizes a contribution they could make.

Invite people to consider meaningful opportunities, explain why you think their knowledge or skills could be useful, and let them decide whether they are interested.

Do not pressure people into leadership roles or imply that declining means they lack commitment.

Start with people's goals, experience, and interests.

Ask what people want to learn or contribute.

Someone who has never facilitated a meeting may want to begin by helping plan an agenda or co-facilitating one section. Someone else may already have extensive informal leadership experience even though they have never held an organizational title.

Avoid assuming that the same first step is appropriate for everyone.

Provide meaningful opportunities.

Leadership develops most effectively when people can apply skills to real work with real consequences.

Possibilities include:

• Leading part of a project
• Organizing an event
• Facilitating a meeting
• Representing the organization with appropriate preparation
• Managing a small budget
• Coordinating volunteers
• Conducting research
• Helping develop policy
• Mentoring another participant
• Solving a defined operational problem

Avoid symbolic leadership roles in which someone receives a title but has no meaningful authority or responsibility.

Use supported stretch opportunities.

Development often requires doing something slightly beyond what a person has already mastered.

A useful stretch assignment should include:

• A clear purpose
• Real but manageable responsibility
• Necessary authority
• Training or preparation
• Resources
• Someone available for guidance
• Feedback afterward

Development should challenge people without setting them up to fail or asking them to accept responsibilities they do not want.

Provide training and development.

Leadership-related learning may include:

• Communication
• Planning
• Facilitation
• Problem solving and decision-making
• Conflict management
• Coalition and partnership building
• Project management
• Supervision
• Governance
• Budgeting and financial responsibility
• Accessibility and inclusive participation
• Digital collaboration and information security
• Ethical use of authority
• Community engagement

Training is only one part of development. People also learn through experience, mentoring, coaching, observation, job shadowing, project leadership, feedback, peer learning, and reflection.

Remove unnecessary barriers to participation.

Leadership opportunities are not equally accessible simply because they are announced to everyone.

Barriers may include:

• Unpaid time
• Transportation
• Childcare or other caregiving responsibilities
• Inaccessible facilities or technology
• Language barriers
• Meeting schedules
• Cost of travel, clothing, equipment, or registration
• Informal networks that repeatedly select the same people
• Assumptions about age, education, disability, personality, or background

Where possible, provide compensation, transportation support, remote participation, accessible communication, flexible scheduling, accommodations, or other support that makes participation realistic.

Build on experience.

As people gain skills and confidence, offer additional responsibilities when they want them and when the opportunity fits their development.

Increasing responsibility should not be automatic. Some people may want to deepen expertise in their current role rather than move toward supervision or higher organizational status.

Provide mentoring and coaching.

Mentors and coaches can help people reflect on experience, strengthen skills, understand organizational systems, prepare for new responsibilities, and make development plans.

Good developmental relationships respect the person's own goals rather than assuming that advancement into formal management is the desired outcome.

Provide peer learning and support.

People developing leadership can benefit from talking with others who are handling similar responsibilities.

Peer groups can provide:

• Problem solving
• Feedback
• Reflection
• Shared resources
• Encouragement
• Exposure to different leadership approaches

Create an organizational structure for leadership development.

Leadership development is more sustainable when opportunities are part of organizational practice rather than dependent entirely on one leader informally deciding whom to mentor.

Structures may include:

• Youth leadership programs
• Volunteer-development programs
• Community service or civic-engagement offices
• Workforce-development programs
• Mentoring and coaching programs
• Project rotations
• Internship or fellowship programs
• Professional associations
• Employee development programs
• Succession-planning processes

These structures should help people identify opportunities, receive appropriate preparation, gain meaningful responsibility, access support, and continue developing if they choose.

Provide varied models of effective leadership.

People learn partly by observing others.

Expose developing leaders to people with different strengths, communication styles, professional backgrounds, ages, and approaches.

Encourage them to ask:

• What does this person do effectively?
• How do they use authority?
• How do they handle disagreement?
• How do they involve other people?
• How do they respond when they are wrong?
• How do they develop other people?
• Would this approach work in another setting?

The purpose is not to create copies of admired leaders, but to help people develop their own judgment.

Evaluate leadership-development opportunities.

Periodically examine whether your approach is actually creating useful opportunities.

Ask:

• Who is receiving leadership-development opportunities?
• Who is being overlooked?
• Are people gaining the intended skills?
• Are participants receiving real responsibility or only symbolic titles?
• Are opportunities accessible?
• Are participants adequately prepared and supported?
• Are people able to decline additional leadership without being penalized?
• Which developmental methods are producing useful results?
• What barriers should be removed?

In Summary

Leadership and leadership development can occur throughout life. There is no single age, personality, education, career path, or life stage that defines when someone is ready to exercise leadership.

Children and adolescents can begin developing responsibility, collaboration, planning, communication, and civic engagement through developmentally appropriate experiences and meaningful youth voice. Young adults may develop leadership through employment, education, service, entrepreneurship, advocacy, and community involvement. Adults at every later stage may discover new leadership roles through work, community activity, caregiving, public service, volunteering, mentoring, or major life transitions.

Leadership development should be broadly available without assuming that everyone needs to become a formal leader. Some people will want greater responsibility; others will prefer to contribute through expertise, service, or participation without seeking a leadership position.

Strong development opportunities combine meaningful responsibility with preparation, mentoring or coaching, feedback, resources, accessibility, and room to learn. They also remove unnecessary barriers that determine who can afford the time, transportation, technology, or other costs of participating.

Finally, effective leadership development is not about identifying a small number of people who already look like leaders. It is about creating conditions in which people throughout the community can discover and strengthen their capacity to take initiative, exercise sound judgment, contribute their knowledge, support others, and choose when and how they want to lead.

Who are potential leaders?

You know that:

___Leadership skills are learned.

___Nearly everyone is capable of being a leader at some time and place in her life.

___People with “natural leadership skills” – good communicators, initiators, risk takers, etc. – particularly need to be ready to be thrust into leadership.

Why look for potential leaders?

___You know that the right people are much more likely to emerge as leaders when they’ve had some experiences that make them feel capable.

Leadership development across the life span

___You’re aware of leadership development opportunities for children:

• Sports and games
• School, camp, and other institutional situations
• Community projects
• Letting children solve many of their own problems without adult intervention
• Modeling good leadership by treating children with respect while providing a structure in which they can operate safely

___You’re aware of leadership development opportunities for adolescents:

• Athletics
• Music and theater
• Youth groups and clubs
• Involvement in community and political issues
• Challenging outdoor activity

___You’re aware of leadership development opportunities for college students and other young adults:

• Entrepreneurship
• Politics
• Service learning
• Employment
• Government-sponsored service programs
• Non-profit and non-governmental organizations

___You’re aware of leadership development opportunities for parents and other adults:

• Community activism
• Organizations and associations
• Parenting
• Parenting-related experiences
• Volunteering
• Local politics

___You’re aware of leadership development opportunities for “elder statespersons”:

• Employment
• Organizations and associations
• Volunteering and community service
• Local politics

___You’re aware of leadership development opportunities for retired persons and seniors:

• Community service
• Advocacy
• Local politics
• Volunteering

Some general guideline for encouraging leadership development across the life span

___You ask people to take leadership positions

___You provide real-world opportunities

___You challenge people with reachable goals

___You provide training

___You build on success

___You provide peer support

___You provide an institutional structure for leadership development opportunities

___You provide models of effective leadership

Example: Tireless 'Ms. Jessie' Cultivates Next Generation of Neighborhood Leaders

Jessie Jefferson, 79, is developing a new generation of neighborhood leaders as a consultant and community organizer for a host of neighborhoods: Town Fork Creek, Oak Park, Vineyard, South Roundtop, Seven Oaks, Blue Valley, McCoy, Washington Wheatley, and Independence Plaza.

And she fights for them, arguing for commitments from city department heads and council members to carve out financial support for these neighborhood associations so they can do the work of preserving and growing community power. Read more.

A Power Point presentation summarizing the major points in the section.

• What is ethical leadership?

• Why practice ethical leadership?

• When and by whom should ethical leadership be practiced?

• How do you practice ethical leadership?

• Specific components of ethical leadership

Consider a dilemma: You are the director of a community-based human services organization with sites in several communities. A major funding reduction means you may no longer be able to operate all of them at the same level. Closing one site could preserve services elsewhere, but it would also affect employees, participants, partners, and a community that has relied on your organization. How do you decide?

Or consider this: You learn about a grant opportunity that your organization could pursue alone or with a longtime partner. Applying alone might bring your organization more funding, while a joint proposal could support broader community work and help sustain a partner that is experiencing financial difficulty. What responsibilities do you have to your own organization, to your partner, to the funder, and to the community?

These are ethical questions. They do not necessarily have one obvious answer. Ethical leadership involves both the decisions leaders make and the processes through which they make them.

Whether you direct an organization, supervise a team, serve on a Board, coordinate volunteers, lead a coalition, manage a project, or exercise informal influence, your decisions can affect other people's resources, opportunities, safety, privacy, employment, services, and ability to participate.

This section discusses what ethical leadership means, why it matters, and how individuals and organizations can build ethical decision-making into everyday leadership.

What do we mean by ethical leadership?

Ethics concerns how people decide what they ought to do when their choices affect other people, organizations, communities, or the public.

Ethical decisions may involve questions of:

• Honesty
• Fairness
• Human dignity
• Rights
• Harm and benefit
• Responsibility
• Professional obligations
• Law and policy
• Conflicts of interest
• Privacy and confidentiality
• Stewardship of resources
• Accountability
• Public and community benefit

People may draw ethical guidance from philosophy, culture, religion, professional standards, law, lived experience, organizational mission, community expectations, and other sources.

These sources do not always point toward the same answer. A difficult ethical decision may involve competing responsibilities rather than a simple choice between something clearly right and something clearly wrong.

Some approaches to ethical reasoning

Several ways of thinking can help leaders examine an ethical problem.

• Consequences. Who may benefit or be harmed, and how serious are those effects?
• Rights and duties. What responsibilities, rights, legal obligations, professional standards, or promises apply?
• Fairness. Are similar situations being treated consistently? Are relevant differences being considered?
• Care and relationships. How will the decision affect trust, vulnerability, dependence, and relationships among the people involved?
• Public or community benefit. How does the decision affect the organization's mission and the people or communities it exists to serve?
• Professional ethics. Does a professional code, licensing obligation, fiduciary responsibility, or other standard apply?
• Organizational values. Is the decision consistent with the organization's stated commitments and responsibilities?

No single approach answers every question. Ethical leadership often requires examining the situation from several perspectives.

Law and ethics also are not identical. Something may be legally permitted but still raise serious ethical concerns. At the same time, personal beliefs or organizational values do not excuse violating legal duties.

Questions for examining an ethical decision

Before making a significant decision, ask:

• Who will be affected?
• Who may be affected but is not represented in the discussion?
• What rights, responsibilities, laws, policies, or professional standards apply?
• What benefits and harms are reasonably foreseeable?
• Who will bear the greatest burden of the decision?
• Do any decision-makers have a personal, financial, family, political, professional, or other conflict of interest?
• What information is uncertain or missing?
• What alternatives have we considered?
• Are we treating comparable situations consistently?
• Can we explain the reasoning honestly to the people entitled to understand it?
• Does any information need to remain confidential?
• Who has authority and accountability for the final decision?
• Is there a way to review or appeal the decision where appropriate?

A transparency test can also be useful: Would you be able to explain the decision and the process used to reach it if the people affected asked how it was made?

That does not mean every detail should be public. Personnel information, health information, investigations, legal advice, participant records, and other sensitive information may require confidentiality.

Ethical leadership

Ethical leadership has two closely connected parts.

First, leaders should make decisions responsibly. Second, they should exercise authority responsibly in everyday practice.

Ethical leadership therefore includes:

• Making decisions through fair and appropriate processes
• Treating people with dignity and respect
• Using authority for legitimate organizational purposes rather than personal advantage
• Listening to concerns and disagreement
• Protecting people from retaliation for appropriately raising concerns
• Disclosing and managing conflicts of interest
• Maintaining appropriate confidentiality
• Protecting organizational and personal information
• Using resources responsibly
• Maintaining professional and organizational competence
• Accepting accountability
• Correcting mistakes
• Building systems that support ethical behavior throughout the organization

Ethical leadership should be evaluated through actions and systems, not only through a leader's stated intentions or personal character.

Leaders will sometimes make poor decisions. Ethical leadership includes acknowledging mistakes, correcting them where possible, examining why they occurred, and changing practices that allowed them to happen.

Why practice ethical leadership?

There are several reasons ethical leadership is essential.

• Ethical leadership helps establish organizational norms. People notice how leaders respond to conflicts, mistakes, confidential information, financial pressure, complaints, and people who disagree with them.
• Ethical leadership can strengthen trust. Trust develops when people see consistency between stated values and actual conduct, and when decisions are made through fair and understandable processes.
• Ethical leadership supports credibility and accountability. Organizations that respond honestly to problems and manage conflicts responsibly are better positioned to earn confidence over time.
• Ethical leadership can support healthy partnerships. Partners are more likely to work together effectively when responsibilities, resources, information, and commitments are handled reliably.
• Ethical leadership supports a healthier organizational climate. People are better able to contribute when authority is used fairly, concerns can be raised, responsibilities are clear, and misconduct is addressed.
• Ethical leadership protects people and organizational resources. Good processes can reduce the risk of fraud, harassment, discrimination, retaliation, privacy violations, conflicts of interest, unsafe practices, and other harm.
• Ethical leadership supports the organization's mission. Community organizations depend on trust and responsible stewardship to accomplish work that affects other people's lives.
• Ethical leadership is part of responsible leadership itself. Authority creates obligations. The more power a role carries, the greater the responsibility to use it carefully.

When and by whom should ethical leadership be practiced?

Ethical responsibilities apply whenever people exercise authority or influence that affects others.

That includes:

• Executive directors
• Supervisors
• Board members
• Program managers
• Coalition and committee leaders
• Volunteer coordinators
• Project leaders
• Professional staff
• People exercising informal leadership

Ethical responsibility generally increases with a person's authority, access to information, control over resources, or ability to affect other people's employment, services, safety, rights, privacy, or opportunities.

Ethical leadership becomes especially important when:

• Resources are scarce
• People may lose services, employment, or opportunities
• Confidential or sensitive information is involved
• Leaders have a personal or financial interest in the outcome
• Serious misconduct has been alleged
• Safety is involved
• A vulnerable or less powerful group may bear the consequences
• The law or professional standards impose particular duties
• Public trust is at stake

Ethical leadership is an ongoing responsibility, but it does not mean leaders must be continuously available or personally make every decision. Organizations should distribute responsibility appropriately and create systems that continue to function when individual leaders are absent.

How do you practice ethical leadership?

Ethical leadership develops through practice. Individuals need judgment, but organizations also need structures that make ethical behavior easier and misconduct harder to ignore.

Develop a practical ethical framework

Leaders should understand the principles, obligations, and responsibilities that guide their work.

These may come from:

• Organizational mission and values
• Governing documents
• Law and regulation
• Professional standards
• Contracts and grant requirements
• Community commitments
• Evidence and professional knowledge
• Ethical reflection and lived experience

A useful ethical framework should help identify relevant questions without pretending that every conflict has an easy answer.

Leaders should periodically reconsider their assumptions as laws, evidence, organizational responsibilities, communities, technology, and circumstances change.

Align leadership with mission without treating mission as absolute

The organization's mission should inform major decisions, particularly decisions about programs, funding, partnerships, and resource allocation.

But mission does not excuse conduct that violates law, professional obligations, safety requirements, human dignity, financial responsibility, or other legitimate duties.

If an organization's existing practices are unethical or inconsistent with its stated mission, leadership may have a responsibility to change them rather than simply preserve tradition.

Make ethics part of organizational discussion

Ethical questions should not appear only after a scandal or crisis.

Discuss ethics when planning:

• Programs
• Partnerships
• Fundraising
• Technology
• Data collection
• Staffing
• Research or evaluation
• Public communication
• Community engagement
• Major financial decisions

Encourage people to ask not only, "Can we do this?" but also, "Should we do this, under what conditions, and what responsibilities would it create?"

Be appropriately transparent

People affected by important decisions should generally receive enough information to understand what was decided, why, and what happens next.

Transparency has limits. Leaders must also protect:

• Personnel information
• Participant records
• Health information
• Legal advice
• Investigation integrity
• Security information
• Other confidential information

Ethical transparency means explaining what can appropriately be explained and being honest when confidentiality prevents disclosure.

Connect ethical thought to action

Ethical statements have little value if organizational behavior contradicts them.

If an organization says retaliation is prohibited, managers should not punish people who appropriately raise concerns. If it values accessibility, meetings and services should not unnecessarily exclude people with disabilities. If it claims to value community participation, relevant community input should have a meaningful path into decisions.

Create ways to question authority and raise concerns

People should know how to raise ethical, legal, financial, safety, workplace, or program concerns.

A useful system identifies:

• Where concerns may be reported
• What to do when the concern involves the immediate supervisor
• Who reviews different kinds of concerns
• What confidentiality can and cannot be provided
• How retaliation is prohibited and addressed
• When an issue must be referred outside the organization

An informal "open door" can be useful but should not be the organization's only reporting mechanism.

Build ethical leadership throughout the organization

Ethical leadership should not depend on one person.

Develop people who can:

• Recognize conflicts of interest
• Handle information responsibly
• Raise concerns
• Apply organizational policies fairly
• Exercise delegated authority
• Ask ethical questions about programs and decisions
• Take responsibility for mistakes

Boards and governing bodies also have ethical responsibilities within their authority, including oversight of executive leadership, finances, conflicts, major risks, and organizational mission.

Specific components of ethical leadership

Manage personal interests and conflicts of interest

Ethical leaders do not assume that good intentions make them immune from conflicts.

A conflict may arise when a person's responsibilities to the organization intersect with:

• Personal financial interests
• Family relationships
• Outside employment
• Vendor relationships
• Board or political relationships
• Gifts or benefits
• Ownership interests

Actual or potential conflicts should be disclosed through the organization's established process. Depending on the circumstances, the person with the conflict may need to leave the discussion, refrain from voting or deciding, or take another step required by policy or law.

Consider the consequences to others and reduce unnecessary harm

Many leadership decisions distribute benefits and burdens unevenly.

Before making a high-impact decision, consider:

• Who receives the benefit?
• Who carries the cost?
• Who has the least ability to absorb that cost?
• Could another option reduce harm?
• Are short-term benefits creating long-term problems?
• Are we transferring risk to people who had little voice in the decision?

A funding reduction may force an organization to consider layoffs, reduced hours, program cuts, waiting lists, or site closures. No option may fully avoid harm. Ethical leadership requires honest analysis of the alternatives, attention to who is affected, fair procedures, and a willingness to explain the reasoning behind the final decision.

Treat people with fairness, honesty, dignity, and respect

Every person has equal human worth, but fair treatment does not always mean identical treatment.

A person with a disability may need an accommodation. A supervisor and a new employee may have different responsibilities. A person accused of serious misconduct may require a defined investigative process rather than the same informal conversation used for a minor misunderstanding.

Ethical leaders use relevant distinctions rather than favoritism or prejudice.

Use authority responsibly

Leadership positions may control budgets, information, schedules, hiring, discipline, access, contracts, program decisions, or other resources.

Authority should be used for legitimate organizational responsibilities, not personal status, retaliation, favoritism, intimidation, or private advantage.

Sharing authority can be useful when other people have relevant expertise or responsibility, but ethical leadership also means exercising authority when necessary to protect safety, enforce legitimate standards, address misconduct, or fulfill legal and governance obligations.

Maintain humility

Leadership does not make someone automatically correct.

Ethical leaders should be able to:

• Say when they do not know
• Ask for expert advice
• Admit mistakes
• Change a decision when new evidence warrants it
• Give others credit
• Receive disagreement without treating it as a personal attack

Protect people who raise concerns

People are unlikely to report wrongdoing if they reasonably expect punishment for doing so.

Organizations should establish clear expectations against retaliation and take complaints seriously.

Different concerns may require different channels. Financial misconduct, discrimination, harassment, safeguarding, privacy, safety, or other issues may need specialized review rather than being handled only by a direct supervisor.

Address serious misconduct appropriately

Ethical leadership does not mean resolving every problem privately or informally.

Allegations involving matters such as:

• Abuse or safeguarding
• Harassment
• Discrimination
• Retaliation
• Fraud
• Theft
• Violence or threats
• Serious safety violations
• Significant privacy or data breaches

may require formal reporting, investigation, legal review, disciplinary procedures, Board involvement, law enforcement, regulators, safeguarding authorities, or another appropriate process.

Leaders should understand their role and avoid promising confidentiality that the organization cannot legally or practically provide.

Protect privacy and confidential information

Ethical leaders should not collect, access, or share sensitive information merely because their position allows them to.

Organizations should determine:

• What information is genuinely needed
• Who should have access
• Where information may be stored
• When information may be shared
• How long it should be retained
• What happens when access is no longer needed

Sector-specific privacy laws and professional standards may impose additional requirements.

Use data and technology responsibly

Technology can create ethical questions involving privacy, security, surveillance, automated decision-making, bias, accessibility, accuracy, intellectual property, and use of participant or employee data.

Before adopting a significant technology or data practice, ask:

• What information will it collect?
• Who can access the information?
• Where will it be stored?
• What security risks exist?
• Could the system exclude or disadvantage some people?
• Can important decisions be reviewed by a responsible person?
• What happens if the system is wrong?
• What third parties receive organizational information?

Treat other organizations ethically

Partnerships, competition, fundraising, referrals, and advocacy create ethical responsibilities between organizations.

Be clear about:

• Commitments
• Funding
• Credit and attribution
• Data
• Confidential information
• Conflicts of interest
• Responsibilities to participants
• What happens if the collaboration ends

Ethical collaboration does not require agreeing to every partnership. Organizations should consider mission, capacity, risk, community benefit, and whether the proposed partner can meet the responsibilities involved.

Communicate honestly and appropriately

Ethical communication involves accuracy, clarity, timing, accessibility, and respect for confidentiality.

Avoid:

• Deliberately misleading people
• Omitting important information in order to manipulate a decision
• Exaggerating program results
• Misrepresenting community support
• Promising confidentiality that cannot be guaranteed
• Sharing sensitive information with people who do not need it

Communication should also be accessible to the people who need the information.

Continue developing interpersonal and leadership skills

Ethical intentions can be undermined by poor communication or weak leadership skills.

Useful areas for continued development include:

• Active listening
• Clear spoken and written communication
• Giving and receiving feedback
• Conflict management
• Emotional regulation
• Facilitation
• Supervision
• Decision-making
• Cultural humility
• Accessibility and inclusive communication
• Understanding how your behavior affects other people

Be cautious about assuming you can accurately determine someone's attitude or intent from eye contact, facial expression, body language, tone, or communication style alone.

Practice cultural humility and inclusive leadership

Ethical community leadership requires ongoing learning about the communities affected by the work.

This may include:

• Building sustained relationships with community members and organizations
• Seeking direct input rather than assuming what a community needs
• Providing appropriate language access
• Understanding relevant community history
• Recognizing differences within communities
• Examining barriers to participation
• Questioning your own assumptions

No individual can become an expert on every culture, and no community should be treated as homogeneous.

Work to be inclusive and accessible

Inclusion involves more than recruiting people from different backgrounds.

Examine:

• Who has access to employment and volunteer opportunities
• Who receives leadership development
• Who receives information
• Who participates in decisions
• Whether meetings, materials, technology, and services are accessible
• Whether people can request accommodations
• Whether harassment or discrimination is addressed
• Whether compensation, transportation, scheduling, language, or other barriers exclude participation

Take accountability seriously

Leaders are accountable for the responsibilities attached to their roles.

That does not mean one leader is personally responsible for every mistake made by every person in an organization. Individuals remain responsible for their own conduct and work.

Leaders are responsible for matters such as:

• Providing appropriate supervision
• Establishing clear responsibilities
• Maintaining needed controls
• Responding when problems are reported
• Correcting known system failures
• Making decisions within their authority
• Escalating matters outside their authority

When a mistake occurs, ask both who was responsible for the immediate action and whether organizational conditions made the problem more likely.

Maintain and increase competence

People affected by leadership decisions have a reasonable expectation that leaders understand the responsibilities they have accepted.

Competence includes knowing your limits.

Ethical leaders should be willing to:

• Obtain professional advice
• Delegate to people with stronger expertise
• Complete additional training
• Admit when a problem is outside their expertise
• Avoid accepting responsibilities they cannot perform responsibly

Continuing development may include formal education, workshops, mentoring, coaching, professional reading, conferences, peer learning, after-action reviews, and reflection on experience.

Document important ethical and governance decisions

Some decisions require more than a verbal understanding.

Depending on the situation, appropriate documentation may include:

• Conflict-of-interest disclosures
• Board decisions
• Financial approvals
• Investigation findings
• Corrective actions
• Significant risk decisions
• Privacy or security incidents
• Program changes

Follow applicable requirements for retaining and eventually disposing of organizational records.

Know when leadership transition is appropriate

Ethical leadership includes preparing the organization to continue when current leaders change roles or leave.

Long-serving leaders and founders may hold valuable history and relationships, but problems can arise when too much authority, information, or identity remains concentrated in one person.

Useful practices include:

• Succession planning
• Developing other leaders
• Delegating meaningful responsibility
• Documenting critical knowledge
• Periodically reviewing role fit and performance
• Establishing transition procedures

Remaining in leadership indefinitely is not automatically evidence of commitment, and leaving a role is not automatically a failure. The relevant question is what arrangement best serves the organization and its responsibilities.

Review major ethical decisions and failures

After a significant ethical problem, crisis, investigation, or difficult decision, review what happened.

Ask:

• What information was available?
• What assumptions influenced the decision?
• Who was involved?
• Whose perspective was missing?
• Were conflicts of interest identified?
• Were concerns raised?
• If so, how were they handled?
• Did reporting and accountability systems work?
• Were people treated fairly?
• Was confidential information protected?
• What harm occurred?
• What should change?

The goal is not to eliminate individual accountability. It is to learn whether policies, culture, supervision, governance, or organizational systems also need to change.

Continue reexamining ethics and leadership

Ethical leadership is not completed by adopting a code of ethics or attending one training.

Leaders and organizations should continue asking whether their practices remain consistent with their responsibilities, whether policies are producing fair results, whether people can raise concerns safely, and whether changing circumstances require a different approach.

Ethical standards should be reflected in everyday decisions as well as major crises.

In Summary

Ethical leadership involves both the decisions leaders make and the way they exercise authority. It requires more than good intentions or a strong personal value system.

Ethical leaders consider rights, responsibilities, fairness, consequences, conflicts of interest, law, professional standards, privacy, community benefit, and the effects of decisions on people who may have less power.

Ethical organizations also build systems that support responsible behavior. These may include conflict-of-interest procedures, meaningful oversight, clear decision authority, reporting channels, nonretaliation expectations, appropriate confidentiality, financial controls, data protections, accessible communication, documentation, and processes for handling serious misconduct.

Ethical leadership includes humility and accountability. Leaders should be able to receive criticism, admit mistakes, correct decisions, seek expertise, disclose conflicts, and recognize when another person should exercise responsibility.

Finally, ethical leadership is an ongoing organizational practice rather than a quality possessed by one unusually principled person. Strong ethical cultures combine individual judgment with governance, policies, reporting systems, fair processes, competent leadership, and the ability of people throughout the organization to raise important questions without fear.

What is ethical leadership?

___Ethical leadership involves both acting and leading ethically over time all the time.

Why practice ethical leadership?

___Ethical leadership models ethical behavior to the organization and the community..

___Ethical leadership builds trust.

___Ethical leadership brings credibility and respect, both for you and the organization.

___Ethical leadership can lead to collaboration.

___Ethical leadership creates a good climate within the organization.

___If you have opposition, or are strongly supporting a position, ethical leadership allows you to occupy the moral high ground.

___Ethical leadership is simply the right way to go.

___Ethical leadership affords self-respect.

When and by whom should ethical leadership be practiced?

___Ethical leadership should be practiced all the time by anyone in a formal or informal leadership position.

How do you practice ethical leadership?

General guidelines:

___Ethical leadership requires a clear and coherent ethical framework that the leader can draw on in making decisions and taking action.

___Your ethical framework should agree with that of the ethical framework, vision, and mission of the organization or initiative.

___Ethics should be a topic of discussion.

___Ethics should be out in the open.

___Ethical thought must be connected to action.

___Ethical leadership is a shared process.

Specific components

___Put the good of the organization and the general good before your own interests and ego.

___Encourage the discussion of ethics in general and of the ethical choices involved in specific situations and decisions as an ongoing feature of the organizational culture.

___Institutionalize ways for people to question your authority.

___Don’t take yourself too seriously.

___Consider the consequences to others of your decisions, and look for ways to minimize harm.

___Treat everyone with fairness, honesty, and respect all the time.

___Treat other organizations in the same way you treat other people – with fairness, honesty, and respect.

___Collaborate inside and outside the organization.

___Communicate.

___Work to become increasingly culturally and interpersonally competent.

___Take cultural sensitivity and cultural competence seriously.

___Work to be inclusive.

___Take your leadership responsibility seriously, and be accountable for fulfilling it.

___Constantly strive to increase your competence.

___Don’t outstay your usefulness.

___Never stop reexamining your ethics and your leadership.

A Power Point presentation summarizing the major points in the section.

Complex community issues often cross organizational, professional, geographic, and institutional boundaries. No single person or organization may have all the information, authority, relationships, resources, or experience needed to address them.

In those situations, collaborative leadership can help people work across those boundaries. It provides structures for sharing information, defining problems, making decisions, coordinating action, and learning together.

Collaboration does not mean that everyone participates in every decision, that all partners begin with equal power, or that formal authority disappears. Effective collaborative leadership makes those realities visible and creates a process through which relevant people can influence the work while responsibilities and decision rights remain clear.

In this section, we will explore what collaborative leadership is, when it is useful, who may exercise it, and how to build and maintain an effective collaborative process.

What is collaborative leadership?

Collaborative leadership is the practice of helping people with different knowledge, roles, resources, responsibilities, or interests work together toward a shared purpose.

Collaborative leadership focuses heavily on the quality of the process: who participates, what information is available, how power and resources are distributed, how decisions are made, how conflict is handled, and how agreed actions are carried out.

It is especially useful when a problem cannot be solved effectively by one individual or organization acting alone.

Collaborative leadership often includes:

• Joint problem definition
• Sharing relevant knowledge and information
• Meaningful participation by people affected by the issue
• Explicit decision processes
• Coordination across roles or organizations
• Shared or distributed leadership where appropriate
• Accountability for agreed responsibilities
• Evaluation and adaptation

A collaborative process should not be used merely to gain support for a decision that has already been made.

At the same time, collaboration does not require that every aspect of an issue be open to negotiation. Some constraints may already be established by law, regulation, funding, governance, safety requirements, professional standards, contractual obligations, or organizational mission.

Those limits should be explained honestly at the beginning so participants understand what they can meaningfully influence.

Two forms of collaborative leadership

Collaborative leadership may take at least two related forms.

• Leadership of a collaborative effort. A person or small leadership group helps a coalition, partnership, network, or other collaborative effort establish and maintain the process through which members work together. The leader or facilitator may coordinate the process without having authority to direct every participating organization.
• Shared or distributed leadership. Leadership functions move among several people according to expertise, role, responsibility, or the needs of the situation. One person may lead a technical issue, another a community-engagement process, and another implementation.

Shared leadership does not eliminate formal accountability. Organizations still need to know who is legally, financially, professionally, or organizationally responsible for particular decisions.

Collaboration does not automatically mean equal power

Partners may enter a collaboration with very different levels of influence.

One organization may control funding. Another may control access to data. A public agency may have regulatory authority. A community organization may hold trusted relationships that institutions do not. Residents may have essential lived knowledge but little formal authority.

Pretending that all participants are already on equal footing can hide those differences.

Collaborative leadership should instead ask:

• Who controls resources?
• Who controls information?
• Who has formal decision authority?
• Who will experience the consequences?
• Who has historically been excluded from decisions?
• What would meaningful influence look like for different participants?

Where possible, collaborative structures can share resources, information, decision authority, and other forms of power more deliberately.

Why practice collaborative leadership?

Collaborative leadership can provide important benefits when the work is genuinely interdependent.

Those benefits are not automatic. They depend on the quality of the collaboration, its resources, the people involved, and whether participants have meaningful influence.

Potential advantages of collaborative leadership

• Greater understanding and commitment. People who participate meaningfully in defining a problem and developing a response may understand the reasoning more fully and be better prepared to carry out their responsibilities.
• Better coordination during implementation. When several organizations or roles must act together, collaborative planning can identify dependencies, barriers, and responsibilities before implementation begins.
• Stronger relationships and trustworthiness. Transparent communication, follow-through, fair processes, and meaningful sharing of responsibility can strengthen relationships over time.
• Better management of competing interests. Collaboration can create a structured way to discuss competition over funding, authority, recognition, responsibilities, or organizational priorities.
• Access to more kinds of knowledge. Participants may bring professional expertise, community knowledge, lived experience, organizational history, technical information, data, and practical knowledge of implementation.
• Better potential for coordinated solutions. Problems that cross organizational boundaries may require changes by several actors. Collaboration can help align those actions.
• Leadership development. Participants can gain experience facilitating, organizing, analyzing information, leading projects, negotiating, and representing their organizations or communities.
• Greater community influence. Collaborative structures can create meaningful pathways for community knowledge and priorities to affect institutional decisions.
• Longer-term collaborative capacity. Partnerships that work effectively may make future coordination easier by creating relationships, procedures, and shared understanding.

Potential difficulties

Collaborative leadership also creates costs and risks.

• It requires time. Meaningful participation, information sharing, discussion, and coordination take time that should be planned rather than treated as free.
• Participation can create burdens. Community members and organizational partners may be contributing meeting time, preparation, transportation, caregiving costs, lost work time, or professional expertise.
• Power differences can distort participation. People with more money, status, staff, technical vocabulary, or formal authority may dominate even when everyone is technically allowed to speak.
• Accountability can become unclear. Groups may spend substantial time discussing a decision without knowing who ultimately has authority to make it or responsibility to implement it.
• Conflict is inevitable. Partners may disagree about priorities, values, evidence, resources, responsibilities, or acceptable risk.
• Participation can become symbolic. Inviting people into a process without giving their input any realistic chance of influencing decisions can damage trust.
• Representation can be incomplete. The people who attend meetings may not represent everyone affected by the issue.
• Confidentiality may limit what can be shared. Personnel, health, legal, participant, research, or security information may require restrictions.
• Collaboration fatigue can develop. People may participate in multiple coalitions and committees while seeing little movement toward action.

Collaborative leadership should therefore be used deliberately rather than treated as the correct process for every problem.

When is collaborative leadership appropriate?

Collaborative leadership is particularly useful when the issue is complex, responsibilities are distributed, and successful action depends on several people or organizations.

Consider a collaborative approach:

• When the necessary conditions exist. Participants need enough time, information, resources, authority, and support for meaningful collaboration.
• When a problem crosses organizational or professional boundaries. No single organization may control all the resources, relationships, or decisions necessary to address it.
• When several groups hold important knowledge or interests. Different perspectives may be necessary to understand both the problem and the consequences of possible solutions.
• When earlier approaches have not produced adequate results. Collaborative analysis may reveal barriers or options that isolated efforts did not identify.
• When implementation depends on several actors. Collaborative planning can clarify who will do what and how work will be coordinated.
• When meaningful participation and shared power are themselves important goals. A community initiative that seeks to expand people's influence should use a process consistent with that goal.

Collaborative decision-making may be less appropriate when:

• Immediate safety requires rapid action by a clearly responsible person
• Law or policy has already established the required action
• Confidential information prevents broad participation
• A narrow technical decision can be made more responsibly by qualified specialists
• Participants are being asked for input that cannot actually affect the result
• The cost of a large collaborative process would be disproportionate to the decision

Even in these situations, collaboration may still be useful before or after the immediate decision. Emergency planning, for example, may be collaborative even when the actual emergency response requires clear command authority.

Who are collaborative leaders?

Collaborative leaders may be formal leaders, community members, staff members, consultants, facilitators, public officials, organizational representatives, or other participants.

Some collaborations use one coordinator or facilitator. Others use co-chairs, steering groups, rotating facilitators, or shared leadership structures.

Useful characteristics and skills include:

Credibility and trustworthiness

Collaborative leaders do not need to be trusted by every participant before the work begins.

They do need to behave in ways that support trustworthiness:

• Following through on commitments
• Applying the agreed process fairly
• Communicating clearly
• Acknowledging uncertainty
• Protecting appropriate confidentiality
• Disclosing relevant conflicts of interest

Being an outside facilitator does not automatically make someone neutral or unbiased. Relevant interests, relationships, funding sources, or previous involvement should be disclosed.

Respectful engagement across differences

Collaborative leaders should be able to work respectfully with people who differ in role, profession, culture, language, organizational authority, lived experience, or perspective.

This involves cultural humility and willingness to learn rather than assuming that a facilitator can become fully knowledgeable about every group involved.

Facilitation skills

Useful facilitation skills include:

• Managing disagreement constructively
• Creating multiple ways for people to contribute
• Summarizing and reframing ideas accurately
• Understanding group processes and power dynamics
• Clarifying decision rules
• Recognizing when a discussion needs additional evidence or expertise
• Maintaining focus without shutting down legitimate dissent
• Supporting accessible participation

Ability to see the larger system

Collaborative leaders need to understand not only what happens in a meeting but also the relationships, institutions, incentives, authority, history, resources, and external conditions shaping the issue.

Ability to connect people and resources

Collaborative leaders often help identify missing participants, expertise, funding, data, partnerships, or other resources that the group needs.

Commitment to developing other leaders

Collaborative leadership should not make one facilitator indispensable.

Give other participants opportunities to:

• Facilitate meetings
• Lead projects
• Present findings
• Coordinate subgroups
• Represent the collaboration
• Learn relevant technical or organizational skills

Commitment to both process and results

Collaborative leadership requires attention to how decisions are made and whether the collaboration is accomplishing useful work.

A process can be inclusive and respectful yet still fail if no decisions are made or responsibilities are never implemented.

How do you practice collaborative leadership?

Clarify the purpose, mandate, and boundaries

Before inviting people into a collaborative process, clarify:

• What issue the collaboration is addressing
• Why collaboration is needed
• What authority the collaboration has
• Which decisions are open for discussion
• Which requirements are already fixed
• What success would look like
• How long the collaboration is expected to continue

Don't invite people to make a decision that another body has already made.

Identify relevant participants and power relationships

Consider who:

• Is affected by the issue
• Has relevant lived or community knowledge
• Has technical or professional expertise
• Controls resources
• Has decision authority
• Will implement the work
• Has historically been excluded
• May bear unintended consequences

No stakeholder list will remain perfect forever. Revisit participation as the issue changes.

Don't assume that one representative speaks for an entire community, profession, agency, or organization.

Make participation realistic

Participation requires resources.

Consider:

• Scheduling
• Transportation
• Childcare or other caregiving responsibilities
• Language access
• Accessible meeting spaces and technology
• Remote participation
• Compensation for substantial community expertise where appropriate
• Preparation materials
• Technology access

A process is not meaningfully inclusive if only people with flexible schedules, professional salaries, transportation, or institutional support can participate consistently.

Establish governance and decision rules

Clarify who:

• Sets agendas
• Facilitates
• Provides information
• Makes recommendations
• Makes final decisions
• Implements decisions
• Monitors progress

Also establish the decision method.

Possibilities include:

• Consensus
• Consent
• Majority or supermajority vote
• An accountable decision-maker acting after consultation
• Delegation to a subgroup or subject-matter expert

Consensus is one option, not the definition of collaboration.

Establish explicit working agreements

Useful agreements may address:

• Respectful communication
• Meeting preparation
• Attendance
• Confidentiality
• Information sharing
• Conflicts of interest
• Decision-making
• Accessibility
• Disagreement and conflict
• Documentation
• Responsibilities between meetings

Important expectations should generally be explicit rather than relying on unwritten norms that new or less powerful members may not know.

Create psychological safety

Collaborative participants need to be able to raise questions, admit uncertainty, challenge assumptions, report mistakes, and disagree with more powerful participants without unnecessary humiliation or retaliation.

Leaders can support this by:

• Responding constructively to difficult information
• Asking for concerns before closing discussion
• Acknowledging their own uncertainty
• Not treating disagreement as disloyalty
• Making escalation routes clear when a concern involves the facilitator or another powerful member

Psychological safety does not eliminate standards of conduct or accountability.

Create multiple ways for people to contribute

Don't judge participation only by how often someone speaks in a meeting.

Depending on the group, input may come through:

• Discussion
• Written comments
• Surveys
• Small-group work
• Community meetings
• Interviews
• Advisory groups
• Digital collaboration tools

Pay attention to whose information is not reaching the process and why.

Support useful relationships

Relationships matter, particularly when partners have a history of competition or mistrust.

Trust develops through more than social contact. Participants watch whether others:

• Keep commitments
• Share information appropriately
• Respect confidentiality
• Give credit fairly
• Follow agreed procedures
• Share resources as promised
• Respond when problems are raised

Address conflict rather than hiding it

Disagreement may involve:

• Values
• Evidence
• Funding
• Authority
• Organizational interests
• Community priorities
• Workload
• Strategy

First identify the nature of the disagreement.

Some conflicts can be handled through facilitated discussion, negotiation, mediation, or clarification of roles. Others may require a formal decision, complaint process, legal review, investigation, or a decision to end part of the collaboration.

Collaboration does not require every disagreement to disappear.

Bring relevant evidence and knowledge into the process

Collaborative decision-making can draw on:

• Community and lived knowledge
• Research
• Program data
• Professional expertise
• Organizational experience
• Policy and legal information
• Evaluation findings
• Pilot projects

Make clear what is known, what remains uncertain, and where different forms of knowledge point in different directions.

Delegate without losing accountability

Not every issue needs to return to the full group for detailed approval.

The collaboration may delegate work to:

• Staff
• Committees
• Working groups
• Technical experts
• Community advisory groups

Clarify the scope of that authority and what must return to the larger group.

Move from discussion to action

Collaboration should eventually produce decisions, actions, learning, or another agreed result.

When discussion has reached the point where a decision can responsibly be made:

• Restate the decision to be made
• Identify unresolved questions
• Confirm the decision rule
• Record the decision
• Assign responsibilities
• Establish timelines
• Determine how progress will be monitored

Begin with appropriately scoped work

Early projects can help partners learn how they work together and reveal problems in communication, decision-making, or implementation.

Choose work that is meaningful and realistic with the available time and resources rather than manufacturing an easy project merely to claim success.

Provide the resources collaboration requires

Collaborative processes may need:

• Coordination staff
• Facilitation
• Meeting space or technology
• Translation or interpretation
• Accessibility services
• Data or research support
• Community-participant compensation
• Evaluation
• Communications support

An initiative that continually depends on unpaid labor from the same people may not be sustainable.

Protect the integrity of the process

A collaborative process should not be used to create the appearance of participation while decisions are made elsewhere.

Be clear about:

• What remains open for decision
• What has already been decided
• Which participant has which authority
• What information cannot be shared
• What legal, financial, safety, or professional requirements apply

Process integrity also means protecting people from retaliation for participating in good faith and ensuring that major changes to the process are explained.

Consider the interests of the whole without erasing differences

Collaborative leaders often help participants move beyond narrow organizational interests.

At the same time, appeals to "the common good" should not erase:

• Minority interests
• Rights
• Unequal burdens
• Historical inequities
• Legitimate organizational responsibilities

Ask not only what produces the largest overall benefit but also who bears the costs of the proposed action.

Know the leadership context

Every collaboration operates in a particular context.

Important factors include:

The community and environment

• Current circumstances. What is happening now, and why has the issue become important?
• History. What previous efforts, relationships, harms, successes, or broken commitments affect the current work?
• Relationships. How do participating organizations and communities relate to one another?
• Different community perspectives. Which groups view the issue differently, and whose perspectives are least represented?
• Power and resources. Who controls funding, information, institutions, property, regulation, or other resources relevant to the issue?

The nature of the problem

Some problems are relatively well defined. An organization may know what is wrong and need appropriate technical expertise to fix it.

Other problems have a clear goal but require changes in behavior, relationships, policy, organizational practice, or community participation in addition to technical expertise.

Still other problems are genuinely complex. People may disagree about what the underlying problem is, what caused it, what an acceptable outcome would be, and which intervention is most likely to help.

The less certain the definition and solution, the more important it may be to bring together different forms of knowledge and learn through action and evaluation.

Anticipate barriers to collaboration

Common barriers include:

• Lack of experience working collaboratively
• Historical mistrust
• Competition for funding or recognition
• Unequal authority
• Unclear roles
• Inadequate staffing
• Weak community relationships
• Insufficient funding
• Inaccessible meetings or communication
• Conflicting organizational incentives
• Different expectations about what the collaboration can accomplish

Match the response to the actual barrier.

If participants lack experience with collaborative work, provide orientation and facilitation. If power is concentrated, change governance or resource-sharing arrangements rather than simply asking less powerful participants to speak more confidently. If partners compete for funding, discuss the underlying incentives directly.

Maintain momentum realistically

Collaborative work often moves more slowly than participants expect.

Help people see:

• What has been accomplished
• Which decisions remain unresolved
• What barriers are slowing progress
• What the next steps are

Recognition of progress can support motivation, but the collaborative leader should not feel responsible for continually creating enthusiasm.

Sustainable participation depends more on meaningful purpose, fair workload, adequate resources, trustworthy relationships, and visible progress than on one person's ability to remain upbeat.

Be adaptable about methods and firm about core responsibilities

Be willing to:

• Try new approaches
• Change course when evidence or circumstances change
• Stop doing what is not working
• Expand participation when important perspectives are missing
• Revise structures that have become unnecessarily complicated

At the same time, do not compromise legal duties, safety, nondiscrimination, accessibility, confidentiality, ethical requirements, or the integrity of agreed decision processes simply to maintain harmony.

Practice humility and role discipline

Collaborative leaders can contribute their own ideas. They do not have to pretend to have no opinions.

They should be clear about which role they are playing:

• Facilitator
• Organizational representative
• Subject-matter expert
• Decision-maker
• Community member

When acting as a facilitator, do not manipulate the process to produce your preferred result.

When you also have decision authority or organizational responsibilities, state those boundaries openly.

Respect decisions made through legitimate agreed processes, while recognizing that law, safety, fiduciary responsibility, professional standards, ethics, or formal authority may sometimes require you to object, escalate, decline participation, or take another action.

Share leadership

Encourage other people to take responsibility where appropriate.

Leadership may shift according to:

• Expertise
• Community relationships
• Project responsibility
• Implementation role
• Facilitation skills

Shared leadership can strengthen capacity and prevent the collaboration from becoming dependent on one coordinator.

Document agreements and decisions

Collaborative work can become confusing when participants remember decisions differently.

Document appropriate information such as:

• Membership
• Governance
• Decision rules
• Funding commitments
• Responsibilities
• Major decisions
• Action items
• Timelines
• Data-sharing agreements

Determine what records are public, shared only among partners, or confidential.

Protect data and confidential information

Collaborations may share data about participants, employees, patients, students, community members, programs, or organizations.

Before sharing information, clarify:

• What may be shared
• Why it is needed
• Who may access it
• Who owns or controls the data
• Where it will be stored
• How findings may be published or presented
• What happens when the collaboration ends

Evaluate both the work and the collaboration

Evaluate whether the collaboration is accomplishing its goals and whether the process itself is functioning well.

Questions might include:

• Are we achieving the intended outcomes?
• Are responsibilities being carried out?
• Is relevant information being shared?
• Do participants understand how decisions are made?
• Whose perspectives are missing?
• Are some partners carrying much more of the workload or cost?
• Do community participants experience meaningful influence?
• Are commitments being honored?
• Are conflicts being handled effectively?
• Are the resources devoted to collaboration justified by the results?

Use what you learn to revise the collaboration rather than assuming that the process is working simply because meetings continue to occur.

Plan for transition or closure

Collaborations may end because their objective is completed, funding ends, circumstances change, or partners decide that another structure would work better.

Before ending:

• Complete or transfer unfinished responsibilities
• Clarify ownership of records and data
• Communicate with affected partners and communities
• Document lessons learned
• Resolve remaining financial or contractual commitments
• Decide which relationships or activities should continue

In Summary

Collaborative leadership helps people and organizations work together on issues that cross boundaries of authority, expertise, resources, or experience.

It places particular emphasis on meaningful participation, shared information, appropriate sharing of power, clear decision processes, coordination, and joint action.

Collaboration does not mean that everyone participates in every decision, that all partners begin with equal power, or that formal authority disappears. Strong collaborative leadership acknowledges those realities and creates structures through which relevant people can influence the work while responsibilities remain clear.

Collaborative approaches are especially useful for complex and interdependent problems in which no single organization can act effectively alone. They are less useful when participation cannot influence the decision, immediate action is required, or responsibility rests clearly with a particular role.

Effective collaborative leaders help clarify purpose and authority, bring relevant participants into the process, address power differences, make participation accessible, establish decision rules, facilitate disagreement, protect psychological safety, connect discussion to implementation, and develop leadership in others.

Finally, collaboration should be evaluated rather than assumed to be beneficial. Look at both the results and the process: whether goals are being achieved, whether commitments are being honored, whether power and workload are distributed fairly, whether community knowledge is influencing decisions, and whether the collaboration remains worth the time and resources it requires.

What is collaborative leadership?

You know that important characteristics of collaborative leadership are:

___Insistence on collaborative problem-solving and decision-making.

___Maintenance of an open process.

___Leadership of a process, rather than of people.

Why practice collaborative leadership?

You know that advantages of collaborative leadership include:

___Buy-in.

___More involvement in implementation.

___Trust building.

___Elimination of turf issues.

___Access to more and better information and ideas.

___Better opportunity for substantive results..

___Generation of new leadership.

___Community or organizational empowerment.

___Fundamental change for the better in the ways communities and organizations operate.

You recognize some disadvantages of collaborative leadership:

___It's time-consuming.

___It demands the ability to face conflict directly

___It may mean trying to overcome resistance to the whole idea of collaborative leadership.

___It can lead to groups taking what seems to you to be the wrong path.

___It demands that leaders subordinate their egos.

When is collaborative leadership appropriate?

You practice collaborative leadership when:

___Problems are serious and complex, and both affect and require attention from a number of individuals and groups.

___There are a number of diverse stakeholders, or stakeholders with varied interests.

___Other attempts at solutions haven't worked.

___An issue affects a whole organization or a whole community.

___Inclusiveness and empowerment are goals of the process from the beginning.

Who are real and potential collaborative leaders?

You recognize collaborative leaders as people who:

___Have community credibility.

___Relate respectfully and easily to all groups in the community.

___Have good facilitation skills.

___Can act as catalysts for the collaborative process.

___Nurture new leadership.

___Have a commitment to the collaborative, open process.

___Focus on the good of the organization, collaborative or community as a whole.

How do you practice collaborative leadership?

You lead the process:

___You help the group set norms that it can live by, and that encourage respect, participation, and trust.

___You assure that everyone gets heard.

___You encourage and model inclusiveness.

___You help people make real connections with one another.

___You mediate conflicts and disputes.

___You help the group create and use mechanisms for soliciting ideas.

___You maintain collaborative problem-solving and decision-making.

___You push the group toward effectiveness by:

___You help the group choose initial projects that are doable, in order to build confidence and demonstrate collaborative success.

___You help the group identify and obtain the necessary resources to do the work.

___You insist on and protect an open process,

___You keep the group focused on what's best for the organization, collaborative, or community as a whole, rather than on individual interests.

You recognize and use the leadership context:

___You know (or learn about) the community:

• Its history (including its history with the current issue).
• Its people and organizations and their relationships with one another.
• Its current situation.

___You understand the nature of the problem, including factors unique to the community.

___You understand potential barriers to collaboration, and how to overcome them.

___You know how open people are to change, and where you have to start in order to be successful.

___You motivate the group and keep them focused on the goals.

___You are realistic about what the group can take on at any given time.

___You are flexible in your dealings with people and ideas.

___You are inflexible in your protection of the inclusive, open, collaborative process.

___You forego the need to satisfy your ego.

___You encourage new ideas from others.

___You encourage new leadership from within the group.

___You step aside, temporarily or permanently, when appropriate.

Example: Remembering the Work of Broderick Crawford, 1961-2022

​

Broderick Crawford, the executive director of the NBC (New Bethel Church) Community Development Corp., sees possibilities in deterioration. He envisions children biking to the playground, perhaps to play pickup basketball, and families who can enjoy the outdoors in safety.

The NBC Community Development Corp. is one part of a multifaceted coalition that includes Healthy Communities Wyandotte, Community Health Council of Wyandotte County, FreeWheels for Kids, UG Parks and Recreation, the University of Kansas School of Architecture, the Latino Health for All Coalition and other organizations that are working to improve the health of Wyandotte Countians. Read more.

A Power Point presentation summarizing the major points in the section.

 

What is a community leader? Are you one?

Community leadership involves helping people address shared concerns and strengthen the well-being of their communities. Leadership may be formal or informal, ongoing or temporary, individual or shared.

Are you interested in exercising community leadership? Consider whether you:

• Want to help improve your community
• Have knowledge, skills, relationships, or experience that could contribute
• Are willing to take appropriate initiative when something needs attention

If so, you may already be exercising community leadership or developing the capacity to do so.

You do not have to run for office or hold a formal title. A resident organizing neighbors around a local problem, a volunteer coordinating a project, a young person advocating for a change at school, or a professional helping several organizations work together may all exercise leadership.

Community leadership does not mean appointing yourself to speak or decide for other people. Take responsibility appropriate to your role, knowledge, relationships, authority, and the wishes of the people affected by the work.

People often learn leadership through experience, but experience is more useful when it is combined with preparation, feedback, mentoring, coaching, reflection, and opportunities to learn from others.

Why might you choose to be a community leader?

Leadership can be meaningful and rewarding, but it should not be treated as an obligation for everyone.

You may choose leadership because you care about an issue, want to contribute particular skills, see a problem that needs attention, want to learn, or are willing to accept responsibility for work that matters to you and others.

You can also contribute to your community without becoming the person in charge. Communities need organizers, specialists, volunteers, participants, mentors, advocates, facilitators, caregivers, researchers, and many other contributors.

You can make a difference

Most community leadership is not dramatic. It usually consists of sustained work: bringing people together, improving a program, making information accessible, organizing a neighborhood project, advocating for a policy change, coordinating resources, resolving a practical problem, or helping other people participate effectively.

These efforts may not receive much public recognition, but they can have important effects on people's lives and on how a community works.

For example, a resident might notice that people using a neighborhood park have difficulty reaching accessible entrances. They could talk with other park users, document the problem, learn which agency is responsible, bring the issue to the appropriate public body, and work with residents and officials on possible improvements.

You can grow

Leadership responsibilities can provide opportunities to strengthen communication, planning, facilitation, decision-making, conflict management, collaboration, and other skills.

You do not need one particular personality to lead. Some effective leaders speak easily in large groups. Others listen carefully, analyze information, build relationships, coordinate details, or contribute expertise in quieter ways.

Leadership skills develop over time. With useful experience, feedback, and support, people can expand what they are able and willing to do.

Communities benefit from many kinds of leadership

Complex community problems rarely depend on one leader.

Communities need many people able to organize, coordinate, analyze problems, share information, build relationships, make decisions within their responsibilities, advocate, and help others participate.

Community leadership should be accessible to people with different backgrounds, ages, incomes, disabilities, professions, cultures, communication styles, and life experiences.

Leadership opportunities are not equally available simply because anyone is technically allowed to participate. Transportation, scheduling, unpaid time, inaccessible meetings, technology, language, discrimination, caregiving responsibilities, and informal networks may all affect who is able to take part.

Strong community leadership therefore includes removing unnecessary barriers and making meaningful participation possible.

Leadership also requires cooperation. Organizations and individuals may have legitimate differences in authority, resources, priorities, and interests. Rather than pretending those differences do not exist, effective leaders help people address them openly and determine where coordinated work is possible.

Examples of community leadership

• A resident brings a neighborhood transportation problem to a public meeting, gathers information from other residents, and helps organize follow-up.
• Several neighbors organize around the loss of trees and green space and work with local officials on alternatives.
• A young person organizes classmates to address an accessibility, safety, or student-life issue at school.
• A volunteer coordinates a community food-distribution project and develops other volunteers to take responsibility for parts of the work.
• A community member helps several organizations share information and coordinate services after a severe-weather event.

Formal positions can also create opportunities and responsibilities for community leadership.

• Leaders from faith and community organizations create a substance-use prevention or recovery-support initiative with relevant community partners.
• A teacher creates meaningful ways for families to discuss school issues and contribute ideas.
• A city council member proposes a coordinated approach to housing and homelessness involving service providers and people with lived experience.
• A student organization leader coordinates a project addressing an issue students have identified as important.

What these examples have in common is that people accepted appropriate responsibility, worked with others, and helped move useful community work forward.

When should you lead?

Opportunities to exercise leadership can arise almost anywhere, whether or not you hold the designated leadership role.

That does not mean you should always take charge.

Sometimes leadership means:

• Taking initiative
• Asking a useful question
• Raising a concern
• Offering relevant expertise
• Organizing people or resources
• Supporting someone else who is better positioned to lead
• Following established expertise during an emergency
• Listening before deciding what help is needed

Before stepping forward, consider:

• Is action needed?
• Has someone already been given responsibility for this issue?
• Do I have information or expertise that would help?
• Who is affected?
• Have the people involved asked for help or participation?
• What authority do I actually have?

Supporting another leader can itself be leadership. You might share useful information, take responsibility for part of the work, provide respectful feedback, help coordinate others, or make sure an important commitment is completed.

How do people learn how to lead?

Do you have to be a "born leader" in order to lead?

No. People can develop leadership skills and behaviors.

Different people begin with different experiences, strengths, interests, and opportunities. Someone who has organized family responsibilities, coached a team, coordinated a community event, managed a difficult project, facilitated an online group, or advocated for another person may already have leadership-related experience without using that label.

Leadership development may include:

• Practicing through appropriately scoped responsibilities
• Observing several different leaders
• Mentoring
• Coaching
• Feedback
• Peer learning
• Project leadership and other developmental assignments
• Classes, workshops, and other formal learning
• Reading and self-directed learning
• Reflecting on experience and mistakes

Leadership development is continuous. A person may be highly experienced in one situation and need guidance in another.

Clarify the change you hope to contribute to

Leadership often begins with noticing something you want to improve.

Think beyond what you personally want. Ask:

• What issue matters to me?
• Who else is affected?
• How do those people understand the issue?
• What strengths and work already exist in the community?
• What would meaningful improvement look like?
• What role could I realistically play?

Try these exercises:

• Ask someone from another generation what they would like to see improved in the community and why.
• Think about an issue that mattered to you earlier in your life. Has your understanding of it changed?
• Write down several changes you would like to see, then identify whose knowledge and participation would be necessary to understand each issue well.

Develop a shared or personal sense of direction

A personal sense of purpose can help you decide where you want to contribute, but community leadership should not assume that one person's vision should become everyone else's.

If you are working with a group, organization, or community initiative, connect your ideas with the organization's mission, community priorities, available evidence, and the goals of the people affected.

A useful statement of direction describes the condition you hope to help create.

For example:

We want neighborhood parks to be safe, accessible, welcoming, and usable by people throughout the community.

A sense of direction should guide action without becoming so fixed that new evidence or changing circumstances cannot influence it.

Listen to people

Community leadership requires listening to people whose knowledge, responsibilities, and lives are connected to the issue.

Good listening includes:

• Asking open questions
• Listening without deciding in advance what someone means
• Seeking perspectives different from your own
• Paying attention to concerns that are difficult to hear
• Providing more than one way for people to contribute
• Explaining how input affected a decision

Listening does not require agreeing with every position. Evaluate information carefully, identify disagreement honestly, and avoid dismissing someone simply because communication with them is difficult.

Decide what responsibility you can take

Leadership requires initiative, but it also requires understanding the limits of your role.

Ask what useful contribution you can make based on your knowledge, relationships, skills, authority, and available time.

You may bring a perspective or capability that others do not. At the same time, no community should become dependent on the assumption that one person is uniquely capable of solving its problems.

Set goals

Give your direction a practical form by establishing long-term and short-term goals.

For example, if your direction is:

"Create a community where people can use city parks safely and accessibly."

You might establish goals such as:

Long-term goals:

• Increase access to safe and welcoming parks and green spaces
• Improve actual and perceived safety in city parks
• Reduce barriers that prevent people from using parks

Short-term goals:

• Identify existing parks, accessibility conditions, usage patterns, and community concerns
• Talk with residents, park staff, disability advocates, public-safety partners, youth, and other relevant groups
• Review available information about incidents, maintenance, lighting, transportation, and other conditions
• Identify possible actions and the organizations responsible for them
• Decide whether the work is best carried out through an existing organization, partnership, or new initiative

Strong goals also identify responsibilities, resources, timelines, and ways to review progress.

Think about the individuals in the group

Leadership includes paying attention to whether people can contribute effectively.

Consider:

• Are people's skills being used well?
• Are responsibilities clear?
• Is workload distributed reasonably?
• Does anyone need training, information, or support?
• Are particular behaviors interfering with the work?
• Are some people's ideas repeatedly overlooked?
• Are accessibility or participation barriers affecting anyone?

Describe specific behaviors and problems rather than labeling people as difficult, divisive, or unmotivated.

Think about the group as a whole

Groups also need attention to how their work fits together.

Ask:

• Do people understand the purpose?
• Are roles and decision responsibilities clear?
• Is relevant information reaching the people who need it?
• Can people raise concerns and admit mistakes?
• Is disagreement handled constructively?
• Does the group have the resources it needs?
• Are meetings and communication accessible?
• Are important responsibilities concentrated in too few people?

Propose programs, policies, and solutions

Leadership often involves proposing a direction rather than waiting for someone else to produce one.

Useful proposals are based on:

• A clear understanding of the problem
• Relevant evidence and community knowledge
• Input from people affected
• Available resources
• Legal, ethical, and organizational requirements
• A realistic implementation plan

Present proposals clearly, listen to responses, and revise them when better information or alternatives emerge.

Help get the work done

Leadership includes execution as well as ideas.

That may involve organizing people, following up on commitments, completing routine tasks, obtaining resources, solving problems, and helping the group maintain momentum.

It does not require a leader to do everything personally or repeatedly sacrifice sleep, health, relationships, or reasonable boundaries.

Sustainable execution depends on:

• Priorities
• Delegation
• Adequate staffing or volunteer capacity
• Clear deadlines
• Backup coverage
• Realistic workload
• Appropriate rest and time away

Develop leadership in others

One important contribution a community leader can make is helping other people develop their own capacity to take responsibility, exercise judgment, and contribute effectively.

This strengthens continuity and reduces dependence on one person.

You can:

• Make leadership-development opportunities visible and accessible
• Help people recognize skills and informal leadership they may already use
• Ask what they want to learn or contribute
• Offer appropriately scoped developmental assignments
• Provide preparation and useful feedback
• Support people in learning from mistakes
• Provide mentoring or coaching where appropriate
• Offer additional responsibility when the person wants it and is prepared for it

Don't assume that only people who already look confident or charismatic have leadership potential.

Developmental opportunities should contain real responsibility, but the amount of risk should fit the person's preparation and the importance of the work.

For example, someone learning facilitation might first help plan an agenda, observe an experienced facilitator, co-facilitate one part of a meeting, and receive feedback before facilitating a full meeting independently.

Leadership development is a long-term investment, but developing other people does not require slowing important work unnecessarily or accepting avoidable harm in the name of learning.

What are some qualities of effective community leaders?

No leader possesses every useful quality, and different situations require different strengths.

Useful qualities and practices often include:

• Integrity: Be honest, follow through on commitments, use authority responsibly, and acknowledge mistakes.
• Courage: Raise important concerns, make difficult decisions when required, and address unsafe or unethical practices even when doing so is uncomfortable.
• Accountability: Accept responsibility for decisions and for the obligations attached to your role.
• Respect and empathy: Listen to people, treat them with dignity, and consider how decisions affect people whose experiences differ from your own.
• Humility: Recognize the limits of your knowledge, ask for help, and be willing to change your mind.
• Competence: Develop the knowledge and skills required by your responsibilities and know when specialist expertise is needed.
• Judgment: Consider evidence, risk, uncertainty, responsibilities, and consequences before acting.
• Collaboration: Work effectively with people who hold different roles, perspectives, and forms of expertise.
• Curiosity: Ask questions and remain interested in information that challenges your assumptions.
• Creativity and adaptability: Consider new approaches and change course when circumstances or evidence require it.
• Persistence with flexibility: Stay committed to worthwhile goals without continuing an approach simply because you have already invested in it.

Which qualities matter most will depend on the leadership role and the circumstances.

Getting and giving support as a leader

Leadership can be demanding, and people exercising leadership benefit from relationships that provide perspective, feedback, learning, and support.

Useful support may come from:

• Professional peers
• Mentors
• Coaches
• Supervisors
• Board members
• Trusted colleagues
• Friends and family
• Faith or community relationships
• Appropriate professional support when needed

Peer leadership groups can provide a regular place for reflection and problem solving.

A group might discuss:

• What has gone well
• A difficult decision or challenge
• Feedback members have received
• What is happening in their organizations or communities
• A goal for the next period
• What support or information would be useful

Establish expectations about confidentiality, advice, participation, and what kinds of concerns should be addressed through another organizational or professional process.

Managing stress and maintaining well-being

Leadership responsibilities can create stress, particularly during conflict, uncertainty, emergencies, resource shortages, or periods of heavy workload.

Stress can affect attention, judgment, communication, sleep, and relationships. Leaders should pay attention to their own capacity rather than assuming that commitment requires ignoring these effects.

Useful individual practices may include:

• Talking with trusted people
• Taking appropriate breaks and leave
• Maintaining relationships and activities outside the work
• Exercise, reflection, spiritual practices, or other restorative activities
• Seeking professional support when appropriate

At the same time, individual coping cannot correct every leadership stressor.

Examine organizational conditions such as:

• Excessive workload
• Persistent understaffing
• Unclear responsibilities
• Constant after-hours availability
• Chronic conflict
• Lack of decision authority
• Unsafe or disrespectful working conditions
• Lack of backup coverage

Sometimes the responsible response is not to become more resilient but to delegate, reduce workload, obtain additional resources, change an organizational practice, take leave, or reconsider what work can realistically be accomplished.

Leaders should also be thoughtful about where they seek emotional support. Employees, volunteers, clients, students, or other people with less organizational power should not be made responsible for carrying a leader's personal emotional burden.

Create psychological safety for others

Your own need for support is connected with another leadership responsibility: creating conditions in which other people can speak honestly.

People should be able to:

• Ask questions
• Admit uncertainty
• Ask for help
• Report mistakes
• Raise concerns
• Disagree respectfully

Respond constructively when people bring difficult information. If raising a problem leads to embarrassment, retaliation, or dismissal, people may stop bringing important information forward.

Psychological safety does not mean avoiding accountability. People can be expected to meet standards while still being able to speak honestly about problems.

In Summary

Community leadership does not require a title, a particular personality, or a dramatic moment in which one person saves the day.

It involves taking appropriate responsibility, working with others, listening to community knowledge, using authority carefully, coordinating action, solving problems, and helping people contribute to shared goals.

People can develop leadership through experience, developmental assignments, mentoring, coaching, feedback, peer learning, formal education, and reflection. Leadership development should be available broadly rather than limited to people who already resemble a conventional image of a leader.

Effective community leaders clarify purpose, listen, set useful goals, pay attention to both individuals and groups, propose workable approaches, help carry out the work, and develop leadership capacity in others.

They also recognize limits. Sustainable leadership does not require one person to be continuously available, personally complete every task, or sacrifice health and relationships to prove commitment.

Communities are stronger when many people can contribute different forms of leadership, expertise, service, and participation. The important question is not whether you should become the leader of your community, but what responsible and meaningful contribution you are prepared to make and how you can help strengthen the capacity of others along the way.

Why do you want to be a community leader?

___To make a difference

___To grow

___To fill a large need for community leaders

How can you best learn to lead?

___By jumping right in and practicing

___By observing others

___By finding a mentor

___Through a class or workshop

___By reading books about leaders and leadership

How can you best lead?

___Dream big to create your personal vision

___Listen to people

___Decide that I am the person to take responsibility for my community

___Set goals

___Think about the individuals in the group

___Think about the group as a whole

___Propose programs and policies

___Get the work done

___Recruit and teach others to become leaders

What are some important characteristics of community leadership?

___Integrity

___Courage

___Commitment

___Ability to care about others

___Creativity and flexibility

___It's important for leaders to give and get support from one another

___Be sure to take care of your own well being, too

Example: Lawrence activist Mattie Bell’s environmental advocacy centers both the planet and people

 

When Mattie Bell advocates for a thriving environment, they simultaneously advocate for human rights. This fervent passion for social justice began at a young age.

“I don’t remember a time that I wasn’t aware of it. I remember being like 7 years old and arguing with my grandpa on whether climate change was real or not,” Bell said. “I believe social justice is an aspect of climate change because climate change exacerbates all social justice issues.”

Factors such as race and class are directly related to environmentalism, they said.

“One example in the history of the U.S. is that Black and Brown communities have been redlined into certain neighborhoods, and those neighborhoods have been either selected as where industrial infrastructure will go, like factories and stuff like that, or highways will be built through them,” Bell said.

Read more in the Lawrence Times article.

A Power Point presentation summarizing the major points in the section.

 

 

• What is a vision?

• Why do you need to communicate a vision to others?

• When do you need to communicate your vision?

• How do you create a vision?

• How do you communicate a vision to others?

Community leadership often begins with a sense that something could be different or better.

You may want older adults to be able to live safely and independently. You may want every student in your school district to have a meaningful opportunity to learn. You may want neighborhoods where people can reach jobs, services, parks, schools, and one another safely. Or you may want community members and institutions to be better able to work through difficult problems together.

Those ideas can help create a vision, but a community vision should not simply become one leader's preferred future imposed on everyone else.

Community members, staff, volunteers, organizations, public agencies, participants, and other people affected by the work may hold knowledge and priorities that should shape the desired future as well.

In this section, we will look at how you can clarify the future you hope to help create, test and strengthen that idea through listening and evidence, communicate it clearly, and connect it with collective action.

The vision process may include:

1. Clarifying your own ideas and values
2. Listening to the people and communities connected to the issue
3. Developing and communicating a shared or organizational vision

This section focuses particularly on the first two steps and on the transition from an individual's ideas toward a vision that can guide shared work.

The next section focuses on developing the group's vision, including how to create a vision statement for a group or organization.

What is a vision?

A vision is a concise description of a desired future condition. It helps people understand what they are working toward and why the work matters.

A vision is broader than a goal or action plan. It describes the future you hope to help create rather than listing every step required to reach it.

For example, a neighborhood vision might be:

A safe, accessible, welcoming neighborhood where people have opportunities to connect, participate in community decisions, and work together on shared concerns.

That vision does not determine exactly how people must live or relate to one another. It identifies broad conditions that can guide more specific goals and strategies.

A useful vision should be:

• Clear enough to understand
• Broad enough to guide multiple strategies
• Relevant to the people affected
• Consistent with the group's or organization's responsibilities and values
• Open to revision as knowledge and circumstances change

Why do you need to communicate a vision to others?

People need to understand the purpose of a project, organization, coalition, or community initiative if they are going to decide how they can contribute to it.

A clearly communicated vision can:

• Help people understand the direction of the work
• Connect everyday activities with a larger purpose
• Help people identify where they agree and disagree
• Invite feedback and additional knowledge
• Support coordination among people with different responsibilities
• Help an organization decide what opportunities fit its mission and what opportunities do not
• Provide a reference point for goals, strategy, and evaluation

Communicating a vision is not simply an exercise in persuasion. People may hear the vision and have questions, identify risks, suggest a different emphasis, or decide that they do not share all of it.

Those responses can provide useful information.

When do you need to communicate your vision?

Communicate the vision whenever people need it to understand a decision, priority, change, or opportunity.

Useful moments include:

• When an initiative is beginning
• When new staff, volunteers, partners, or community members become involved
• When priorities are being set
• When resources must be allocated
• When a major decision or change needs explanation
• When the group is reviewing progress
• When circumstances suggest that the vision itself may need revision

Before forming a new organization or initiative, talk with people already connected to the issue. Learn what work already exists, what communities identify as priorities, what previous efforts have accomplished, and whether a new organization is actually needed.

Communicating consistently is useful. Repeating the same message constantly without connecting it to people's actual work or concerns is not.

How do you create a vision?

Think expansively

Visioning creates room to think beyond current limitations.

Ask what conditions you would like to see several years from now if meaningful progress were made.

At this stage, don't reject every possibility simply because the current system does not support it. At the same time, imagination should eventually be tested against community knowledge, evidence, rights, resources, responsibilities, and practical constraints.

Intuition can suggest possibilities, but it should not be treated as proof that an idea is right or that other people will support it.

Exercise:

Choose one part of community life that matters to you. Imagine that meaningful progress has occurred five or ten years from now.

• What has changed?
• What problems have become less serious?
• What strengths or resources have grown?
• Who is able to participate who may have been excluded before?
• What would people experience differently in everyday life?

Develop your personal sense of direction

Before helping a group develop a shared vision, it can be useful to understand your own values, interests, and hopes.

You might ask:

• What issues matter most to me?
• What kind of contribution do I want to make?
• What do I want to learn?
• What responsibilities am I willing and able to accept?
• What assumptions am I making about what other people want?

Your personal direction can motivate your participation, but it should not automatically become the community's or organization's vision.

Explore a vision for your community, group, or organization

Once you understand your own ideas, begin examining what a desirable future might look like for the community, group, or organization.

Start by writing down possibilities. Then test them against what you know and what you still need to learn.

Exercise:

Imagine your community several years from now after meaningful progress has occurred. Consider questions such as:

• Housing and physical environment: Are housing, streets, buildings, parks, and public spaces safe, healthy, accessible, and well maintained?
• Economic opportunity: Can people reach useful education, employment, services, and opportunities? What barriers remain?
• Health and well-being: What conditions support physical and mental health? Can people obtain the services and support they need?
• Transportation and access: Can people get where they need to go safely and affordably?
• Relationships and belonging: Do people feel respected and able to participate? Are there opportunities for connection without requiring everyone to live or socialize in the same way?
• Education and young people: What opportunities are available to children and young people? Do they have meaningful ways to participate in decisions that affect them?
• Decision-making: Who has information, influence, and decision authority? Whose perspectives are missing or repeatedly overlooked?
• Accessibility: Can people with disabilities participate in community services, communication, meetings, public spaces, employment, and civic life?
• Community capacity: Can residents and organizations work together effectively when problems arise?
• Environment: What environmental conditions affect health, safety, recreation, and quality of life?

Your answers are a starting point, not proof of what the community as a whole wants.

Compare them with what other people say, with existing plans and community work, and with available data and evidence.

Clarify the vision

Once you have collected ideas, look for the most important themes.

Ask:

• Which ideas describe the future rather than a particular program?
• Which ideas appear repeatedly in community conversations or existing plans?
• What values or outcomes connect the different ideas?
• Is anything important missing?
• Does the language unnecessarily exclude anyone?

Then try expressing the vision in a few clear sentences.

Examples might include:

• A neighborhood where people can live safely, reach essential services and opportunities, and participate meaningfully in community life.
• A community where children and adults have equitable access to learning, health, recreation, and economic opportunity.
• A community with accessible public spaces, strong local relationships, and effective ways to solve shared problems.

These statements are intentionally broad. Specific goals and strategies come later.

How do you communicate a vision to others?

Get feedback on the vision

Talk with people connected to the issue and listen carefully to their responses.

Don't evaluate the vision only by whether people sound excited.

Ask:

• Does this reflect what matters to you?
• What is missing?
• What language is unclear?
• What concerns do you have?
• Who else should be part of this conversation?
• What existing work should we recognize?
• What would make this future more realistic or useful?

Seek feedback deliberately. The people easiest for you to reach may not represent everyone affected by the issue.

Consider whose perspectives are least likely to reach leadership through ordinary meetings, professional networks, public hearings, or informal relationships.

Develop the details

A vision provides direction, but people also need to understand how progress might occur.

Connect the vision with:

• Goals
• Strategies
• Responsibilities
• Resources
• Timelines
• Measures of progress
• Important risks and constraints
• Review points

You do not need every answer before talking about a vision, but don't present inspiration as a substitute for a workable plan.

For example, if the vision includes safer and more welcoming public spaces, possible next steps might include gathering resident input, reviewing safety and accessibility data, identifying maintenance or transportation barriers, examining programming and design, and determining which organizations or agencies have authority to act.

Move toward a shared vision

If the work depends on a group, organization, coalition, or community, the goal should not be simply to make other people adopt the leader's personal vision.

Instead, use the initial idea as material for discussion.

People may:

• Support parts of it
• Challenge assumptions
• Add priorities
• Change the language
• Identify people who were left out
• Recommend a substantially different direction

If those contributions improve the vision, changing the original idea is evidence that the process is working.

Participants do not need identical motivations or agreement on every strategy. They need enough shared purpose and clarity about responsibilities to work together.

Understand disagreement and resistance

People may disagree with a proposed vision for many reasons.

They may:

• Have different priorities
• Understand the problem differently
• Have experienced previous broken promises
• Be concerned about cost or workload
• See risks the leader has overlooked
• Lack the information needed to understand the proposal
• Believe the proposal does not address their needs
• Disagree with the approach even after understanding it fully

Treat disagreement as information to investigate rather than assuming people simply are not ready for the idea.

Start with issues people identify as important because those concerns matter in their own right, not merely because they can be used to gain support for a broader agenda.

Communicate clearly and honestly

Good vision communication explains:

• What future condition you are working toward
• Why it matters
• What evidence or community experience informs it
• What remains uncertain
• What people can influence
• What responsibilities or constraints already exist
• What the next steps are

Adjust the language and format to the audience without changing the substance in misleading ways.

Make communication accessible through appropriate language, formats, interpretation, captioning, technology, or other support where needed.

Be willing to raise difficult issues

Community leadership sometimes requires naming problems that people would rather avoid.

Courage can mean:

• Raising an unpopular concern
• Sharing evidence that challenges current practice
• Asking who is being harmed or excluded
• Questioning a powerful institution
• Acknowledging that your own preferred approach is not working

Do not assume that disagreement proves that you are courageous or correct. Listen carefully and examine criticism on its merits.

If opposition becomes threatening, harassing, discriminatory, or otherwise unsafe, use appropriate organizational, legal, communications, safety, governance, or personal support rather than trying to handle it alone.

Modify the vision when necessary

A vision should provide continuity without becoming rigid.

Revise it when:

• Community priorities change
• New evidence becomes available
• Implementation reveals an incorrect assumption
• Important perspectives were missing
• External conditions change substantially
• The organization learns that its original approach is producing unintended harm

Revising a vision does not necessarily mean abandoning core values. It may mean expressing them more accurately or finding a better way to achieve the intended outcome.

Use the vision to guide action

Developing and communicating a vision is only the beginning.

Connect it with planning and implementation:

• Establish specific goals
• Identify strategies
• Assign responsibilities
• Identify needed resources
• Clarify decision authority
• Establish measures and review points
• Monitor progress
• Adapt as the organization and community learn

A vision becomes useful when it influences actual priorities and decisions rather than remaining only an inspiring statement.

In Summary

A vision describes a desired future and helps people understand what they are working toward.

Community leaders may begin with their own ideas about what should change, but a personal vision should not automatically become the community's vision. Meaningful community leadership requires listening to people affected by the issue, understanding existing strengths and work, examining evidence, and creating opportunities for people to influence the direction.

Communicating a vision is therefore more than persuading people to follow. It involves explaining the purpose clearly, inviting questions and disagreement, identifying what is open to change, connecting broad aspirations with concrete goals, and showing how people can participate.

A useful vision should also remain open to learning. New evidence, community feedback, implementation experience, and changing circumstances may require the vision to be revised.

Finally, a vision matters only if it helps guide action. Goals, strategies, responsibilities, resources, measures, and review processes are what turn a desired future into coordinated work.

Strong leadership does not require one person to continually inspire everyone else toward a personal vision. It helps people develop enough shared purpose, information, trust, and capacity to act together and continue improving the direction as they learn.

___Dream big in creating a vision

___Trust your hunches

___Think without limits

___Develop a vision for your community, group, or organization

___You have brainstormed many ideas without censoring them

___You have looked at many different aspects of your neighborhood or community

___You decided this is your view of the way things should be

___Your vision is a powerful and compelling statement

___It's at the heart of what you care about the most

___It's stated in a few phrases or sentences

___You have talked to many different people about your vision

___Other people are excited about the same things as you

___You used other people's ideas to strengthen your vision

___You have told people the specifics of your vision

___You have told people what steps need to take place to achieve your vision

___You have developed a plan for achieving your vision

___You have said what you think even if it unpopular

___You have prepared yourself for attacks

___You modify your vision as circumstances change

___You are ready to act to make your vision a reality

A Power Point presentation summarizing the major points in the section.

• What is creativity for a community leader?

• How do you discover and create possibilities?

• How can you use a group to discover and create possibilities?

• How do you choose among all the possibilities?

What is creativity for a community leader?

Creativity is the ability to see possibilities that are not immediately obvious and to develop useful ways of responding to problems, opportunities, and changing conditions.

Creativity does not always mean inventing something that has never existed before. It may involve combining existing ideas, adapting an approach from another setting, simplifying a process, using a resource differently, improving an existing program, or identifying a connection that other people have not noticed.

Community leaders need creativity because communities change. Technology, economics, public policy, demographics, climate, organizations, community relationships, and other conditions may create problems that older approaches do not address adequately.

At the same time, creativity does not mean replacing a method simply because it is familiar. If an existing approach is effective, ethical, accessible, and appropriate to the situation, there may be no reason to reinvent it.

Creativity is especially valuable when:

• Existing approaches have not produced adequate results
• Circumstances have changed
• Important groups have been left out of previous solutions
• New resources or technologies create possibilities
• Several problems or systems interact in ways that require a different approach

Community creativity should also be grounded in the people affected by the issue. A leader may bring ideas, but residents, participants, staff, volunteers, organizations, and other community members may hold knowledge that changes the way the problem should be understood or what a useful solution looks like.

Questions that can open new possibilities include:

• What strengths or resources already exist that we are not using?
• What assumption is limiting our options?
• Who understands this problem differently from us?
• What has another community tried, and what would have to change for it to fit here?
• Could two organizations that usually work separately coordinate around one shared objective?
• Could technology, policy, design, communication, or a different partnership remove a barrier?
• What could we test on a small scale before making a larger commitment?

Examples:

• Residents, disability advocates, transportation staff, and local businesses work together to identify barriers that make a commercial district difficult to navigate and test several accessibility improvements.
• Several organizations that serve the same families discover that each collects similar information separately. They explore whether an appropriate shared referral or information process could reduce duplication while protecting privacy.
• A youth organization invites young people to redesign part of its programming rather than asking adults to decide first and seek youth approval afterward.

You can generate ideas without permission. Acting on them may be different. Implementation may require community agreement, organizational authority, legal review, safety procedures, funding, technical expertise, or other approval.

Experimentation can be useful, but not every mistake is harmless. Test new ideas at a scale appropriate to the risk. A low-cost, reversible pilot may allow you to learn quickly. A decision involving people's safety, rights, employment, confidential information, or major organizational resources requires more careful review before experimentation.

A useful cycle is:

1. Understand the problem
2. Generate possibilities
3. Examine promising ideas
4. Test or pilot when appropriate
5. Learn from the results
6. Adapt, expand, or stop

How do you discover and create possibilities?

Creativity does not depend on one technique. Different people think well in different ways, and different problems require different methods.

Start with yourself

Give yourself opportunities to notice, capture, and develop ideas.

Possible techniques include:

Keep notes or a journal

Writing can help you capture observations, questions, connections, and possible solutions before you forget them.

Review your notes periodically. An idea that was not useful when you first recorded it may become relevant later.

If you are recording information related to your work, protect confidential or sensitive information appropriately.

Think out loud with someone

Talking through a problem with a trusted colleague, mentor, coach, friend, or peer can help clarify what you know, what you are assuming, and where another possibility might exist.

Ask the other person to help you explore rather than immediately tell you what to do.

Make time for focused thinking

Meetings, messages, deadlines, and daily responsibilities can leave little uninterrupted time for reflection.

When possible, create periods in which you can think about the larger problem rather than only respond to the next task.

Capture ideas when they occur

Use a notebook, notes application, voice memo, shared document, or another system that works for you.

The goal is not to record every passing thought forever. It is to avoid losing useful ideas before you have time to examine them.

Sketch, map, or diagram

Some problems become clearer when you draw them.

You might create:

• A process map
• A diagram of relationships among organizations
• A rough layout
• A timeline
• A service journey
• A simple prototype

Visual thinking can reveal gaps, dependencies, and relationships that are difficult to notice in a written description.

Change your setting or take a break

Walking, movement, quiet time, rest, changing locations, prayer or reflection, gardening, music, or another activity may help some people approach a problem differently.

Use the methods that help you think well rather than assuming one routine works for everyone.

Define the problem before generating solutions

Creativity is difficult when the group is solving the wrong problem.

Before asking for solutions, ask:

• What exactly are we trying to improve?
• Who experiences the problem?
• Who defined it as a problem?
• What evidence do we have?
• What do we not yet understand?
• What strengths already exist?
• Have previous efforts addressed the cause or only a symptom?

A group might begin by asking, "How can we get more residents to attend our meetings?" After talking with residents, it may discover that meeting attendance is not the real problem. Residents may already be involved in informal networks but see little reason to attend meetings where they have no meaningful influence. The more useful question might become, "How can residents influence decisions in ways that fit their schedules and preferred forms of participation?"

Learn about your community

Community creativity requires more than ideas from inside one organization.

Learn about:

• Community strengths and assets
• Current concerns
• Existing organizations and informal networks
• Previous efforts and their results
• Community history
• Relevant demographic, economic, health, environmental, or other data
• Policies and institutions that influence the issue
• Different perspectives within the community

There are many ways to gather information.

You might:

• Talk with residents and community organizations
• Attend public meetings
• Conduct interviews or focus groups
• Review community assessments and public data
• Visit programs and organizations
• Participate in community events
• Review local media and public records
• Learn from people with lived experience of the issue

Explain why you are asking for information and how it may be used. Don't assume that people owe an organization their time, experiences, or personal information simply because you want to learn.

No amount of information gives one leader a complete picture of a community. Continue checking your understanding as the work develops.

Look for community strengths and assets

Problems are only part of the picture.

Communities may already have:

• Skilled residents
• Grassroots and mutual-aid networks
• Community organizations
• Public agencies
• Schools and educational institutions
• Cultural and faith organizations
• Businesses
• Public spaces
• Community traditions
• Professional expertise
• Technology and communication networks
• Existing programs and partnerships

New possibilities often appear when you see how existing assets can be connected or used differently.

Invite people to contribute according to their interests and availability rather than assuming that a particular age or group automatically has extra time or resources.

Build relationships

Relationships can help people exchange information, understand one another's work, and discover possibilities for coordination.

Trust develops through repeated behavior:

• Keeping commitments
• Communicating honestly
• Respecting confidentiality
• Giving appropriate credit
• Listening to disagreement
• Sharing information and resources as promised

People do not have to become close friends in order to collaborate effectively.

Think about the future

You cannot predict the future precisely, but you can examine trends and uncertainties that may affect the community.

Ask:

• What changes are already visible?
• Which trends could affect this issue?
• What assumptions are we making about the future?
• What could happen that would make our current plan ineffective?
• What opportunities might emerge?
• What risks should we prepare for?

Consider several plausible futures rather than assuming one forecast will be correct.

Planning for different possibilities can help organizations become more resilient when circumstances change.

Research resources and approaches outside your community

Other communities and fields can provide useful ideas.

Sources may include:

• Peer-reviewed research
• Government guidance and data
• Professional and community associations
• Practitioner networks
• Conferences and webinars
• Evidence repositories
• Newsletters and professional publications
• Community case studies
• Organizations doing comparable work

When you find a promising approach, don't simply copy it.

Ask:

• What problem was it designed to solve?
• What conditions helped it work?
• What evidence supports it?
• How is our community different?
• What adaptation would be necessary?
• Does using the program, material, software, tool, or brand require permission, licensing, payment, or attribution?

Keep a useful system for recording promising resources so they can be found again when needed.

Test old assumptions

Assumptions help us make sense of complicated situations, but they can also unnecessarily limit the options we consider.

Common assumptions might include:

• People who do not participate are apathetic.
• We tried this once, so it cannot work.
• There are not enough resources to make a change.
• A particular group does not want to participate.
• Bigger programs are always better.
• The issue is too complicated for community members to understand.
• People will not cooperate.
• Fear is the best way to motivate action.

Instead of simply replacing one assumption with another, investigate it.

Ask:

• What evidence supports this assumption?
• What evidence challenges it?
• Whose experience is missing?
• What alternative explanation is possible?
• What small test could help us learn more?

For example, if few people participate in a community meeting, don't immediately conclude that residents are apathetic. Ask whether the meeting time, transportation, childcare, language, accessibility, previous experiences, compensation, information, or limited decision-making influence make participation difficult or unattractive.

Work with discouragement and real constraints

Repeated setbacks, lack of resources, discrimination, conflict, organizational burnout, or unsuccessful previous efforts can make new possibilities difficult to imagine.

Don't assume the solution is simply to become more optimistic.

First distinguish between:

• A real constraint that needs to be addressed
• An assumption that has not been tested
• A problem that can be divided into smaller parts
• A resource or relationship that is missing
• A goal that may need to change

Talking with a peer, mentor, coach, colleague, or other appropriate source of support may help you see alternatives.

If ongoing stress, exhaustion, or mental-health concerns are affecting your ability to function, seek the kind of personal or professional support appropriate to that need rather than treating it only as a creativity problem.

Be willing to challenge assumptions

Creative thinking sometimes requires proposing an idea that does not fit established practice.

Ask questions respectfully, explain your reasoning, and be prepared for other people to challenge your assumptions as well.

Novelty by itself does not make an idea valuable. The goal is to identify possibilities that are useful, ethical, and appropriate to the situation.

How can you use a group to discover and create possibilities?

Groups can be powerful sources of ideas because members bring different information, experiences, and ways of seeing the problem.

But a group does not automatically generate more or better ideas than people working individually.

People may wait for turns, defer to authority, follow the first ideas they hear, hesitate to share an unusual suggestion, or spend too much time discussing one possibility.

Good idea-generation processes create several ways for people to contribute.

Individual thinking followed by group discussion

One useful approach is to let people generate ideas independently before the group begins discussing them.

This gives each person time to develop ideas without immediately being influenced by the most vocal participants.

The group can then combine, build on, challenge, or organize the ideas.

Discussion

Conversation can help people connect ideas and discover information they did not know others had.

Some discussions benefit from structure.

Options include:

• Small groups
• Round-robin participation
• Written input before discussion
• An anonymous question or idea channel
• Structured turns for particular stakeholder perspectives

Do not judge participation only by how often someone speaks publicly. People may contribute effectively through writing, listening, analysis, facilitation, or follow-up work.

Brainstorming

Brainstorming separates idea generation from detailed evaluation.

A facilitator presents a clear question, participants generate possibilities, and the ideas are recorded where participants can see them.

During the initial idea-generation period, avoid lengthy debate over each suggestion. Evaluation comes afterward.

Brainstorming can be done using:

• Sticky notes or cards
• Shared documents
• Digital whiteboards
• Anonymous submission tools
• Spoken discussion

Safety, legal, ethical, or clearly out-of-scope concerns do not have to be ignored merely because the group is brainstorming.

Brainwriting

Brainwriting allows people to generate ideas in writing before or instead of speaking them aloud.

One approach is:

1. Present the problem or question
2. Give each participant time to write several ideas independently
3. Share the ideas with others
4. Invite participants to build on or combine them
5. Review the full set of ideas together

Brainwriting can be useful when a group contains many participants, when some people need more time to think, or when spoken discussion is likely to be dominated by a few voices.

Peer learning or problem-solving groups

People working on similar problems can help one another identify patterns and possibilities.

A peer group can:

• Compare experiences
• Share resources
• Test assumptions
• Review data
• Generate possible responses
• Provide feedback

Example: Examining a funding pattern

Several nonprofit staff members notice that organizations in their area appear to receive fewer grants from a particular group of funders than organizations in comparable communities. Instead of assuming the pattern is real, they gather available funding data, compare communities, and examine other possible explanations. If the difference remains, they can use the findings to talk with funders about local organizations, community priorities, and possible barriers.

Bring together different forms of knowledge

New possibilities may emerge when people who normally work separately examine the same issue.

Depending on the problem, that might include:

• Residents
• People with lived experience
• Frontline staff
• Technical professionals
• Public agencies
• Community organizations
• Researchers
• Businesses

Different perspectives are useful only when people have a meaningful opportunity to contribute and their knowledge is taken seriously.

Create psychological safety for idea generation

People are less likely to offer unusual ideas, admit uncertainty, or challenge an assumption if they expect ridicule, retaliation, or embarrassment.

Leaders and facilitators can help by:

• Showing curiosity
• Avoiding ridicule of unfinished ideas
• Asking for concerns and alternative interpretations
• Acknowledging uncertainty
• Making it acceptable to question senior participants
• Responding constructively when an idea turns out not to work

Psychological safety does not mean that every idea is good or that people avoid critical evaluation. It means people can contribute ideas and concerns without unnecessary interpersonal punishment.

How do you choose among all the possibilities?

Generating ideas is the expansive part of creativity. Choosing what to do requires a different kind of thinking.

No organization has unlimited time, money, staff, authority, or community attention. Choosing one possibility may mean delaying or giving up another.

Before committing major resources, compare the strongest options systematically.

Which possibilities address the problem most directly?

Ask whether the idea actually addresses the problem you identified.

A creative solution to the wrong problem is still the wrong solution.

What impact might each possibility have?

Consider:

• Who is likely to benefit
• How large the benefit may be
• How long the effect might last
• Who might experience unintended harm or additional burden

What evidence supports the idea?

Some possibilities may already have evidence behind them. Others may be new enough that uncertainty is unavoidable.

Ask:

• Has this been tried elsewhere?
• What happened?
• Are the conditions comparable?
• What important uncertainty remains?

How feasible is it?

Consider whether you have or can realistically obtain:

• Funding
• Staff or volunteer capacity
• Expertise
• Decision authority
• Partnerships
• Technology
• Data
• Facilities
• Time
• Training and supervision

Is it ethical, lawful, safe, and accessible?

Creativity does not override responsibilities.

Consider:

• Applicable law and policy
• Safety
• Privacy and confidentiality
• Nondiscrimination
• Accessibility
• Professional responsibilities
• Conflicts of interest

How does the idea fit the community?

A program that worked elsewhere may fail if it ignores local history, relationships, culture, infrastructure, or community priorities.

Ask whether people affected by the idea have had an appropriate opportunity to shape it.

What are the risks?

Consider both the probability and consequences of failure.

Ask:

• What could go wrong?
• Who would be affected?
• Is the decision reversible?
• Can we reduce the risk?
• Can we test the idea on a smaller scale first?
• What would cause us to stop?

Low-risk experimentation may allow rapid learning. High-risk decisions need greater preparation, review, and safeguards.

Is there enough commitment to implement it?

Determine whether the people and organizations responsible for implementation understand what the idea requires and are prepared to carry out their responsibilities.

If support is limited, find out why.

The answer may reveal:

• An unrealistic workload
• An unclear goal
• Missing resources
• A disagreement about the strategy
• Previous negative experience
• An implementation risk the planning group has missed

Don't assume the solution is simply to persuade reluctant people.

What secondary benefits could result?

Some initiatives may also:

• Strengthen partnerships
• Develop staff, volunteers, or community leaders
• Improve organizational infrastructure
• Produce useful data
• Increase community capacity
• Create future opportunities

Secondary benefits can matter, but they should not compensate for a project that fails to address its primary purpose.

What is the opportunity cost?

Ask what you will not be able to do if you choose this possibility.

Money, staff time, volunteer energy, organizational attention, meeting time, and community participation are limited resources.

An attractive project may still be the wrong choice if it prevents the organization from carrying out a more important responsibility.

Can the work be sustained?

Consider what happens after initial funding, volunteer enthusiasm, or a pilot period ends.

Ask:

• What ongoing resources will be needed?
• Who will own the work?
• Will the organization have the capacity to maintain it?
• Could the project create commitments that cannot reasonably be sustained?

What will we learn?

Learning can be an important benefit, especially when uncertainty is high.

A pilot may help determine:

• Whether people actually use the service
• Whether the implementation process works
• What resources are really required
• What unintended consequences emerge
• Whether the idea should be expanded, revised, or stopped

Compare the options

For major decisions, it can help to compare possibilities using agreed criteria rather than relying only on enthusiasm for one idea.

Possible criteria include:

• Expected impact
• Evidence
• Community fit
• Equity and accessibility
• Cost
• Feasibility
• Risk
• Sustainability
• Organizational capacity
• Learning value

The criteria will not all carry equal weight in every situation. Decide what matters most for the particular decision.

Test promising possibilities where appropriate

You do not always have to choose immediately between implementing an idea at full scale and rejecting it completely.

A pilot, prototype, demonstration, limited trial, or staged implementation may allow you to learn while controlling cost and risk.

Before testing, decide:

• What question the test is intended to answer
• What success would look like
• What information will be collected
• Who will review the results
• What conditions would lead you to expand, revise, or stop

In Summary

Creativity in community leadership is not simply the ability to invent something no one has seen before. It includes noticing possibilities, connecting existing resources in new ways, adapting useful approaches, questioning assumptions, and developing responses that fit the community and the problem.

Useful possibilities can come from individual reflection, community knowledge, relationships, research, people with different forms of expertise, and structured group processes.

Groups can expand creativity, but putting people in a room does not automatically produce better ideas. Give people opportunities to think independently as well as together, provide several ways to contribute, and create enough psychological safety for participants to question assumptions and offer unfinished ideas.

Idea generation and idea selection are different tasks. After generating possibilities, examine their likely impact, evidence, feasibility, community fit, equity, accessibility, resources, risks, ethics, sustainability, and opportunity costs.

When uncertainty is high and risk is manageable, pilot or prototype promising ideas. Learn from what happens and be prepared to revise or stop an approach that does not work as expected.

Creativity is therefore not a search for novelty for its own sake. It is a disciplined process of understanding a problem, generating possibilities, learning with the people affected, testing assumptions, and choosing actions that are useful, responsible, and adaptable.

Start with yourself:

___Write a day journal

___Write a dream journal

___Get someone to listen to you

___Set aside a regular time in the day to focus on creating new possibilities

___Carry a notebook or recorder to most places you go

___Sketch or doodle

___Jog, walk, or try any other form of exercise

___Take a break

___Take time to rest

Other steps in discovering and creating possibilities:

___Gather information about your community

___Listen to people

___Build relationships with people in your community

___Think about the future

___Research resources inside your community

___Research resources outside your community

___Test old assumptions

___Challenge feelings of hopelessness

___Be courageous in your thinking

Use a group to discover and create possibilities through:

___A group discussion

___A brainstorming session

___An idea-writing session

___A support group

___Bringing different people together

When choosing among all the possibilities, consider:

___Which possibilities will bring about the most desired results

___Which possibilities are most likely to succeed

___Which possibilities are you and your group most interested in or passionate about

___Which possibilities have the greatest organizational commitment

___Which possibilities have the greatest potential of spin-off benefits

___If you have the resources to carry out a possibility

___Are the external factors favorable, outside of your own organization

___Which possibilities will you learn the most from

A Power Point presentation summarizing the major points in the section.

 

• What kinds of needs do people have?

• Why should the leader try to understand people's needs?

• How can a leader best understand people's needs?

Effective leadership requires understanding the people, organizations, and communities affected by the work.

That means more than asking what people need from a leader. It means understanding people's priorities, experiences, strengths, barriers, responsibilities, and ideas about what should happen next.

Leaders should not assume that they can determine these things on behalf of everyone else. Staff, volunteers, participants, residents, community organizations, and other people affected by the work have knowledge that should help shape both the understanding of the problem and the response.

Listening is therefore part of leadership, but it is not simply a tool for persuading people to support the leader's existing vision. What leaders learn should sometimes change the vision, priorities, program, or way the organization operates.

This section looks at several kinds of needs and priorities leaders may encounter, why understanding them matters, and practical ways to learn from people without relying only on assumptions or informal impressions.

What kinds of needs do people have?

A need is something necessary for well-being, participation, safety, functioning, or accomplishing an important purpose.

People may also express wants, preferences, priorities, requests, or ideas. Those are worth hearing too, but they are not always the same thing as a need.

Leaders may also have to consider rights, legal requirements, professional obligations, organizational responsibilities, and limited resources. Listening carefully does not mean that every request can or should be fulfilled.

It is often useful to consider needs and priorities in several broad categories. These categories overlap, and they should be treated as prompts for inquiry rather than a complete classification of human needs.

Community-wide priorities and conditions

What conditions matter to the overall well-being of the community?

Examples might include:

• Affordable and stable housing
• Safe and accessible transportation
• Employment and economic opportunity
• Education
• Health care and other services
• Public safety
• Accessible public spaces
• Food access
• Environmental conditions
• Opportunities to participate in community decisions

Some priorities become clear during an immediate emergency. A severe storm, for example, may create urgent needs involving shelter, communication, transportation, electricity, food, medication, or other essentials.

Most community situations are more complicated. People may identify several priorities at once, different groups may experience conditions differently, and no organization may have enough resources to address everything.

Community assessment should therefore examine strengths and resources as well as gaps and problems.

Ask:

• What is working well?
• What organizations and networks already exist?
• What knowledge and skills are present in the community?
• What resources could be connected or used differently?
• Which conditions are creating barriers?

Underlying conditions and contributing factors

A visible problem may have several contributing conditions.

For example, residents may report difficulty keeping medical appointments. The immediate need may appear to be additional appointment availability, but further assessment might reveal several contributing factors: unreliable transportation, inflexible work schedules, limited language access, lack of childcare, cost, inaccessible facilities, or difficulty scheduling appointments.

None of those explanations should be assumed in advance.

Understanding contributing conditions usually requires several sources of information and the participation of people experiencing the issue.

Avoid describing one explanation as the "real need" until the evidence supports it. Complex community problems often have several interacting causes, and different people may encounter different barriers.

Information and communication needs

People need information in order to make decisions, carry out responsibilities, use services, and participate effectively.

Information needs may include:

• Knowing how a program or organization works
• Understanding rights and responsibilities
• Knowing how decisions are made
• Receiving appropriate training
• Finding reliable information about services or public issues
• Knowing how to raise a question or concern

Information is useful only when people can access and understand it.

Consider:

• Language
• Disability access
• Digital access
• Reading level and technical language
• Timing
• Format
• Whether the information source is trusted

Some responsibilities also require more than informal instruction. Work involving safety, confidential information, counseling, clinical care, financial responsibilities, or other specialized tasks may require formal training, supervision, qualifications, or certification.

Material, environmental, access, and resource needs

Some needs involve tangible resources or conditions.

Examples include:

• Adequate funding
• Appropriate staffing
• Equipment and technology
• Accessible facilities
• Safe and stable housing
• Transportation
• Appropriate lighting or infrastructure
• Time to complete the work

Before deciding that the solution is simply "more people" or "more money," examine the underlying problem.

A workload problem might also involve unclear priorities, inefficient procedures, outdated technology, insufficient training, unnecessary reporting requirements, or responsibilities that should be reorganized.

Participation, support, and workplace needs

Staff members, volunteers, and other participants also need conditions that allow them to contribute effectively.

Depending on the role and setting, these may include:

• Physical and psychological safety
• Dignity and respectful treatment
• Clear responsibilities
• Appropriate autonomy
• Recognition
• Belonging and inclusion
• Useful feedback
• Opportunities to learn and develop
• Reasonable workload
• Predictable and flexible scheduling where possible
• Accessibility and accommodations
• Meaningful connection between their work and the organization's purpose

People participate for many different reasons. Don't assume that volunteers are motivated only by fellowship or that paid staff care mainly about money. Ask rather than guessing.

Leaders have needs as well. They need appropriate support, feedback, rest, boundaries, development, and relationships outside the supervisory structure when necessary.

Employees, volunteers, participants, or people with less organizational power should not be made responsible for managing the leader's personal emotional needs.

Why should the leader try to understand people's needs?

Understanding people's needs, priorities, strengths, and constraints improves both leadership and organizational decision-making.

It can help an organization:

• Set priorities that reflect actual community conditions
• Use limited resources more responsibly
• Design programs and services people can actually access
• Identify barriers leadership might otherwise overlook
• Improve working and volunteer conditions
• Strengthen implementation
• Recognize community strengths and existing solutions
• Identify unintended effects of organizational decisions
• Build trustworthiness through responsive action
• Create stronger opportunities for participation and shared problem solving

People are also more likely to contribute useful information when they see that leadership takes their experience seriously.

That does not mean leaders should agree with every request.

Sometimes different needs conflict. Staff may want greater flexibility while a service requires reliable coverage. Several neighborhoods may compete for the same limited funding. Community members may disagree about which problem should receive priority.

In those situations, good leadership involves understanding the different interests, explaining constraints, using fair decision processes, and being clear about how the final decision was reached.

Understanding people's needs should not be used mainly to increase their loyalty to the leader. The goal is a healthier, more effective, accountable organization or community effort.

How can a leader best understand people's needs?

No single method will tell you everything you need to know.

The best approach usually combines direct engagement with other forms of information and makes listening a regular organizational practice rather than an occasional exercise.

Build a trustworthy environment for feedback

People need to be able to raise concerns without unnecessary fear of embarrassment, retaliation, exclusion, or damage to their employment or volunteer role.

Leaders help create that environment when they:

• Respond constructively to concerns
• Avoid punishing reasonable disagreement
• Admit their own mistakes and uncertainty
• Explain how decisions are made
• Follow through on commitments
• Protect confidentiality where appropriate
• Provide another reporting route when the concern involves the immediate supervisor or leader

Trust should not depend entirely on one leader's personality. Organizations should create processes people can rely on even when leadership changes.

Ask people directly

When you want to understand people's experience, ask them.

Different methods work for different purposes.

• Surveys can gather information from larger numbers of people when questions, sampling, language, accessibility, and analysis are handled carefully.
• Focus groups and listening sessions can help people discuss a particular issue in greater depth.
• Interviews can provide detailed information about individual experiences or specialized knowledge.
• One-on-one conversations can surface concerns and ideas that may not emerge in a formal meeting.
• Advisory groups can provide ongoing input from people affected by a program or decision.
• Anonymous or confidential feedback channels can help people raise concerns they may not feel safe discussing publicly.

Choose methods according to the question you are trying to answer.

A survey may identify how widespread a concern is. Interviews may help explain why it exists. Administrative data may reveal a pattern over time. A listening session may reveal barriers that were never included in the original survey questions.

Combining methods can provide a more useful understanding than relying on one source alone.

Make participation accessible

Asking for input does little good if some people cannot participate.

Consider:

• Language and interpretation
• Disability access
• Transportation
• Childcare or caregiving responsibilities
• Work schedules
• Technology access
• Meeting time and location
• Whether participation creates financial costs or lost work time

Use more than one participation method when possible. Someone who cannot attend an evening meeting may still be able to complete a survey, join remotely, speak with a community partner, or contribute in writing.

Seek more than the easiest voices to reach

Leaders often hear most frequently from people already connected to the organization.

Ask:

• Who participates regularly?
• Who does not?
• Who experiences the greatest effects of this issue?
• Whose perspective is rarely represented?
• What barriers may be keeping those people out of ordinary feedback processes?

Community leaders, organizers, service providers, subject-matter experts, and other key informants can provide valuable knowledge, especially about history and context.

But they are one source, not substitutes for the broader community.

One influential person should not be assumed to speak for everyone who shares a neighborhood, identity, profession, age, or other characteristic.

Majority opinion is also not the only relevant consideration. A smaller group may experience a serious access barrier or disproportionate harm that deserves attention even if most people do not encounter it.

Maintain respectful relationships

Relationships can make it easier for people to share information and for leaders to understand context.

Build those relationships through:

• Reliability
• Respect
• Honest communication
• Listening
• Follow-through
• Appropriate transparency
• Respect for boundaries

Don't treat relationships as a strategy for getting people to reveal information they otherwise would not share.

People may have legitimate reasons to be cautious with an organization or leader, particularly if previous engagement produced little benefit or caused harm.

Trustworthiness has to be demonstrated over time.

Use data and research

Direct feedback is essential, but it is not the only source of information.

Depending on the issue, useful sources may include:

• Program records
• Public data
• Community assessments
• Service-use information
• Surveys
• Interviews and listening sessions
• Observations
• Complaint or incident patterns
• Research
• Evaluation findings

Quantitative and qualitative information answer different questions.

For example, residents may report that they do not feel safe using a particular public space. Administrative data might show relatively few reported incidents there.

Those findings do not necessarily contradict one another. The next step is to understand what is affecting people's experience: lighting, harassment, transportation, design, traffic, past incidents, maintenance, reporting patterns, or another condition.

Don't use statistics automatically to dismiss what people report, and don't rely only on perceptions when stronger evidence can help clarify the problem.

Ask people about work-related barriers rather than monitoring their personal lives

Supervisors benefit from understanding what conditions help or interfere with people's work, but employees and volunteers are entitled to personal boundaries.

Ask questions such as:

• Do you have the information and equipment you need?
• Is the workload manageable?
• Are expectations clear?
• Are there scheduling or accessibility barriers we should address?
• What would make it easier for you to do this work effectively?

For example, participants might identify childcare as a barrier to attending required training or volunteer events. The organization can then consider whether childcare, reimbursement, remote participation, another schedule, or a different arrangement is feasible.

The goal is to respond to an identified barrier, not to collect unnecessary information about people's families or personal lives.

Connect information across the organization and community

Needs and opportunities often become visible when information from several parts of a system is examined together.

A program may hear from participants that transportation is a problem, while a partner organization is developing a transportation service and a public agency is considering a route change.

Connecting those pieces of information may create an opportunity for coordination that no one organization would have identified alone.

Community knowledge should be used respectfully. If an idea draws on the expertise, traditions, or work of a particular community, involve relevant people rather than simply borrowing the idea from a media story or outside observer.

Be accessible without being constantly available

Leaders should provide reliable ways for people to reach them or another appropriate decision-maker.

Depending on the organization, this may include:

• Regular check-ins
• Office hours
• Meetings
• Email or messaging
• Anonymous feedback
• Supervisory or escalation channels
• Remote participation options

Accessibility does not mean leaders must remain continuously available or personally receive every concern.

Good systems ensure that questions and concerns reach an appropriate person even when the primary leader is unavailable.

Institutionalize feedback

Feedback should be part of how the organization operates rather than something requested only during a crisis.

Possible practices include:

• Regular check-ins with staff, volunteers, partners, or participants
• Brief evaluations after meetings, events, or programs
• Periodic surveys
• Listening sessions
• Advisory groups
• Structured employee or volunteer feedback processes
• Anonymous or confidential reporting channels
• Periodic organizational or community assessments

One simple meeting-review method is the "plus-delta" technique. Participants identify what worked well and what they recommend changing next time.

Feedback does not have to be collected constantly. Excessive surveys and meetings can create fatigue, particularly when people see little evidence that their input matters.

Close the feedback loop

Asking for input creates an expectation that something will happen with it.

After collecting feedback, communicate:

• What you heard
• What patterns emerged
• What will change
• What will not change
• Why some requests cannot be met
• What questions remain
• When people can expect another update

Don't promise that participation means every suggestion will be adopted.

The important point is that people can see how their information was considered and understand the reasoning behind important decisions.

Protect privacy and confidentiality

Collect only the information you actually need.

Explain:

• Why information is being collected
• How it will be used
• Who may have access
• Whether responses are anonymous, confidential, or identifiable
• What confidentiality limits exist

Sensitive personal, employment, health, educational, or other information may be subject to additional legal, professional, or organizational requirements.

Share responsibility for understanding needs

The formal leader should not be the organization's only source of understanding.

Staff, volunteers, community partners, participants, residents, advisory groups, Boards, and others may each see different parts of the situation.

Create ways for that knowledge to move through the organization rather than remaining with one person.

Community members should also have meaningful opportunities to help define priorities and solutions, not simply provide information that leaders take away and interpret on their behalf.

Review whether your feedback system is working

Periodically ask:

• Whose voices are we hearing?
• Whose voices are missing?
• Do people believe they can raise concerns safely?
• Are our methods accessible?
• Are we collecting information we never use?
• Are we responding to what people tell us?
• Are some groups repeatedly asked for input without receiving meaningful influence?
• Are our decisions improving as a result of what we learn?

In Summary

One important leadership responsibility is understanding the people and communities affected by the work.

That means understanding more than deficits or requests. Leaders should also learn about strengths, assets, priorities, barriers, working conditions, experiences, and ideas about possible solutions.

No leader can understand those things through personal observation alone. Use direct engagement, surveys, interviews, listening sessions, community assessment, organizational data, research, and other appropriate sources, and look carefully for perspectives that ordinary leadership networks may miss.

Strong feedback systems also require trustworthiness. People should have accessible ways to raise questions and concerns, including routes that do not depend entirely on the immediate leader. They should understand how their information will be used and be protected from unnecessary retaliation or disclosure.

Finally, listening is only part of the process. Leaders and organizations should explain what they heard, what they will do, what they cannot do, and why. Understanding people's needs is most meaningful when the people affected have a real role in defining priorities and shaping the response.

___You understand that needs are things that are required for some reason

You know what the different kinds of needs are:

___Large-scope community needs

___Root or causal needs

___Informational needs

___Physical needs

___Personal needs

You understand why the leader should try to understand people's needs:

___To keep the group moving forward towards shared and desired goals

___To create a sense of accomplishment among group members

___To strengthen individuals' connections with the group and increase the likelihood of success

___To keep morale high

___To reinforce group members' belief in the leader

You understand how a leader can best meet people's needs:

___You have asked people what they need

___You maintain good relationships

___You have done your research

___You are constantly making connections between people, your work, and the larger community

___You are accessible

___You have institutionalized the process of getting feedback from group members

Tool: Participant Feedback Form

At the end of the meeting, the facilitator or recorder can pass out the following sheets to be filled in anonymously by meeting participants in an effort to get honest thoughts and feelings from meeting participants.

Participant Feedback Form

 

Date of meeting:

Overall, how useful did you find the meeting?

What did you like best about the meeting?

What did you like least about the meeting?

Was the proper amount of time spent on each subject? If not, which subjects took too long? Which weren't given enough time?

What should be different about future meetings?

Additional comments:

We appreciate your help and feedback at and about today's meeting. The facilitator will address concerns brought up on these feedback sheets and send a letter to all participants in the next two weeks.

A Power Point presentation summarizing the major points in the section.

• What is commitment?

• Why do you need to mobilize and sustain commitment?

• When is a good time to build and sustain commitment?

• How can you mobilize and sustain commitment?

What is commitment?

Commitment is a person's willingness to continue contributing to a purpose, role, organization, or community effort at a level that is meaningful and sustainable for them.

Commitment can take many forms.

A person may demonstrate commitment by:

• Showing up reliably for an agreed role
• Completing responsibilities
• Contributing expertise
• Participating in decisions
• Volunteering periodically
• Leading a project
• Advocating for the organization's or community's goals
• Providing financial or other resources
• Supporting other participants

People do not need to contribute the same amount of time or accept the same level of responsibility in order for their involvement to matter.

Commitment should also not be confused with unquestioning loyalty. Healthy organizations need people who can raise concerns, challenge assumptions, and disagree with leaders while remaining committed to the larger purpose.

Why do you need to mobilize and sustain commitment?

Community organizations and initiatives need enough reliable participation to carry out their work.

Sustainable commitment can help an organization:

• Maintain important programs and responsibilities over time
• Build experience and organizational knowledge
• Strengthen relationships
• Develop leadership capacity
• Coordinate work more effectively
• Learn from experience
• Maintain continuity during change
• Build community trust through reliable follow-through

More commitment is not automatically better.

An organization can have highly dedicated people and still struggle if responsibilities are unclear, workload is unreasonable, resources are inadequate, decision-making is ineffective, or too much work depends on a few individuals.

The goal should therefore be sustainable commitment: enough reliable involvement to accomplish the work without expecting people to sacrifice their health, relationships, employment, education, or other legitimate responsibilities to prove their dedication.

Persistence also needs judgment.

People should not give up simply because an effort encounters difficulty, but commitment should not require continuing an approach that evidence shows is ineffective, harmful, or no longer necessary.

Effective groups learn from setbacks and decide whether to continue, revise, pause, or stop.

When is a good time to build and sustain commitment?

Commitment develops throughout people's involvement with an organization or effort.

It begins before someone officially joins, when they first learn what the organization does and decide whether participation fits their interests and circumstances.

It continues through onboarding, everyday work, transitions, leadership opportunities, conflicts, successes, setbacks, and eventually changes in role or departure.

Commitment is more likely to be sustained when people:

• Understand the purpose of the work
• Have meaningful responsibilities
• Know what is expected of them
• Have enough information, training, and resources
• Have an appropriate voice in decisions that affect their work
• Are treated with dignity and respect
• Can raise concerns without unnecessary fear of retaliation or embarrassment
• See evidence that their contribution matters
• Receive useful feedback and recognition
• Have opportunities to learn when they want them
• Experience reasonable workload and boundaries
• See the organization follow through on its own commitments

Commitment may change over time.

Someone may contribute intensively during one period and less during another because of employment, caregiving, education, health, finances, or other responsibilities. Another person may discover that the organization's work no longer fits their interests.

These changes do not automatically indicate a lack of integrity or concern.

Build an organizational culture in which people can adjust their level of participation responsibly rather than feeling they must choose between maximum commitment and leaving completely.

How can you mobilize and sustain commitment?

Understand why people participate

People become involved for many reasons.

They may want to:

• Work on an issue they care about
• Contribute to their community
• Use existing skills
• Learn something new
• Develop professionally
• Build relationships
• Participate in decision-making
• Gain work experience
• Earn compensation
• Meet a school, professional, or service requirement
• Take on leadership
• Contribute occasionally without seeking a larger role

Ask what matters to the individual rather than assuming everyone wants the same thing from participation.

Also ask what level of involvement is realistic.

An opportunity may be valuable and still not fit someone's current schedule, finances, transportation, caregiving responsibilities, health, or other commitments.

Be clear about what the commitment involves

People should know what they are agreeing to before they join.

Explain:

• The organization's purpose
• The role
• Expected responsibilities
• Estimated time commitment
• Schedule
• Who provides supervision
• What authority the person has
• Training requirements
• Compensation, stipend, or volunteer status where applicable
• Any costs or travel involved
• How long the commitment is expected to last

Do not describe participation as voluntary while creating strong social pressure that makes declining unrealistic.

Welcome and orient people

A welcoming experience can help people understand where they fit and whether the organization is a place where they can contribute.

Effective onboarding may include:

• A clear introduction to the mission and current priorities
• An explanation of the person's role
• Introductions to relevant people
• Training
• Access to needed technology or materials
• Information about communication and decision-making
• Accessibility and accommodation information
• A clear contact for questions or problems

People should not have to rely on personally knowing the director or another influential member in order to feel included.

For large, hybrid, or geographically dispersed organizations, onboarding may use written guides, online orientation, mentoring, group sessions, or other methods rather than relying only on informal introductions.

Be open and clear about mission, principles, and goals

People need enough information to decide whether the organization's work is consistent with their own goals and responsibilities.

Explain:

• What the organization is trying to accomplish
• What principles guide the work
• What current priorities are
• How major decisions are made
• What participants can influence

People do not have to agree on every strategy or opinion. Healthy organizations can contain disagreement while maintaining enough shared purpose to work together.

Demonstrate reliable and sustainable commitment

Leaders influence organizational culture through their behavior.

Demonstrate commitment by:

• Following through on responsibilities
• Keeping important promises
• Showing up prepared
• Using resources responsibly
• Addressing problems rather than ignoring them
• Treating people consistently
• Maintaining appropriate boundaries

Don't model commitment through chronic overwork.

Regularly staying late, responding at all hours, skipping leave, or personally absorbing every problem can create an organizational expectation that unsustainable work is the standard.

Use delegation, staffing, workload management, backup coverage, and clear priorities so that commitment does not depend on exhaustion.

Give people meaningful work

People are more likely to remain involved when their responsibilities contribute to something they understand and consider worthwhile.

Match roles where possible with:

• Interests
• Skills
• Availability
• Learning goals
• Accessibility needs
• Appropriate level of responsibility

Make clear how the work connects with the larger purpose.

Avoid giving new volunteers or members meaningless tasks simply to keep them busy. At the same time, routine work can be important and should not be treated as beneath people when it genuinely supports the mission.

Provide training and supervision

Commitment is difficult to sustain when people are given responsibilities without enough information or support.

Depending on the role, provide:

• Orientation
• Role-specific training
• Written procedures
• Regular supervision
• Feedback
• Access to someone who can answer questions

People should know how to raise a concern when the issue involves their immediate supervisor or usual contact.

Offer appropriate development opportunities

Some people want to learn new skills or take on more responsibility.

Ask before assuming.

Development opportunities might include:

• Leading part of a project
• Co-facilitating a meeting
• Mentoring another participant
• Learning a new technical skill
• Representing the organization with preparation and support
• Participating in planning or governance

Use supported stretch opportunities: meaningful responsibilities slightly beyond what someone has already mastered, with enough preparation, resources, and feedback to learn.

Not everyone wants increasing leadership responsibility. People should be able to become more skilled in their current contribution without being pushed toward management or public leadership.

Build respect, belonging, and psychological safety

People are more likely to remain involved when they experience dignity, fairness, inclusion, and confidence that they can speak honestly.

Create conditions in which people can:

• Ask questions
• Admit uncertainty
• Ask for help
• Report mistakes
• Suggest improvements
• Disagree respectfully
• Raise concerns about safety, workload, treatment, or organizational decisions

Psychological safety does not mean avoiding accountability. People can still be expected to meet reasonable standards of conduct and performance.

Listen and respond

Ask people how the work is going and listen to the answer.

Useful questions include:

• Is your role clear?
• Do you have what you need?
• Is the workload realistic?
• What is working well?
• What is making participation difficult?
• What would you like to learn or do next?
• What should the organization change?

Provide several ways to give input. Some people will speak in meetings; others may prefer individual conversations, written feedback, surveys, or anonymous channels.

Listening matters only if the organization responds.

Explain what you heard, what will change, what cannot change, and why.

Share appropriate decision-making and leadership

People may become more invested when they have meaningful influence over work that affects them.

Depending on the organization and decision, participation may include:

• Consultation
• Advisory roles
• Committee membership
• Delegated authority
• Shared leadership
• Governance roles

Be clear about what authority people actually have. Symbolic participation can reduce rather than strengthen commitment.

Leadership development should also be broadly available rather than reserved for the people who already appear confident, charismatic, or well connected.

Recognize contributions fairly

Recognition can help people understand that their work is noticed and valued.

Recognition may include:

• Specific verbal or written appreciation
• Public recognition when the person wants it
• Private acknowledgment
• Development opportunities
• Appropriate credit or authorship
• Compensation or reimbursement where applicable
• Certificates or formal recognition when meaningful

Ask what form of recognition people prefer.

Recognition should be fair and should not consistently favor the most visible roles while overlooking administrative, logistical, technical, or behind-the-scenes contributions.

Address conflict and organizational problems

Commitment can decline when people repeatedly encounter unresolved problems.

These may include:

• Unclear responsibilities
• Unequal workload
• Poor supervision
• Lack of resources
• Exclusion from relevant decisions
• Repeated broken commitments
• Disrespectful behavior
• Harassment or discrimination

Match the response to the problem.

Ordinary disagreements may benefit from direct discussion, facilitation, or mediation. Harassment, discrimination, retaliation, safeguarding concerns, threats, or other serious misconduct may require a formal reporting or investigation process.

Make participation accessible

People's ability to remain involved may depend on factors unrelated to their commitment to the mission.

Consider barriers such as:

• Transportation
• Childcare and other caregiving responsibilities
• Work and school schedules
• Disability access
• Language
• Technology
• Costs associated with participation

Where possible, use flexible scheduling, remote options, accessible communication, accommodations, reimbursement, stipends, or other support.

Don't interpret an access barrier as evidence that someone does not care enough.

Respect different levels of involvement

Organizations often need a mix of people who contribute in different ways.

Some may work full time. Some may volunteer every week. Others may participate in one project each year, attend an occasional meeting, contribute specialized expertise, or serve for one defined period.

Avoid ranking people's worth according to the number of hours they contribute.

Offer opportunities for greater involvement when appropriate, but don't continually pressure reliable participants to take on more.

Make it possible to step back, change roles, or leave

Sustainable commitment includes respectful transitions.

People should be able to:

• Reduce their hours
• Change roles
• Take a break
• Finish a defined term
• Leave the organization

Create reasonable handoff processes so that changing involvement does not create unnecessary disruption.

Where appropriate, make re-entry possible. A person who leaves because of school, caregiving, health, employment, or another responsibility may want to contribute again later.

Celebrate meaningful accomplishments

Shared recognition can help people reflect on progress and appreciate one another's contributions.

Celebrations might include:

• A project closing
• A milestone
• An anniversary
• Recognition of volunteers, staff, or partners
• A community event

Choose approaches that fit participants, organizational culture, accessibility needs, and available resources.

Participation in social activities should be genuinely optional and should not become an unofficial measure of commitment.

Examine why commitment is changing

If participation or retention declines, do not immediately conclude that people care less.

Ask:

• Are roles meaningful?
• Are expectations clear?
• Is workload reasonable?
• Are supervisors providing useful support?
• Do people have meaningful influence?
• Are meetings and activities accessible?
• Are conflicts unresolved?
• Are organizational promises being kept?
• Have people's circumstances or interests changed?
• Does the work still appear worthwhile?

Use feedback to determine whether the organization needs to change rather than making commitment solely the participant's responsibility.

Follow through on organizational commitments

Organizations ask people for time, labor, expertise, trust, and sometimes personal information.

Commitment should be reciprocal.

If the organization promises:

• Training
• Reimbursement
• A particular decision process
• Confidentiality
• Follow-up
• Recognition
• A defined role

it should make reasonable efforts to honor those commitments and explain promptly when circumstances prevent it.

Trust is strengthened not simply by asking people to remain committed but by demonstrating that the organization is trustworthy in return.

In Summary

Commitment helps organizations and community efforts maintain enough continuity and participation to accomplish meaningful work.

It should not be understood as unlimited loyalty, constant availability, or willingness to sacrifice personal well-being for the organization.

Sustainable commitment grows when people understand the purpose, have meaningful and appropriately scoped roles, receive adequate training and resources, experience dignity and psychological safety, have an appropriate voice in decisions, and see the organization follow through on its own responsibilities.

People differ in how much time and responsibility they want or are able to contribute. Strong organizations respect those differences, remove unnecessary participation barriers, and avoid using guilt or moral pressure to turn limited involvement into deeper commitment.

Leaders can support commitment through clear onboarding, useful work, good supervision, appropriate development opportunities, fair recognition, accessible participation, responsive listening, shared leadership where appropriate, and sustainable workload.

They should also make it acceptable for people to change roles, reduce involvement, take a break, or leave responsibly.

The goal is not maximum commitment from every person. It is a trustworthy organization in which people can make meaningful, informed, and sustainable contributions to shared work.

___You know what commitment is

___You understand why you need to mobilize and sustain commitment

___You know when it is a good time to build and sustain commitment

___You know when commitment grows and when it decreases

___You know how you can mobilize and sustain commitment

___You know you should welcome people into your organization

___You are open and clear about your mission

___You model commitment yourself

___You give people work to do

___You pick out the right level of challenge for people

___You build an organization culture

___You understand the importance of listening

___You support people's leadership

___You understand the importance of celebrating

Example: The Montgomery Bus Boycott

In the book The Montgomery Bus Boycott and the Women Who Started It: The Memoir of Jo Ann Gibson Robinson, Ms. Robinson talks about the sense of power that she and others felt when determined and committed Black people joined together for the bus boycott.

"Before Monday was half gone, Negroes had made history. Never before had they united in such a manner. There was open respect and admiration in the eyes of many whites who had looked on before, dubious and amused. Even clerks in dime stores, all white, were more cordial. They were heard to add, after a purchase by a black customer, "Y'all come back and see us," which was a very unusual occurrence. The black customers held their heads higher. They felt reborn, important for the first time.

A greater degree of race pride was exhibited. Many were themselves surprised at the response of the masses, and could not explain, if they had wanted to, what had changed them overnight into fearless, courageous, proud people, standing together for human dignity, civil rights, and, yes, self-respect! There was a stick-togetherness that drew them like a magnet. They showed a genuine fondness for one another. They were really free --free inside! They felt it! Acted it! Manifested it in their entire beings! They took great pride in being Black."

A Power Point presentation summarizing the major points in the section.

 

Leadership often involves influence. Leaders communicate ideas, advocate for changes, negotiate agreements, ask people to take action, explain decisions, resolve disagreements, and help groups understand complicated issues.

Influence should not be understood simply as getting other people to think or act the way you want.

Influence is the ability to affect understanding, decisions, or action through communication, relationships, expertise, authority, example, negotiation, or participation.

Ethical influence respects other people's ability to evaluate information and make decisions. It does not depend on deception, hidden pressure, manufactured social proof, strategic flattery, or repeatedly pushing after someone has clearly declined.

Influence is only one part of leadership. Leaders also listen, coordinate, facilitate, make decisions within their authority, support other people's leadership, and create conditions in which people can participate effectively.

This section focuses on how leaders can communicate and advocate effectively while respecting autonomy, evidence, legitimate disagreement, and the responsibilities that come with power.

What are the elements of influence?

Influence generally involves several interacting elements:

1. Participants. The people or organizations involved in the communication or decision.
2. Purpose. What issue, decision, request, or change is being discussed.
3. Information. The evidence, experience, values, interests, constraints, and uncertainty relevant to the issue.
4. Interaction. How people communicate, ask questions, listen, negotiate, disagree, and respond.
5. Decision or action. What happens after the interaction and who has authority to decide.

Unlike a one-way communicator-message-audience model, this framework recognizes that information can move in both directions.

A leader may begin a conversation intending to influence someone else and discover that the other person's information changes the leader's own understanding.

That is not a failure of influence. It is one of the reasons dialogue can produce better decisions.

How might you influence people ethically and effectively?

People may agree with you, disagree with you, request changes to your proposal, or decide not to act.

Effective communication improves the chance that people understand your position. It does not guarantee agreement.

Several practices can help establish the conditions for ethical influence.

Build relationships for the work itself

Community work depends on relationships.

Relationships can make it easier to:

• Exchange information
• Understand community history
• Coordinate action
• Resolve problems
• Identify expertise and resources
• Communicate when disagreement occurs

Build relationships because they have value in themselves and because the work requires them, not simply so you will have influence to use later.

Avoid exploiting friendship, professional relationships, or previous assistance to create a sense that someone owes you agreement.

Be credible and trustworthy

Credibility grows when people have reason to believe that you are competent, accurate, reliable, and honest about your interests.

Helpful practices include:

• Know the issue you are discussing
• Distinguish what you know from what you are uncertain about
• Use reliable evidence
• Correct mistakes
• Follow through on commitments
• Disclose relevant interests or conflicts
• Seek expertise when the issue is outside your knowledge

Position, professional title, education, popularity, or community status may affect how people perceive a speaker, but none of them guarantees that the person is correct.

Don't substitute authority or reputation for evidence.

Listen with the possibility that you may change your mind

Listening is not simply a method for discovering which argument will persuade someone.

Ask questions because the other person may know something you do not.

Try to understand:

• Their view of the problem
• What matters to them
• What information they are relying on
• What risks they see
• What responsibilities or constraints affect them
• What parts of your proposal concern them

Listening may strengthen your original position, identify a possible compromise, or show that your proposal should change.

Create more than one way for people to contribute

Influence in group settings does not belong only to the person who talks most.

Useful contributions may include:

• Speaking in discussion
• Providing written comments
• Sharing technical expertise
• Asking questions
• Facilitating
• Organizing information
• Raising a concern
• Following up after the meeting

If the same people consistently dominate meetings, improve the process rather than simply telling quieter participants to speak more.

Seek perspectives beyond the people already closest to you

People naturally hear more often from colleagues, partners, friends, and community members already connected with their work.

When an issue affects people outside those networks, seek them out intentionally.

Ask:

• Who is affected by this decision?
• Who has relevant expertise?
• Whose perspective is missing?
• Who may disagree with our assumptions?
• What barriers make it difficult for those people to participate?

The purpose is not merely to gain another opportunity to persuade them. Their knowledge may change what you decide to advocate for.

Give important change enough time

Trust, relationships, organizational change, public understanding, and individual behavior may develop gradually.

Don't assume that one presentation or conversation will settle an issue.

At the same time, patience does not mean endlessly repeating the same message until people agree.

Monitor what is happening, respond to questions, provide new information where appropriate, and determine whether your strategy or assumptions need to change.

Practices for ethical influence

Some traditional persuasion techniques attempt to exploit predictable psychological reactions. Community leaders should instead use practices that help people understand the issue and make informed decisions.

Make the purpose clear

State what you are asking for.

Explain:

• What decision or action you are requesting
• Why you think it matters
• What information supports your position
• What commitment would be involved
• What alternatives exist
• Whether participation is voluntary

Don't hide a major request behind a sequence of smaller questions designed to make refusal psychologically harder.

Use accurate information

Present evidence honestly.

Avoid:

• Exaggerating benefits
• Hiding important costs
• Presenting uncertain claims as established facts
• Misrepresenting how many people support your position
• Selectively presenting evidence in a way that creates a false impression

When evidence is mixed or uncertain, say so.

Explain significant alternatives and counterarguments fairly

People are better able to make informed decisions when they understand meaningful alternatives.

If credible arguments exist against your position:

• Describe them accurately
• Explain the evidence relevant to them
• Identify where you agree
• Explain why you reach a different conclusion where you disagree

Do not caricature an opposing position merely to make your preferred argument appear stronger.

Identify genuine common interests

People who disagree may still share important objectives.

For example, two organizations may disagree about a program while both wanting residents to have reliable access to services.

Identifying that shared objective can help them examine alternatives without pretending that all of their interests are the same.

Don't use easy points of agreement simply to put someone into a psychological pattern of saying yes.

Explain relevant benefits, costs, and consequences

People need to understand what a proposed decision may mean for them and for others.

Discuss:

• Potential benefits
• Costs
• Time or workload
• Risks
• Effects on other people
• What may happen if no action is taken

Avoid assuming that people are motivated only by personal gain. They may also care about community benefit, fairness, professional responsibility, values, or obligations to others.

Use stories responsibly

Human experience can make complex information easier to understand.

Stories should illustrate the issue rather than substitute for evidence.

When telling another person's story, consider:

• Consent
• Privacy
• Dignity
• Whether sensitive or traumatic experiences are being used primarily to provoke an emotional response

Communicate consistently without trying to manufacture belief through repetition

Important information may need to be communicated more than once and through several channels.

Repetition can improve access and recall, particularly when people enter an organization at different times or do not see every communication.

But repeating a claim does not make it true.

Use repeated communication to improve understanding, not to make people believe something merely because they have heard it many times.

Make complicated information understandable without minimizing it

Clear communication is valuable.

Break complicated actions into manageable steps when that helps people understand what is required.

At the same time, don't describe a demanding, risky, costly, or long-term commitment as easy simply to make it more attractive.

Respect refusal

A person may understand your position and still say no.

A clear refusal should generally be respected unless:

• The person asks to continue the discussion
• Important new information becomes available
• Circumstances materially change
• The matter involves a formal organizational decision process in which further discussion is required

Do not repeatedly return to the same request merely to wear someone down.

Pay attention to power

Not every influence attempt occurs between people with equal power.

A supervisor, funder, teacher, clinician, public official, service provider, or organizational leader may have influence because they control resources, opportunities, information, evaluations, or decisions.

Ask:

• Can this person realistically say no?
• Could refusal affect employment, services, grades, funding, benefits, or opportunities?
• Am I using authority that belongs to my role, or applying unnecessary personal pressure?
• Does the person understand what is voluntary and what is required?

Greater power creates greater responsibility to communicate clearly and avoid coercion.

Support autonomy when behavior change is voluntary

When the goal is to support a person's voluntary behavior change, begin with their own goals and reasons.

Useful practices can include:

• Asking what matters to the person
• Listening for their reasons for or against change
• Asking permission before offering extensive advice where appropriate
• Providing accurate options and information
• Acknowledging ambivalence
• Supporting the person's confidence in making their own plan

This is especially important in health, counseling, education, and other settings where a professional may hold substantially more authority or expertise than the person they are advising.

Admit mistakes and revise your position

If someone gives you accurate information that changes the issue, acknowledge it.

You might say:

I hadn't considered that information. It changes part of how I see the problem, so I want to reconsider the proposal.

Correcting yourself can strengthen credibility because it shows that the goal is a sound decision rather than simply winning the argument.

Thank people for their time and participation

Whether or not agreement occurs, acknowledge the time and effort people contributed to the discussion.

Appreciation should be genuine rather than a strategy for making someone easier to influence later.

Influencing someone or a group: A general approach

Clarify your objective

Before the conversation, ask:

• What outcome am I seeking?
• Why does it matter?
• What is negotiable?
• What is not negotiable because of law, ethics, safety, professional responsibility, or organizational authority?
• What information do I still need?
• What would a reasonable alternative look like?

Identify the people who should be involved

Consider who:

• Has decision authority
• Will be affected
• Has relevant expertise
• Will implement the decision
• Holds important community or lived knowledge

Don't route communication through another person simply because that person might exert greater social pressure.

Involving another person is useful when their expertise, responsibility, relationship, or facilitation role genuinely helps the process.

Understand the context before making your case

Learn enough to understand the situation you are entering.

Depending on the issue, this may include:

• Previous decisions
• Community history
• Relevant law or policy
• Available data
• Previous attempts to solve the problem
• The responsibilities of the other participants
• Existing conflict or mistrust

Research should prepare you to understand other perspectives, not simply help you identify how to persuade them more effectively.

Begin respectfully and state the purpose

Explain why you asked for the conversation.

A straightforward opening might be:

I'd like to talk about the proposed schedule change. I think it could solve some of our coverage problems, but I know it could affect staff in several ways. I'd like to explain what we're seeing and hear your concerns before we decide what to recommend.

Genuine respect is more useful than strategic flattery.

Ask questions and listen

Before assuming you understand the disagreement, ask.

Questions might include:

• How do you see the problem?
• What is most important to you in this decision?
• What concerns you about this proposal?
• What information do you think we are missing?
• What alternatives should we consider?

Present your position and evidence

Explain:

• What you recommend
• Why
• What evidence supports it
• What uncertainty remains
• What tradeoffs you see

Avoid overwhelming people with information simply to make your position appear stronger.

Identify agreement and disagreement accurately

Summarize where people agree and where they do not.

For example:

We agree that weekend coverage is inadequate. We disagree about whether changing the existing schedule is the best way to fix it.

This is more useful than pretending the parties are closer to agreement than they actually are.

Explore options

Consider alternatives and compromises when appropriate.

Ask:

• Is there another way to meet the underlying need?
• Can the proposal be changed?
• Could a pilot provide useful information?
• What would each side need in order to accept an agreement?

Some issues cannot appropriately be compromised, particularly where safety, rights, legal requirements, professional standards, or serious misconduct are involved.

Clarify the decision

Before ending the discussion, make clear:

• What was decided
• Who has authority to make the final decision
• What remains unresolved
• Who is responsible for next steps
• When follow-up will occur

In difficult situations

Influence becomes more difficult when stakes are high, trust is low, relationships have been damaged, parties have competing interests, or significant power differences exist.

The goal in those situations should not automatically be to become more persuasive.

First determine what kind of problem you are facing.

Keep the larger purpose in view

During a difficult negotiation or disagreement, ask:

• What actually matters most here?
• Which issues are essential?
• Which are preferences?
• Is the cost of continuing the dispute proportionate to what is at stake?

Regulate your behavior

Strong emotion can signal that the issue matters.

You do not have to pretend not to feel frustrated, angry, disappointed, or concerned.

You do need to manage your behavior so that emotion does not lead to threats, personal attacks, impulsive decisions, or statements you cannot responsibly support.

If necessary:

• Request a short break
• Summarize what has been resolved and what remains disputed
• Obtain information that is missing
• Consult an appropriate colleague, supervisor, or adviser
• Resume the discussion at an agreed time

Focus criticism on the issue, decision, or conduct

Avoid personal attacks.

Instead of:

You don't care about this community.

say something more specific:

I disagree with the decision because the available data indicate that it would reduce access for residents who do not have another nearby option.

Specific claims can be examined. Attacks on character usually make useful discussion more difficult.

Understand interests and constraints

Behavior that seems unreasonable from one position may make more sense when you understand the person's responsibilities, incentives, risks, previous experiences, or available information.

Understanding those factors does not require agreeing with them.

It helps determine whether:

• Better information could resolve the problem
• A different proposal is possible
• Interests are genuinely incompatible
• A formal decision is required

Change your communication approach when necessary

If people are not understanding the information, consider another format.

You might use:

• A written summary
• A diagram
• Data
• A concrete example
• A demonstration
• A qualified subject-matter expert

Change the method because it improves understanding, not because you are searching for a more emotionally powerful way to obtain compliance.

Take a break when useful

Some discussions become less productive after people are tired or emotions have escalated.

A planned break or adjournment can provide time to review information, consult others, and reconsider options.

Establish when and how the conversation will resume if further discussion is needed.

Do not repeatedly reopen a clear refusal merely to wear someone down

If a person or organization has clearly rejected a voluntary request, respect that decision.

Reconsider the issue when there is a legitimate reason, such as new evidence, a materially changed proposal, or a formal process requiring additional discussion.

Persistence should not become pressure.

Involve another person when their role adds legitimate value

Another person may help because they:

• Have relevant expertise
• Hold appropriate decision authority
• Understand community history
• Have responsibility for implementation
• Can facilitate a difficult discussion

Do not recruit additional people simply to increase social pressure on someone who has disagreed with you.

Consider mediation when appropriate

A trained mediator can sometimes help parties work through a dispute when direct discussion has stalled.

Mediation generally involves a neutral third party helping participants:

• Clarify the issues
• Identify underlying interests
• Improve communication
• Examine relevant information and standards
• Generate possible agreements
• Negotiate voluntarily

The mediator generally does not impose the outcome.

Participants should understand the mediator's role, how confidentiality will be handled, and what authority they retain over the final agreement.

Mediation is not appropriate for every dispute. Matters involving serious safety concerns, violence, harassment, discrimination, safeguarding, criminal conduct, or situations requiring a formal investigation or authoritative decision may require another process.

Know when to stop

Not every disagreement will end in agreement.

Consider ending or pausing an influence effort when:

• The person has clearly declined a voluntary request
• Further pressure would damage an important relationship without changing the underlying issue
• The cost in time or resources has become disproportionate
• A formal decision has been made
• The issue should move to another process
• New information is needed before discussion can continue productively

Respecting legitimate disagreement is part of ethical leadership.

In Summary

Influence is an important part of leadership, but it should not be defined simply as making other people think or act the way a leader wants.

Ethical influence depends on credibility, trustworthiness, listening, accurate information, clear requests, appropriate use of authority, respect for autonomy, and willingness to reconsider your own position.

Leaders should avoid tactics designed mainly to bypass independent judgment, such as strategic flattery, manufactured social pressure, creating a sense of obligation through gifts, getting people into a pattern of saying yes, misleading emotional appeals, or repeatedly pressing after a clear refusal.

Effective influence also requires attention to power. Someone may appear to agree voluntarily when the person asking controls employment, funding, services, grades, professional opportunities, or other important resources. Greater authority creates a greater responsibility to distinguish requirements from requests and to avoid coercion.

When disagreement occurs, listen for interests and constraints, examine evidence, clarify decision authority, consider alternatives, and use mediation or another appropriate process when useful.

Finally, influence is not measured only by whether another person agrees with you. Sometimes the best result of a conversation is a better proposal, a clearer disagreement, a responsible compromise, a decision to seek more evidence, or recognition that the parties will not agree.

Good leadership uses influence to improve understanding and coordinated action while preserving people's ability to question, disagree, and make informed choices.

___You understand the purpose of influence and the role it can play in your organization

___You can define and identify the three basic elements of influence, and the role each plays

___You understand the role the audience plays in your attempts to influence

You understand your daily activities can the lay the groundwork for being able to X influence others effectively:

___You have a "network" of relationships with people that you continue to expand

___You understand the importance of credibility

___You are honest and trustworthy in your private and professional affairs

___You make it a point to listen to the ideas of others and remain flexible in your options, while also speaking out when you need to

___You make an effort to "seek out" people with different viewpoints

___You understand that most large-scale changes take years to complete, and continuously recognize and relish smaller-scale accomplishments

You understand various tactics you can use to influence others, such as:

___Using comparison

___Giving something away

___Getting people in the habit of saying yes

You understand the general approach to influencing others:

___You have decided what exactly you want, as well as what you can give up

___You have decided who you want to influence directly and indirectly

___Praise and interest have been employed while non-constructive criticism has been avoided

___Your audience's wants and beliefs have been defined

___You have found and emphasized common ground with your audience

___When you've been wrong, you've admitted it

___You have inoculated your audience against pertinent counter-arguments

___Logic and emotion have both been utilized in your persuasive attempts

___You have explained to your audience "what's in it for them"

___You've stated your main point at least three times

___Argument has been avoided whenever possible

___Your ideas have been simplified

___You have thanked your audience

When situations have become difficult, you have handled them appropriately by:

___Keeping things in perspective

___Keeping your emotions in check

___Attempting to understand why your audience is behaving as it is

___Changing your tactics after they have failed

___When necessary, taking a break to regain your composure

___Coming back to points of disagreement

___Attempting to find other people to influence those people on whom your efforts did not succeed

___Considering the usage of a trained mediator

___Knowing when it is time to give up or temporarily retreat

Example: President Obama reunites with Edith Childs, who inspired ‘Fired Up, Ready to Go’ Chant during 2008 campaign

President Obama shared this message, reflecting on his meeting with Edith Childs:

I met Edith in 2007, at a small get-together in Greenwood, South Carolina. It was the early days of my campaign for president, and I was still finding my way as a candidate.

I walked into the event in Greenwood after an hour and a half in the car. It was raining that day and there were only 20 people.

But as I went around the room to shake people’s hands and thank them for coming, I suddenly heard this voice cry out, “Fired up!”

And people shouted back, “Fired up!”

Then I heard, “Ready to go!”

And everyone shouted, “Ready to go!”

I looked to see where the voice had come from, and there was Edith. I later learned that she had been active in the local NAACP and served on the Greenwood County Council. She was known in the community for raising people’s spirits.

Read more.

 

A Power Point presentation summarizing the major points in the section.

What is relationship building all about?

Relationships are fundamental to community organizing and community change. People and organizations rarely accomplish complex community work in isolation. They exchange knowledge, coordinate resources, make decisions, solve problems, respond to crises, and carry out work together.

Strong relationships are more than a means for getting people to support a particular project. They can help create trust, shared understanding, mutual accountability, and stronger community capacity over time.

Community relationships may involve coworkers, residents, volunteers, participants, partner organizations, public agencies, businesses, funders, elected officials, advocates, researchers, and people who disagree with your organization's position.

These relationships will not all look the same. Some may become friendships. Others remain professional partnerships, working relationships, advisory relationships, or occasional points of contact.

Community leaders do not need to be especially charismatic, outgoing, or socially gifted. Relationship building depends more on respect, reliability, listening, curiosity, appropriate communication, and follow-through.

This section discusses why relationships matter, when to invest in them, how to build relationships across different roles and communities, and how to maintain or appropriately end them.

Why do we need to build and sustain relationships?

Consider a simple example.

Organizing a neighborhood event

Suppose residents want to organize a neighborhood event.

Several kinds of relationships may matter:

• Residents can help decide what kind of event would actually be useful and appealing.
• A neighborhood association or community organization may provide planning support.
• Local government staff can explain permits, street closures, park rules, accessibility requirements, or other official procedures.
• Businesses or organizations may choose to contribute supplies, services, or space.
• Community members can help communicate information through different networks and languages.
• People with accessibility, transportation, caregiving, or other needs can help planners identify barriers before the event occurs.

The event becomes easier to organize when people understand one another's roles, communicate reliably, and can work together.

Fundamental reasons to build relationships

• Relationships help people understand one another. Direct contact can reveal knowledge, priorities, concerns, and experiences that would otherwise remain outside the planning process.
• Relationships support coordination. Community problems often require people and organizations with different responsibilities to work together.
• Relationships can support trustworthiness. People learn whether others keep commitments, communicate honestly, protect appropriate confidentiality, and respond when problems arise.
• Relationships connect community assets. One person or organization may have knowledge, resources, relationships, authority, or experience that complements what another has.
• Relationships can strengthen belonging and resilience. People often benefit from knowing that they are part of a network in which responsibility and support are shared.

What kinds of relationships are we talking about?

Community work involves many types of relationships.

You may have a brief but respectful relationship with a crossing guard you see regularly, a long-term partnership with a neighborhood organization, a supervisory relationship with an employee, a working relationship with a public official, or an ongoing disagreement with an organization whose goals conflict with yours.

Each relationship has different expectations and boundaries.

A useful community relationship does not always have to become a close personal friendship.

Consider:

• What is the purpose of the relationship?
• What responsibilities does each person or organization have?
• What information should or should not be shared?
• Are there important differences in authority or power?
• What level of contact is useful and sustainable?

Think in terms of networks, not one person at the center

Community relationships form networks.

Residents may know one another. Organizations may share participants, staff, funders, or projects. Public agencies may coordinate with nonprofits and businesses. Informal leaders may connect groups that otherwise rarely communicate.

Strong community capacity does not depend on one person maintaining every important relationship.

Encourage connections across the network so information and collaboration can continue when particular leaders change roles or leave.

Build relationships with integrity. Don't approach people primarily because you hope they will eventually donate money, provide political access, join your organization, or perform work for you.

A relationship may still produce useful opportunities, but those should develop through mutual interests and transparent communication rather than hidden expectations.

When do you build and sustain relationships?

Relationship building is an ongoing part of community work, but that does not mean leaders need to socialize constantly or maintain personal closeness with everyone.

Appropriate contact depends on the relationship.

You may need:

• Regular supervision with an employee
• Periodic meetings with a partner organization
• Occasional communication with a public official
• Frequent coordination during a joint project
• A way for community members to reach the organization when concerns arise

Build enough time for relationship development into project planning. Trust and effective coordination rarely appear simply because organizations sign an agreement or attend one meeting together.

Relationships are part of the groundwork

Large or complicated projects often depend on relationships developed before implementation.

If several organizations are considering a joint initiative, begin by learning about:

• Each organization's goals
• Previous experiences working together
• Community history
• Responsibilities and decision authority
• Available resources
• Areas of agreement and disagreement

An appropriately scoped shared project can sometimes help partners learn how they work together before taking on a larger effort.

But if participants express concern about a proposed collaboration, don't assume the problem is simply insufficient trust.

Ask whether the concern involves:

• Unclear goals
• Previous broken commitments
• Unequal power
• Workload
• Funding
• Community impact
• Organizational capacity
• A genuine disagreement about the proposal

Build relationships before crises when possible

Existing relationships can improve communication and coordination when a crisis occurs.

Know the organizations, public agencies, community networks, and people whose responsibilities may become important during emergencies or periods of rapid change.

Relationships can also develop during a crisis

New partnerships sometimes form when people respond to an urgent problem together.

During a crisis, however, the immediate priorities should be safety, accurate information, clear roles, and meeting community needs.

Do not treat an emergency primarily as an opportunity to expand your network.

Afterward, review what relationships were useful and whether continued coordination would benefit the community.

How do you build relationships?

There is no universal formula. People differ in communication style, culture, personality, professional role, boundaries, and interest in social connection.

The following principles can help.

1. Be respectful and approachable. Courtesy and reliability matter more than trying to appear especially charming or socially impressive.
2. Ask relevant questions and listen. Be curious about people's knowledge and perspectives without treating conversation as a way to extract personal information.
3. Share appropriately. Explain your own role, interests, and concerns when useful. Trust does not require sharing private information.
4. Spend time where the work and community relationships actually occur. This might include meetings, community events, workplaces, neighborhood spaces, online forums, or other appropriate settings.
5. Respect differences. People do not have to agree with you or share your communication style in order to have a productive relationship.
6. Respect boundaries. Don't assume another person wants friendship, personal disclosure, frequent contact, or continued outreach.
7. Accept that some outreach will not lead to a relationship. A person or organization may decline involvement for many legitimate reasons.
8. Demonstrate trustworthiness over time. Keep commitments, communicate honestly, acknowledge mistakes, and protect appropriate confidentiality.
9. Invite rather than pressure. Explain opportunities clearly and allow people to decide whether they want to participate.
10. Make participation accessible. Consider language, disability access, schedules, transportation, technology, caregiving, and other barriers.
11. Connect people with one another. Strong communities depend on networks rather than on everyone having to work through one leader.

How do you build relationships with people from cultural backgrounds different from your own?

Cultural humility is more useful than assuming you can become an expert on another person's culture.

Every community contains variation. Culture may interact with language, generation, disability, religion, profession, geography, immigration history, family experience, and many other parts of people's lives.

Useful practices include:

• Learn about relevant community history and context
• Ask people how they prefer to communicate and participate
• Use appropriate language access and interpretation
• Recognize differences within groups rather than treating any community as uniform
• Examine your own assumptions
• Build sustained relationships rather than relying on occasional cultural events
• Follow the leadership and knowledge of people directly affected by an issue
• Challenge discriminatory practices and barriers within your own sphere of responsibility

Mistakes can happen. Good intentions do not eliminate their impact.

When you make a mistake, listen, acknowledge it, apologize where appropriate, repair what you can, and change your behavior.

How do you build relationships with people who hold political or institutional power?

Elected officials, agency leaders, business leaders, funders, and heads of large organizations may control decisions or resources that affect community work.

Build these relationships professionally and transparently.

• Understand the person's role and authority.
• Learn the appropriate process for meetings, requests, advocacy, or public comment.
• Bring accurate information and explain community concerns clearly.
• Listen to the responsibilities and constraints associated with their role.
• Follow applicable ethics, lobbying, procurement, conflict-of-interest, and public-record requirements.
• Do not assume personal friendship should provide special access or treatment.

Productive professional relationships can exist even when you disagree strongly about policy or priorities.

How do you sustain relationships?

Relationships change over time. Some deepen, some remain limited to a specific project, and some appropriately end.

Several practices can help sustain relationships that continue to serve a useful purpose.

• Communicate at an appropriate cadence. Check in often enough to coordinate the work without assuming everyone wants frequent informal contact.
• Communicate openly about the work. Discuss expectations, concerns, changes, and disagreements before confusion grows.
• Show genuine appreciation. Give specific credit and acknowledgment rather than using appreciation to create obligation.
• Follow through. Reliability is one of the strongest foundations of trust.
• Help when appropriate. Support partners and coworkers when you reasonably can, without creating an expectation of repayment.
• Respect boundaries and workload. Don't make one person's willingness to help the solution to chronic staffing or organizational problems.
• Offer development opportunities rather than pressure. People may welcome new responsibilities, but they should be able to decline them.
• Support accountability as well as loyalty. Standing by someone does not mean concealing misconduct, ignoring harm, or refusing to challenge a poor decision.

Create psychological safety in working relationships

Strong professional and community relationships allow people to communicate difficult information.

People should be able to:

• Ask questions
• Admit mistakes
• Ask for help
• Raise concerns
• Offer a different interpretation
• Disagree respectfully

Respond constructively when people bring information you do not want to hear.

Psychological safety does not require agreement or eliminate accountability. It means people do not face unnecessary humiliation or retaliation for speaking honestly.

When relationships get difficult

Disagreement and tension occur in many relationships.

Conflict does not automatically mean a relationship must end, but conflict should not be romanticized as something people need in order to become closer.

When a working relationship becomes difficult:

• Listen carefully. Give each person an opportunity to explain how they understand the situation.
• Clarify the actual disagreement. Is it about facts, priorities, authority, workload, behavior, resources, values, or something else?
• Consider the other person's perspective. Understanding does not require agreement.
• Examine what is accurate in the criticism. Correct your behavior or the situation where appropriate.
• Apologize when warranted. A useful apology acknowledges the specific harm or mistake rather than simply trying to end the dispute.
• Take emotions seriously without letting them control conduct. Anger, frustration, disappointment, or fear may reveal what is important, but they do not justify threats, insults, or retaliation.
• Communicate specifically. Describe behavior, decisions, consequences, and needs rather than attacking character.
• Use facilitation or mediation where appropriate. A neutral third party may help when direct discussion has stalled.
• Know when another process is required. Harassment, discrimination, abuse, threats, safeguarding issues, fraud, or other serious misconduct may require formal reporting or investigation rather than relationship repair.

Know when a relationship should change or end

Previous time and effort do not by themselves justify continuing a relationship.

It may be appropriate to reduce contact, change roles, end a partnership, or use formal boundaries when:

• The relationship is consistently harmful
• Commitments are repeatedly broken
• Trust cannot reasonably be restored
• The work no longer requires the relationship
• Organizational priorities have changed
• Safety is at risk
• Serious misconduct has occurred

One person can improve their own conduct, but no one can repair a relationship alone if the other party is unwilling or unable to participate.

Relationships with people or organizations that disagree with you

Community work often involves people whose interests, values, strategies, or positions conflict with yours.

A respectful working relationship may still be possible.

Depending on the situation, you might:

• Maintain direct professional communication
• Identify areas of legitimate shared interest
• Establish clear boundaries around areas of disagreement
• Use a facilitated dialogue
• Negotiate a limited agreement
• Coordinate on an issue where your interests align while continuing to disagree elsewhere

Don't assume that every disagreement should be resolved through relationship building.

Some conflicts involve incompatible responsibilities, serious misconduct, legal rights, safety, or issues that require formal decisions.

Protect privacy and appropriate boundaries

Strong relationships do not require unlimited access to people's personal lives.

Leaders should:

• Collect only personal information that is actually needed
• Respect confidentiality
• Avoid pressuring people to disclose private experiences
• Maintain appropriate professional boundaries with employees, participants, students, clients, and others
• Be clear when a relationship involves both personal and organizational roles

Evaluate the health of important partnerships

Periodically review significant organizational relationships.

Ask:

• Are responsibilities clear?
• Are commitments being kept?
• Is communication working?
• Are resources and workload reasonably distributed?
• Can people raise concerns safely?
• Are important decisions transparent to the people who need to understand them?
• Is the relationship creating mutual value?
• Are power differences being handled responsibly?
• Does the relationship still serve the community or organizational purpose for which it exists?

In Summary

Relationships remain at the heart of community organizing because community work depends on people and organizations being able to communicate, coordinate, exchange knowledge, share responsibility, and act together.

Strong relationships are not simply tools for gaining allies, obtaining favors, or persuading people to support an agenda. They are built through respect, reliability, listening, mutual value, transparency, appropriate sharing of power, and follow-through.

Community leaders should build relationships across different organizations, roles, communities, and perspectives while respecting boundaries and recognizing that not every useful relationship needs to become a friendship.

Cultural humility, accessibility, psychological safety, privacy, and attention to power differences are important parts of relationship building. Leaders should also make it possible for people to disagree, raise concerns, and correct mistakes without unnecessary humiliation or retaliation.

Relationships require maintenance, but they do not need to continue indefinitely. Some relationships change, some end, and some conflicts require formal processes rather than personal repair.

Finally, communities are stronger when relationships form a broad network rather than depending on one central leader. Sustainable community work connects people with one another so trust, knowledge, responsibility, and collaborative capacity can continue even as individual leaders and organizations change.

You know who you need to have relationships with in order to reach your community building goal:

___Potential members

___Members

___Potential board members

___Volunteers

___Community members

___Leaders of community organizations

___Members of other community organizations

___Members of diverse communities

___Elected government officials

___People in Media

___People who work for foundations

___Others

___You have built time into your schedule to meet with them

___You have identified small, short-term projects of mutual interest

___You know and practice the 12 step techniques for building relationships

___You know and practice techniques for cross-cultural relationships building and for powerful people

You know who to sustain relationships with in order to reach your community building goal:

___Potential members

___Members

___Board members

___Staff

___Volunteers

___Community members

___Leaders of community organizations

___Members of other community organizations

___Members of diverse communities

___Elected government officials

___People in Media

___People who work for foundations

___Others

___You know and practice techniques for sustaining relationships

___You know how to handle problems in relationships when they arise

___You know how to develop relationships with your adversaries

Example: Tireless 'Ms. Jessie' Cultivates Next Generation of Neighborhood Leaders

Jessie Jefferson, 79, is developing a new generation of neighborhood leaders as a consultant and community organizer for a host of neighborhoods: Town Fork Creek, Oak Park, Vineyard, South Roundtop, Seven Oaks, Blue Valley, McCoy, Washington Wheatley, and Independence Plaza.

And she fights for them, arguing for commitments from city department heads and council members to carve out financial support for these neighborhood associations so they can do the work of preserving and growing community power. Read more.