Chapter 14. Core Functions in Leadership | Community Tool Box

 

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.

Tool: Tips for Building and Sustaining Relationships

Building and sustaining relationships is the key to successfully mobilizing your community. There are no shortcuts, but the ideas that follow might help you get off to a solid start.

Think strategically

Remember relationships are an investment of both time and energy. You cannot build and sustain effective relationships with the entire community. Choose your potential allies wisely!

Make time, ask questions, and listen

Build time in your schedule to meet individually with potential allies. Ask them questions about themselves, and listen to what they tell you! In other words, really get to know the people that you hope will eventually be avid supporters.

Be persistent

Relationships are not built overnight. Building and sustaining effective relationships will take time over many months-or even years! If you do not connect with someone the first time, be persistent! Prioritize time the following month to pay them another visit.

Communicate regularly

Building relationships can be challenging, but it's nothing compared to sustaining them. Don't let potential allies slip away from you-keep in touch! Prioritize time to make a telephone call to solicit feedback, drop-in occasionally, and/or find time to "do lunch." Receiving a monthly newsletter, in addition to personal contact, will also support the relationships you have built.

Identify small, short-term projects of mutual interest

Planning is an important part of every initiative. However, the sustained involvement of community members will depend heavily on your ability to offer opportunities for action and small wins! Keep individuals that you have developed strong relationships with in mind as project needs arise that might interest them.

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

• The role of formal leaders

• The role of participants

• Working together

Leadership does not occur in isolation. Formal leaders work with staff, volunteers, community members, participants, Boards, partners, and others who bring their own knowledge, responsibilities, expertise, interests, and authority to the work.

These relationships should not be understood simply as relationships between leaders and followers.

A person may exercise formal authority in one situation and rely on someone else's expertise in another. A director may make organizational decisions within their authority while a communications specialist leads a communications project, a community member provides essential knowledge about local conditions, or a Board exercises governance responsibilities.

Leadership can therefore move among people according to the situation even when formal roles remain different.

Effective organizations make those differences clear. Shared leadership does not mean that everyone has identical authority, and formal leadership does not mean that other people simply carry out the leader's vision.

In this section, we will look at the responsibilities of formal leaders, the contributions of other participants, and the conditions that help people work together effectively.

The role of formal leaders

Leadership involves many responsibilities, including clarifying purpose, listening, making or facilitating decisions, allocating resources, communicating priorities, developing people, addressing problems, and helping the organization carry out its responsibilities.

Formal leaders do not perform all of this alone.

Four responsibilities are particularly important when working with other people:

• Listening and learning
• Responding responsibly to concerns and information
• Clarifying purpose, priorities, and decisions
• Delegating work and developing capacity

Listening and learning

Leaders need accurate information about the people, organizations, and communities connected to their work.

Listening is one important way to obtain that information.

Good listening means more than remaining silent while another person talks. It involves paying attention, asking useful questions, checking your understanding, and remaining open to information that may change your original view.

Active listening

Useful active-listening practices include:

• Give the conversation appropriate attention.
• Reduce avoidable distractions.
• Let people finish their thoughts when possible.
• Ask clarifying questions.
• Summarize what you believe you heard and invite correction.
• Distinguish what the person actually said from what you are inferring.
• Ask what the person wants from the conversation when that is unclear.
• Remain open to disagreement and information you did not expect.

For example, instead of saying:

You aren't making any sense.

you might say:

I'm not sure I understand the connection between those two points. Could you explain that part again?

The difference is not simply the use of the word "I." The second statement identifies the specific communication problem without attacking the other person's intelligence or character.

Be thoughtful about communication differences

People communicate in different ways.

Eye contact, facial expression, gestures, speaking pace, silence, tone, and other communication behaviors can differ across individuals, cultures, disabilities, and situations.

Do not assume that limited eye contact means dishonesty, that silence means agreement, or that one particular facial expression reveals what someone is thinking.

Nonverbal behavior can provide context, but it is often ambiguous.

When something matters, ask rather than trying to decode another person's intentions from body language alone.

Leaders should also consider communication accessibility. Depending on the setting, people may need interpretation, captioning, written materials, assistive technology, additional processing time, or another method of participation.

Use disclosure appropriately

A leader may sometimes share a relevant personal or professional experience to help explain a point or show that they understand part of the situation.

Don't assume that sharing your own story proves that you understand someone else's experience.

Keep the focus on what the other person is trying to communicate.

Listen for what action may be needed

Sometimes a person wants advice. Sometimes they want a decision, a resource, help solving a problem, or simply an opportunity to explain what happened.

Ask when necessary:

What would be most useful from me here?

Listening matters most when important information can lead to appropriate action.

Responding to concerns and information

Listening does not require agreeing with every request.

Leaders often have to balance competing needs, limited resources, organizational responsibilities, law, policy, safety, professional standards, and the interests of several groups.

When deciding how to respond, consider:

• Who will be affected?
• What evidence is available?
• What responsibilities or rights apply?
• What resources are available?
• Who has authority to make the decision?
• Who should be consulted?
• What are the likely benefits and harms?
• Are some people carrying a disproportionate burden?

For example, if two teams both need equipment that the organization cannot currently afford, don't treat the decision as a contest over which group is willing to sacrifice more.

Establish relevant criteria such as urgency, effect on services, safety, number of people affected, available alternatives, legal requirements, and organizational priorities. Explain the decision and how those criteria were applied.

Depending on the issue, the appropriate process may involve consultation, a shared decision, a supervisor, senior leadership, a Board, or another accountable role.

Clarifying purpose and priorities

Formal leaders often have a responsibility to help people understand:

• Why the work matters
• What the organization is trying to accomplish
• What the current priorities are
• What decisions have been made
• What remains open for discussion
• How individual work contributes to larger goals

This is different from expecting people to adopt the leader's personal vision.

Organizational and community priorities may develop through strategic planning, Board governance, community engagement, evaluation, staff expertise, public responsibilities, or other processes.

Leaders help connect those priorities with everyday work.

Model the standards you expect without modeling overwork

People pay attention to what leaders actually do.

Leaders can model:

• Preparation
• Honesty
• Respectful communication
• Accountability
• Appropriate use of organizational resources
• Willingness to admit mistakes
• Following policies that apply to everyone

Leaders should not model commitment through chronic overtime, constant availability, or repeated personal sacrifice.

If an organization regularly depends on people working weekends, holidays, or additional unpaid hours to function, leadership should examine staffing, scheduling, workload, compensation, priorities, and backup coverage.

Delegating work

Delegation is more than telling another person what to do.

Effective delegation assigns meaningful responsibility together with the authority, information, resources, and support needed to carry it out.

Delegation can help:

• Distribute workload
• Use people's expertise effectively
• Develop skills and leadership capacity
• Improve continuity
• Prevent important work from depending on one person

Clarify what needs to be accomplished

Begin with the desired outcome.

Ask:

• What needs to be done?
• Why does it matter?
• What result is expected?
• What decisions are part of the assignment?
• What decisions remain with another role?

Divide work appropriately

Some work can be delegated as a complete responsibility. Other work may need to be divided into projects, decisions, or stages.

Involve people with relevant knowledge when deciding how the work should be structured.

Choose people using fair and relevant criteria

Consider:

• Skills
• Experience
• Interest
• Current workload
• Accessibility needs
• Development goals
• Fair distribution of opportunity

Don't repeatedly delegate challenging or visible work to the same small group of dependable people.

Developmental assignments can be useful, but not every assignment needs to stretch someone's abilities.

If a developmental opportunity would require new skills, discuss whether the person wants that challenge and what support would be needed.

Distinguish assignments from voluntary requests

A supervisor may legitimately assign work that falls within an employee's role and authority.

A volunteer, community member, or partner organization generally has a different relationship to the work and may be free to decline additional responsibilities.

Be honest about which situation applies.

Do not use personal favors, loyalty, previous assistance, or other forms of reciprocity to pressure someone into accepting work.

Explain the responsibility clearly

Clarify:

• The desired result
• Responsibilities
• Decision authority
• Deadlines
• Available resources
• Important constraints
• Who can provide assistance
• How progress will be reviewed

Provide authority and resources

Delegating responsibility without enough authority, information, time, equipment, access, or training creates unnecessary risk.

Make sure the person has what they reasonably need to succeed.

Agree on checkpoints

The amount of oversight should fit the task, risk, and person's experience.

A new employee leading an unfamiliar project may need frequent check-ins. An experienced professional may need little more than agreement on outcomes and major decision points.

Avoid both abandonment and unnecessary micromanagement.

Give useful feedback

Feedback should be timely and specific.

Discuss:

• What is working
• What needs attention
• What has changed
• What support is needed

If the assignment is developmental, include time afterward to reflect on what the person learned and what they would approach differently next time.

Recognize contributions appropriately

Acknowledge good work and give people appropriate credit.

Recognition preferences differ. Some people appreciate public recognition; others prefer private acknowledgment, professional development, additional responsibility, or another form of recognition.

Gifts or meals may be subject to organizational ethics or financial policies and should not be treated as the standard form of appreciation.

Distribute work and opportunity

Pay attention to who receives:

• Difficult assignments
• High-visibility assignments
• Development opportunities
• Routine administrative work
• After-hours responsibilities

Workload and developmental opportunity should not repeatedly fall on the same people simply because they have previously been reliable.

The role of participants

Community and organizational work depends on more than the actions of formal leaders.

Staff, volunteers, community members, partners, Board members, and other participants may identify problems, bring expertise, challenge assumptions, coordinate work, and exercise leadership within their own areas of responsibility.

Most people move among different roles. Someone may lead one project, contribute expertise to another, receive direction in a third, and participate as a community member elsewhere.

Engaged participants can contribute in several ways.

• Show initiative. Identify opportunities, raise useful ideas, and act within your role rather than waiting unnecessarily for someone else to notice every problem.
• Take responsibility. Fulfill commitments, communicate when circumstances change, and contribute to the health and effectiveness of the group.
• Raise concerns. Respectfully question decisions, policies, or practices that may create risk, conflict with organizational responsibilities, or undermine the work.
• Provide feedback. Share relevant information with leaders and colleagues, including information that may be difficult to hear.
• Recognize that leaders can make mistakes. Hold leaders accountable without assuming that every mistake reflects bad faith.
• Exercise leadership when appropriate. If a situation requires action and you have relevant expertise, capacity, responsibility, or authority, help move the work forward.
• Know when to escalate. If a serious concern cannot safely or appropriately be addressed with the immediate leader, use another supervisory, governance, reporting, or professional channel.
• Know when to step away. If an organization's direction or conduct no longer aligns with your responsibilities or values and reasonable attempts to address the problem have failed, leaving may be appropriate.

Psychological safety and participant voice

People contribute more effectively when they can ask questions, raise concerns, admit uncertainty, report mistakes, and disagree respectfully without unnecessary humiliation or retaliation.

Formal leaders have particular responsibility for creating those conditions because their authority can affect whether others feel safe speaking honestly.

Participants also contribute by responding respectfully to one another's questions, mistakes, and disagreement.

Psychological safety does not mean that every idea is accepted or that poor performance and misconduct are ignored.

It means that honest participation is possible while accountability remains clear.

Working together

Effective leadership relationships are not based on a leader providing vision while everyone else supplies energy and obedience.

They work best when people understand the shared purpose, know their responsibilities, have access to relevant information, can contribute their knowledge, and understand how decisions are made.

Recognize different forms of authority and knowledge

Formal leaders may have authority over budgets, staffing, policy, or organizational decisions.

Other people may hold:

• Technical expertise
• Community knowledge
• Lived experience
• Governance authority
• Professional responsibilities
• Implementation knowledge

Effective leadership uses these different forms of knowledge without pretending that formal power differences do not exist.

Maintain mutual respect and appropriate boundaries

Every person involved in the work deserves dignity and respectful treatment.

Mutual respect does not erase differences in authority.

A supervisor may still be responsible for evaluating an employee. A Board may have authority over an executive. A professional may have obligations that a volunteer does not. A community member may have knowledge that an external organization lacks.

Respect includes being clear about those roles rather than pretending everyone has identical responsibilities.

It also means respecting people's privacy. Leaders do not need access to every part of someone's personal life in order to work effectively with them.

Clarify decision rights

Different decisions may require different levels of participation.

Before an important decision, clarify:

• Who provides input
• Who recommends
• Who decides
• Who implements
• Who is accountable for the result

Some decisions may be delegated. Others may require consultation, a group decision, professional judgment, executive authority, or Board approval.

Be honest about what participants can influence.

Share power where appropriate

When organizations work with communities, people affected by the work should have meaningful opportunities to help identify priorities, shape decisions, and contribute to implementation.

Community participation should not be limited to giving information to an organization that retains all meaningful control.

At the same time, shared power should be accompanied by clear responsibilities, resources, information, and accountability.

Close the feedback loop

When leaders ask for input, explain what happened afterward.

Tell people:

• What you heard
• What changed
• What did not change
• Why
• What happens next

People do not need every suggestion adopted in order to know that their participation mattered.

Keep the purpose visible

Shared purpose can help people coordinate when everyday work becomes complicated.

Return periodically to:

• What the organization or initiative exists to accomplish
• What evidence shows about progress
• Whether priorities still make sense
• Whether circumstances or community needs have changed

Shared purpose should provide direction without preventing people from questioning strategies that are not working.

Evaluate how people are working together

Periodically ask:

• Are responsibilities clear?
• Are decisions being made at the appropriate level?
• Do people have the information they need?
• Can people raise concerns safely?
• Is workload distributed fairly?
• Are development opportunities broadly available?
• Are leaders responding to useful feedback?
• Are community members or participants receiving meaningful influence where appropriate?
• Are people able to hold one another accountable respectfully?

In Summary

Leadership is relational, but those relationships should not be reduced to leaders inspiring followers who then carry out the work.

Formal leaders have particular responsibilities: listening and learning, responding responsibly to concerns, clarifying purpose and priorities, making or facilitating decisions within their authority, delegating effectively, and developing capacity in others.

Other participants also have responsibilities. They can take initiative, fulfill commitments, contribute expertise, raise concerns, provide feedback, exercise leadership where appropriate, and hold formal leaders accountable.

Effective delegation gives people not only tasks but also appropriate authority, resources, support, information, and feedback. Development opportunities should consider people's skills, interests, workload, accessibility, and goals rather than assuming everyone should continually accept more responsibility.

Strong working relationships also depend on psychological safety, mutual respect, clear decision rights, appropriate boundaries, transparent communication, and feedback loops.

Finally, community leadership should respect community self-determination and recognize that important knowledge and leadership capacity already exist outside formal positions.

The goal is not to create ideal followers or an unusually inspiring leader. It is to create an organization or community effort in which people understand their responsibilities, can contribute their knowledge, can challenge problems safely, and have enough authority and support to work together effectively.

You understand the four central elements of the leader's work with his constituents:

• Listening
• Responding to hopes and concerns
• Inspiring constituents
• Delegating work

___You understand that active listening means paying full attention to what a person is saying, thinking about their comments, and asking questions or making comments that reflect the thought you are putting into what they are saying

___You understand the importance of nonverbal communication

___You understand how to respond to constituents' hopes and concerns

___You understand how to inspire constituents to thought and action

___You know how to delegate work

___You understand the role of constituents

___You understand how leaders and constituents can best work together

Example: She gets things done! The art of delegation

The following piece is reprinted from The Neighborhood Network. Thanks go out to the organization for allowing its use here.

Emily Erdman is the mother of friends that I grew up with in my home town. Everyone knew her because she was active in her church, the school, and the community. People said, "When Emily is in charge, things get done!" Some said, "When you work with Emily, she does all the delegating, and you do all the work." Others responded, "Yes, but when Emily is our chair person, things get done. And frequently more things get done than when Emily is not involved." The people in my home town knew Emily's dominant leadership style. She is a delegator, and she does it well. She accomplishes things with and through the efforts of other people.

I was often one of those recruited by Emily. Maybe I was asked because I was around or because she and Mom are friends. Or maybe it was because I did what I agreed to do. I did the tasks because I was asked and because she never asked me anything unreasonable. I never thought much about it at the time, but Emily taught me a lot about delegation that has helped me – “Get things done!"

Emily began by defining what needed to be done, divided what needed to be done into manageable tasks, and identified several people who might be able to do each task. If the first person said no, she would have someone else in mind to call.

When she asked me to do something, she would say, "Dave, I need your help." and then explain what the project was, what she needed me to do, and the date that she needed it. I could always say no. She never made me feel guilty for doing that but made it clear that when she needed help in the future, she would call on me because I could get things done.

At first she asked me to do small tasks like helping clean up after a community dinner. It grew from there. As I learned more, she told me less and less about how to do what was needed and left that up to me. Sometimes I had to find others to help. One the last tasks that Emily asked me to do was to have 100 tables in the park for the barbecue at the annual Harvest Festival. I couldn't do it by myself, but I knew that each church in town had folding tables. I also had classmates who were members of each church that lived on farms. Farmers have pick up trucks. It was a breeze and I didn't have to lift a table. I had learned how to delegate from Emily.

Emily Erdman is in her 80's now. She doesn't chair as many projects as in the past. People in my home town frequently say, "You know, we need someone like Emily Erdman to chair this project. We need someone who will get things done." Fortunately, others learned delegation skills from Emily because there are people there to take her place. She delegated herself out of business. And "things are still getting done!"

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

• Importance of decision making

• Decision rights: Who decides, who contributes, and who is accountable?

• How do you make decisions?

• Changing the scale of the process

• A last word: Deciding to defer

Making decisions is a basic responsibility in organizations and community initiatives.

Decisions may be made by an individual, a team, a Board, a coalition, a public body, a professional with particular responsibilities, or another person or group with appropriate authority.

Good decision-making is not simply a matter of choosing correctly. It also involves using an appropriate process: clarifying who has authority, gathering relevant information, considering alternatives, examining risks and consequences, making the decision, carrying it out, and reviewing what happened.

A systematic process cannot guarantee the best possible decision. Important decisions are often made with incomplete information and genuine uncertainty.

A disciplined process can, however, improve the quality, fairness, transparency, and accountability of the decision and make it easier to learn afterward.

Importance of decision making

Decisions shape what organizations and communities actually do.

Their effects may extend well beyond the immediate issue.

• Decisions affect people. Consider who may benefit, who may bear costs or risks, and whether some people will experience the consequences more heavily than others.
• Decisions reveal priorities and values. Resource allocation, staffing, program design, partnerships, and responses to problems often communicate organizational priorities more clearly than statements of values alone.
• Decisions influence organizational norms. People notice how leaders handle evidence, disagreement, conflicts of interest, risk, mistakes, and accountability.
• Decisions create responsibilities. A decision usually requires implementation, resources, communication, monitoring, and follow-through.
• Not deciding can also have consequences. Delay may preserve options or allow additional learning, but it may also increase risk, cost, uncertainty, or harm.

Good leadership therefore includes knowing not only how to make a decision but also which decisions belong with which roles.

Decision rights: Who decides, who contributes, and who is accountable?

Before discussing an important issue, clarify the decision rights.

Ask:

• Who has authority to make the final decision?
• Who should provide information or advice?
• Who should be consulted because they will be affected?
• Who will implement the decision?
• Who is accountable for the outcome?
• Does law, policy, a contract, professional responsibility, or organizational governance determine any part of this process?

These roles may belong to different people.

A staff member may recommend an option, community members may provide important input, an executive director may make the operational decision, and a Board may retain oversight responsibility.

Clarity about these distinctions can prevent both unnecessary centralization and symbolic participation.

Factors to consider when choosing a decision process

The appropriate process depends on the circumstances.

Consider:

• Importance and potential impact
• Time available
• Urgency and safety
• Legal or governance authority
• Required expertise
• Who will be affected
• Who will implement the decision
• Degree of uncertainty
• Risk if the decision is wrong
• Whether the decision is reversible
• Confidentiality requirements
• Resources available for the decision process

A routine, low-risk, reversible operational decision may appropriately be made by one person.

A major strategic decision affecting several communities may require broader consultation, governance review, and substantial evidence.

An emergency may require rapid action by a clearly accountable person, followed by documentation and review afterward.

One accountable person decides

Many organizational decisions appropriately belong with one person.

The person may decide independently within delegated authority or may consult other people first.

For example, a communications manager may choose routine formatting for an organizational newsletter without seeking approval from the entire staff.

A program director considering a major change in service delivery, however, might consult staff, participants, financial personnel, community partners, or technical experts before making a decision within their authority.

Individual decision-making is not inherently autocratic. The important questions are whether the authority is legitimate, whether relevant information was considered, and whether consultation occurred when it was needed.

Delegate decisions to the appropriate role

Formal leaders should not make every operational decision personally.

Delegate decisions when another person has the appropriate:

• Role
• Expertise
• Information
• Experience
• Authority

Delegation should include enough authority and resources to make the decision responsibly.

Developmental decision-making opportunities can also help people build judgment and leadership capacity.

Consider the person's preparation, workload, interest, support needs, and the potential consequences of error rather than assuming responsibility should simply increase with time.

Consultation followed by an accountable decision

In many situations, one person or body retains final authority while other people provide meaningful input.

This approach can work well when:

• One role is legally or organizationally accountable for the decision
• Several groups hold information needed for a sound decision
• Implementation depends on people who should be consulted
• Community members or participants will experience significant effects

Be clear at the beginning that the process is consultative rather than pretending participants have final authority they do not actually possess.

Consensus

Consensus seeks an outcome that the relevant participants can support or accept well enough to move forward.

Consensus does not require enthusiastic agreement from every person.

It also should not assume that silence means agreement.

A useful consensus process makes room for concerns, asks whether participants can support the proposed direction, and records unresolved objections when they remain.

Consensus can be useful when long-term cooperation is important and participants have genuine authority to shape the decision.

It may be impractical when groups are very large, time is limited, authority rests elsewhere, or deeply conflicting obligations cannot be reconciled.

Consent

Some groups use consent rather than consensus.

Under a consent approach, participants do not have to believe the proposal is their preferred option. The question is whether there is a substantial reason the proposal cannot responsibly move forward under the group's agreed criteria.

Consent can allow a group to act while still recognizing reservations and identifying issues that should be monitored.

Voting

Voting may be appropriate when a group has formal authority and its governance rules provide for decisions by vote.

Depending on the organization's bylaws, law, policy, or agreed rules, a decision may require:

• A plurality
• A simple majority
• A supermajority
• Another specified threshold

Voting rules should generally be established before the outcome is known.

Clarify quorum, abstentions, conflicts of interest, and any requirements for recording votes.

Combine decision methods when useful

A process may include several methods.

For example, a coalition might gather community input, ask a technical group to analyze options, attempt to develop consensus among partner organizations, and then send a recommendation to a Board that has final authority.

The important point is that participants understand where their role begins and ends.

How do you make decisions?

Larger or higher-impact decisions benefit from a deliberate process.

The amount of analysis should be proportionate to the importance, risk, reversibility, uncertainty, and time available.

1. Clarify the decision

State the question clearly.

Ask:

• What decision actually needs to be made?
• Why is it needed now?
• What happens if we do nothing?
• What is outside the scope of this decision?

A poorly framed question can produce a well-reasoned answer to the wrong problem.

2. Clarify decision rights

Determine:

• Who decides
• Who advises
• Who should be consulted
• Who implements
• Who is accountable

Identify any legal, governance, contractual, professional, or policy requirements.

3. Create conditions for meaningful participation

If other people are contributing to the decision, make it possible for them to participate effectively.

Consider:

• Whether people have the necessary information
• Whether meeting times and formats are accessible
• Language and disability access
• Whether people can contribute in writing or through another method
• Whether power differences may make people reluctant to disagree

Psychological safety matters. People should be able to raise questions, identify risks, admit uncertainty, and challenge assumptions without unnecessary humiliation or retaliation.

Do not interpret silence automatically as agreement.

4. Place the decision in context

Consider how the decision fits the organization's or initiative's larger responsibilities.

Ask:

• How does this relate to mission and strategy?
• What other work depends on it?
• What commitments have already been made?
• What communities or partners will be affected?
• What opportunity costs are involved?

Example: Considering mission and capacity

A community organization is considering adding a new direct-service program after residents identify an unmet need. The need is real, and the program could benefit the community. But the organization has historically focused on organizing, advocacy, and capacity building.

Before deciding, leadership should examine whether operating the new service fits the mission, whether another organization already provides it, what staffing and funding would be required, how the change would affect existing work, and whether partnership might address the need more effectively than creating an entirely new program.

5. Gather relevant information

The amount of information needed depends on the decision.

Gather enough information to understand the major options, consequences, risks, and uncertainties without allowing research to become indefinite delay.

Useful information may include:

• Research and evaluation findings
• Community and lived experience
• Program data
• Financial information
• Legal or regulatory requirements
• Professional expertise
• Partner and staff knowledge
• Previous organizational experience
• Examples from comparable organizations or communities

Ask not only what you know but also how strong the evidence is.

Distinguish:

• Established facts
• Reasonable estimates
• Assumptions
• Competing interpretations
• Important unknowns

Consider whether bias may affect what information has been gathered or emphasized.

Protect confidential or sensitive information appropriately.

6. Generate a reasonable range of options

Avoid assuming that the first two alternatives identified are the only possibilities.

Depending on the decision, options may include:

• Proceeding as proposed
• Modifying the proposal
• Using another strategy
• Partnering with another organization
• Testing the idea through a pilot
• Implementing in stages
• Maintaining the current approach
• Deferring the decision
• Stopping an existing activity

Different people may help identify different options. Individual reflection, community input, technical analysis, structured group discussion, and outside examples can all contribute.

7. Establish criteria before choosing

Decide what matters most in evaluating the alternatives.

Possible criteria include:

• Expected benefit
• Effect on people and communities
• Equity and accessibility
• Safety
• Legal and ethical requirements
• Mission and strategic fit
• Evidence
• Financial cost
• Staff capacity
• Expertise
• Time
• Implementation difficulty
• Risk and uncertainty
• Reversibility
• Sustainability
• Opportunity cost

Some criteria may be mandatory. An option that violates law, safety requirements, nondiscrimination obligations, or other essential responsibilities should not advance simply because it is cheaper or more popular.

8. Examine risks, tradeoffs, and uncertainty

Ask:

• What could go wrong?
• How likely is it?
• How serious would the consequences be?
• Who would experience those consequences?
• Can the risk be reduced?
• Can the decision be reversed?
• What assumptions would make this option fail?
• What new information would cause us to change course?

For major decisions, consider more than one plausible future rather than assuming current conditions will continue unchanged.

9. Check for conflicts of interest

Before a significant decision, determine whether any decision-maker has a personal, financial, family, professional, vendor, or other interest that could improperly influence the result.

Follow the organization's disclosure, recusal, governance, and documentation requirements.

10. Decide

At some point, additional information will no longer justify additional delay.

Apply the agreed decision process and criteria.

Several options may remain reasonable. A difficult decision does not become objectively obvious simply because the process was thorough.

Record the reasoning behind the selected option, particularly when the decision is significant.

11. Communicate the decision

Tell the people who need to know:

• What was decided
• Who made the decision
• What authority supported the decision
• What major information or criteria informed it
• What happens next

Not every detail can always be shared. Personnel matters, legal advice, participant records, investigations, or other confidential information may limit transparency.

When information cannot be disclosed, explain that limitation honestly.

12. Implement

A decision is useful only if the organization can act on it.

Clarify:

• Who is responsible
• What resources are needed
• What authority implementers have
• What timeline applies
• What milestones should be monitored
• How problems will be escalated

13. Review and learn

After implementation, examine whether the decision worked as intended.

Ask:

• Did the expected results occur?
• What unintended consequences emerged?
• Were the original assumptions accurate?
• Were important perspectives or information missing?
• Did implementation have the resources it needed?
• Should the decision be continued, expanded, revised, or reversed?

Review is especially important when uncertainty was high or when the decision was intended as a pilot.

Changing the scale of the process

Not every decision requires all thirteen steps in the same level of detail.

Match the process to the decision.

Low-risk and reversible decisions

Routine decisions with limited consequences can often be made quickly by the person with appropriate authority.

Example: Selecting an online meeting platform

A project team needs to choose a platform for recurring community meetings.

The project coordinator may have authority to make the final operational choice, but should consider accessibility, cost, security, compatibility, language or captioning features, participants' technology access, and staff support.

The team might test two options briefly, collect participant feedback, and choose the platform that best meets the agreed requirements.

High-impact or difficult-to-reverse decisions

Decisions involving major financial commitments, program closure, employment, significant community impact, safety, legal obligations, or long-term organizational direction generally deserve more deliberate analysis and documentation.

The harder a decision is to reverse, the more important it may be to examine assumptions, uncertainty, alternatives, and long-term effects before committing.

Emergency decisions

Emergencies may reduce the time available for consultation.

In those situations:

1. Determine how much time is actually available.
2. Identify the immediate problem.
3. Gather critical information from relevant sources.
4. Identify feasible options.
5. Use the appropriate accountable authority to decide.
6. Assign and carry out the response.
7. Review the decision afterward.

Urgency can justify a faster process. It does not remove accountability.

Pilot decisions

When uncertainty is substantial but the risk is manageable, a pilot may provide information before a full commitment.

Define:

• What question the pilot is testing
• What success would look like
• What information will be collected
• How long the test will run
• What would lead to expansion, revision, or stopping

A last word: Deciding to defer

Sometimes the most responsible decision is to wait.

Deferral may be appropriate when:

• Essential information is missing
• Required consultation has not occurred
• Legal, financial, or technical review is incomplete
• Conditions are changing rapidly
• The decision depends on another decision that has not yet been made
• A temporary pause could allow a conflict to be addressed more constructively

Waiting also has costs.

Before deferring, ask:

• What will we gain by waiting?
• What could happen during the delay?
• Does delay create additional cost or harm?
• What information or event are we actually waiting for?
• When will we return to the decision?

If possible, establish a review date or a specific trigger for reopening the decision.

Deferral should be a deliberate decision rather than indefinite avoidance.

In Summary

Decision-making is a central organizational and leadership responsibility, but good decision-making begins before anyone chooses among options.

First clarify the decision and who has authority to make it. Then determine who should provide information, who should be consulted, who will implement the result, and who will remain accountable.

Use a process proportionate to the stakes. Gather relevant evidence, identify assumptions and uncertainty, generate realistic alternatives, establish criteria, examine risks and tradeoffs, and check for conflicts of interest.

Meaningful participation can improve decisions, particularly when people affected by the outcome hold knowledge that decision-makers do not. At the same time, participation should not obscure formal governance, professional responsibilities, or legal authority.

Once a decision is made, communicate it appropriately, assign implementation responsibility, provide necessary resources, and monitor what happens.

Finally, review important decisions after implementation. A disciplined decision process cannot guarantee the best result, but it can make decisions more informed, transparent, accountable, adaptable, and easier to learn from.

___You understand why decision making is important

___You understand the three styles of decision making:

• A single person decides
• A group decides by consensus
• A group decides by voting

___You understand the decision making process

___You have decided who will decide

___You have seen to people's comfort

___You are looking at the decision as part of the big picture

___You have gathered information

___You have considered all of the possible solutions

___You have evaluated the possibilities

___You have decided

___You have followed through on the decision

___You understand how to use this process for smaller decisions

___You understand that sometimes not deciding is the better alternative

Tool 1: Brainstorming Techniques

Brainstorming is a tried-and-true way to come up with ideas in a group. The method is simple. The problem is stated, and the recorder stands in front of a room with some newsprint or a blackboard. People in the group say whatever ideas pop into their minds. The recorder writes down all of the comments made.

Helpful hints to keep in mind when brainstorming:

• Watch out for assumptions; every unnecessary assumption reduces the number of potential solutions. If your group is looking for entertainment for an upcoming celebration, for example, don't assume that there isn't talent within the group. You might have an outstanding singer who is just too shy to bring his talents up unasked.
• Simply giving instructions that people can or should be creative in the brainstorming session may help raise the number and quality of solutions created.
• No idea is too outlandish. The meeting recorder writes all the ideas down. Why? An idea that seems ridiculous on first hearing it might turn out to be possible, even desirable. Or it might be modified by other members of the group, and end up being the perfect solution to the problem.
• Nobody should comment on how good or bad the ideas are; there should be no discussion about them at this time. People keep producing all kinds of ideas until everyone runs out of steam.
• Ideas can be "piggybacked" or combined as people see connections during the process.
• The facilitator should keep the energy high, and constantly ask for more and different ideas. This might even be done in the manner of an auctioneer, with constant chatter and a fast-paced discussion.
• If the group gets off the subject, the facilitator or recorder can gently remind them of why they are there.
• Discussion, analysis, and idea selection come later.

Variations on brainstorming:

• A period of individual brainstorming can precede the group activity. Each person generates his/her own ideas privately and later shares them with the group.
• If idea generating is done on a day after you defined and analyzed the problem, group members can be asked to generate solutions as "homework" between the two sessions.

Tool 2: Worksheet: Evaluating the Possibilities

You can use the following worksheet to try and decide which possibilities make most sense for your organization at this time. If you are deciding in a group, there are different ways you can use this sheet.

• Everyone can fill out the sheet individually and discuss the answers as a group.
• Questions can be written on poster paper before the meeting begins (one question per page), and the facilitator or recorder can list people's responses on the page as they are brought up.

Evaluating the Possibilities
How much time and effort will each of these take?
What can we afford to do, financially?
What can we afford to do, politically?
What options do we absolutely NOT want to pursue?
What information are we still missing the could change our decision?
What are the likely reactions of other members of our group?
What are the likely reactions of people outside our group?
What looks like the best option for our group at this time?

Tool 3: Tamarack Institute's Gradients of Agreement

The Gradients of Agreement tool, by Tamarack Institute, helps groups make decisions by offering a range of responses, not just a simple "yes" or "no." Participants indicate how strongly they support or oppose an idea, revealing areas of consensus and points requiring further discussion. This approach encourages inclusive dialogue, reduces pressure to conform, and builds trust, making it ideal for community engagement and collaborative planning.

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

• What do we mean by setbacks and adversity?

• Why is it important to focus on setbacks and adversity?

• When should you work to address setbacks and adversity?

• How do you, as a leader, respond to setbacks and adversity?

Every community organization experiences disruptions, disappointments, uncertainty, and difficult conditions.

Funding may change. A program may fail to produce the expected results. A key employee may leave. A public controversy may develop. Technology may fail. Community needs may change. A natural disaster, public-health emergency, policy change, or economic disruption may affect the organization's ability to operate.

Leadership matters in these situations, but responding well is not a test of whether one person can remain endlessly optimistic or solve everything alone.

Effective response depends on leadership, governance, staff, volunteers, community relationships, plans, systems, financial capacity, and the organization's ability to learn and adapt.

This section discusses how leaders and organizations can respond to both discrete setbacks and longer-running adverse conditions while protecting people, maintaining essential work, communicating honestly, and adapting when circumstances require change.

What do we mean by setbacks and adversity?

It can be useful to distinguish between a setback and an adverse condition, although the categories can overlap.

Setbacks

A setback is a discrete event or series of events that interferes with progress or creates an unexpected problem.

Examples might include:

• A major grant is not renewed
• A key employee leaves unexpectedly
• An evaluation shows that a program is not producing the intended results
• A technology failure interrupts services
• A partner withdraws from an important project
• A public report contains inaccurate information about the organization
• Severe weather damages a facility

Some setbacks can be addressed relatively quickly. Others have consequences that continue for months or years.

The first task is to understand what happened, what is at risk, what must be addressed immediately, and what can wait.

Adversity

Adversity is a difficult condition that persists over time or repeatedly creates barriers to the organization's work.

Examples might include:

• Chronic funding instability
• Persistent staffing shortages
• Long-term community or political opposition
• Ongoing difficulty reaching people who need services
• Repeated technology or infrastructure problems
• A prolonged economic downturn
• Unresolved organizational conflict
• A continuing policy or regulatory environment that restricts the work

Chronic adverse conditions usually require more than one corrective action.

They may require changes in strategy, funding, staffing, partnerships, service delivery, organizational structure, or expectations about what the organization can realistically accomplish.

A discrete setback can become a long-term adverse condition. A chronic adverse condition can also generate sudden setbacks.

The distinction is useful mainly because different situations require different responses.

Why is it important to focus on setbacks and adversity?

Difficult conditions can affect much more than one program or project.

To protect people and maintain essential functions

During disruption, the first priority may not be growth or even ordinary productivity.

It may be:

• Protecting safety
• Maintaining essential services
• Meeting payroll or other immediate obligations
• Preserving important records and systems
• Communicating with participants and partners
• Preventing additional harm

Organizations should know which functions are essential and what people, technology, facilities, vendors, information, and authority those functions depend on.

To make better decisions under uncertainty

Stress and urgency can encourage people to act before they understand the situation.

Leaders need enough structure to distinguish:

• What is known
• What is still uncertain
• What requires immediate action
• What requires additional information
• What decisions can be changed later
• What decisions would be difficult to reverse

The goal is not to eliminate uncertainty before acting. That may be impossible.

The goal is to make uncertainty visible and manage it responsibly.

To sustain trustworthiness

People watch how an organization communicates and acts when conditions are difficult.

Trustworthiness depends on:

• Accurate information
• Honest acknowledgment of uncertainty
• Appropriate transparency
• Follow-through
• Fair decision processes
• Protecting confidentiality
• Correcting mistakes

An organization does not need to appear invulnerable in order to remain credible.

To protect staff and volunteer capacity

Difficult periods may increase workload, uncertainty, emotional strain, and pressure on staff and volunteers.

An organization cannot sustain services indefinitely by asking people to work harder, remain constantly available, or absorb responsibilities that should be addressed through staffing and planning.

Pay attention to:

• Workload
• Scheduling
• Rest and leave
• Backup coverage
• Supervision
• Psychological and physical safety
• Access to appropriate support

To learn and reduce future vulnerability

A setback may reveal:

• A weak financial control
• An undocumented process
• Excessive dependence on one person
• A technology vulnerability
• A communication problem
• An unrealistic assumption
• A gap in training
• A partner or vendor dependency

The event itself is not valuable simply because it caused hardship.

The value comes from examining what happened and using what was learned to reduce future risk.

To determine whether the organization should restore, adapt, or change direction

Not every setback should be answered by returning to exactly what existed before.

Sometimes recovery means restoring an effective process.

Sometimes it means changing how the organization works.

And sometimes new conditions reveal that a program, strategy, partnership, or organizational structure is no longer sustainable.

When should you work to address setbacks and adversity?

The appropriate timing depends on urgency, safety, uncertainty, and the consequences of delay.

Setbacks

A setback may require immediate action, but not every setback requires an immediate final solution.

First determine whether the organization needs to:

• Protect people
• Stop an ongoing loss or unsafe activity
• Maintain essential services
• Preserve information or evidence
• Notify responsible people
• Correct inaccurate public information
• Obtain legal, financial, technical, or professional advice

Once the immediate situation is stable, examine causes and longer-term options before making major irreversible changes.

Example: A program is not producing the intended results

An evaluation shows that a community program has not improved the outcomes it was designed to address.

The organization should not immediately assume that the program itself must be abandoned or that staff simply implemented it poorly.

Review the program design, implementation, participant access, staffing, resources, measurement, community context, and available evidence. Then decide whether to improve implementation, modify the program, test another approach, or discontinue it.

If an event is irreversible, the task becomes adaptation rather than reversal.

Identify what can still be protected, learned, repaired, or pursued through another route.

Adversity

Chronic adversity requires sustained attention, but sustained attention should not become endless continuation of the same strategy.

Establish review points.

Ask periodically:

• Is the situation improving, worsening, or remaining stable?
• Is our strategy producing results?
• Are the costs still sustainable?
• What new information has emerged?
• What assumptions have changed?
• Should we continue, adapt, reduce, pause, transfer, or stop this work?

Persistence is useful only when the direction remains responsible and worthwhile.

How do you, as a leader, respond to setbacks and adversity?

Formal leaders have particular responsibilities in difficult conditions, but they should not carry the response alone.

Boards, supervisors, staff, volunteers, community partners, professional advisers, and other participants may each hold information, expertise, authority, and responsibilities the organization needs.

Regulate your behavior without pretending to have certainty

Leaders should remain deliberate enough to think, communicate, and make decisions responsibly.

That does not mean pretending to be calm, confident, or certain when important questions remain unanswered.

You can say:

We do not yet know the full impact. Here's what we know now, what we're doing next, and when we expect to provide another update.

Acknowledging uncertainty can be more trustworthy than projecting confidence you do not actually have.

Communicate early and at regular intervals

People need accurate information during disruption.

Communicate:

• What happened
• What is known
• What remains unknown
• What the organization is doing
• What people should do now
• Where questions should go
• When the next update will come

Protect confidential information and do not speculate beyond available evidence.

If inaccurate information is circulating, correct it clearly and provide a reliable source for updates.

Establish roles and decision authority

Difficult situations become harder when nobody knows who is responsible for what.

Clarify:

• Who is coordinating the response
• Who has authority for urgent decisions
• Who communicates internally and externally
• Who manages finances
• Who handles safety, technology, legal, or other specialized issues
• Who provides updates to the Board or governing body

Roles may change as the situation moves from immediate response into recovery and longer-term adaptation.

Take action that serves a clear purpose

Action is important when it protects safety, maintains essential functions, reduces harm, gathers necessary information, or moves the response forward.

Do not take visible action merely to create the impression that leadership is in control.

Sometimes the most responsible immediate action is:

• Pausing an activity
• Securing information
• Requesting expert review
• Contacting affected people
• Preserving cash
• Activating a continuity plan

Assess what happened

Avoid jumping immediately from a problem to a person to blame.

Examine:

• What happened?
• When did it begin?
• What decisions preceded it?
• What information was available at the time?
• What assumptions were made?
• What external conditions contributed?
• What organizational systems or controls contributed?
• What worked as intended?
• What failed?

Individual accountability may still be necessary, but accountability and system analysis are not opposites.

Assess the impact

Determine how the situation affects:

• Participants and community members
• Staff and volunteers
• Safety
• Services
• Finances
• Legal or contractual obligations
• Technology and data
• Partners and funders
• Public trust

Pay particular attention to people who may experience the greatest consequences or have the fewest alternatives.

Develop a response, recovery, or adaptation plan

The plan should fit the nature of the situation.

Depending on the problem, it may include:

• Immediate stabilization
• Continuity of essential functions
• Corrective action
• Financial changes
• Staffing changes
• Program changes
• Communication
• Technology or security changes
• Partner coordination
• Recovery milestones
• Longer-term risk reduction

Identify responsibilities, resources, timelines, decision authority, and review points.

Maintain continuity of essential work

Identify the functions that must continue even when normal operations are disrupted.

Consider:

• Essential staff roles
• Backup personnel
• Remote-work or alternate-site arrangements
• Access to records and technology
• Vendor dependencies
• Communication systems
• Accessibility and accommodations
• Restoration priorities

Continuity planning should happen before a disruption whenever possible.

Involve relevant people in planning

A difficult situation may affect different parts of an organization in different ways.

Include the people whose:

• Knowledge is needed
• Responsibilities are affected
• Work will be required for implementation
• Services or communities will experience the consequences

Participation should match the decision.

An emergency safety decision may require rapid action by a clearly responsible person. Longer-term recovery and redesign may benefit from broader staff, participant, community, partner, or Board involvement.

Do not invite people into a process if the important decisions have already been made and their input cannot influence the result.

Ask for outside expertise when needed

No organization has every kind of expertise internally.

Depending on the situation, outside assistance might come from:

• Community partners
• Accountants or financial advisers
• Attorneys
• Emergency managers
• Cybersecurity professionals
• Public-health professionals
• Insurance providers
• Human-resources specialists
• Mediators
• Peer organizations that have handled similar situations

Seek expertise because it improves the response, not simply because outside involvement may improve the organization's reputation.

Protect financial sustainability

Financial adversity requires more than informal thrift or personal sacrifice from leaders and staff.

Leaders and governing bodies may need to examine:

• Current cash position
• Cash-flow projections
• Restricted and unrestricted funds
• Operating reserves
• Debt and contractual obligations
• Staffing costs
• Program commitments
• Revenue concentration
• Fundraising and grant expectations
• Scenarios for reduced or increased revenue

Cost reductions can create their own risks.

Before reducing staff, benefits, services, technology, or facilities, consider what the change will do to safety, service quality, compliance, workload, and the organization's long-term capacity.

Compensation and employment decisions should use appropriate governance and legal processes rather than relying on employees or executives to demonstrate commitment through unpaid work.

Support staff and volunteer well-being

Difficult conditions may affect people differently.

Support may include:

• Clear and regular communication
• Reasonable workload adjustments
• Rest and leave
• Backup coverage
• Flexible scheduling where appropriate
• Good supervision
• Peer support
• Access to employee assistance or other professional resources where available

Don't require people to discuss personal emotional reactions in a group in order to demonstrate teamwork.

Leaders need support as well, but they should not make employees, volunteers, participants, or people with less organizational power responsible for carrying the leader's emotional burden.

Create psychological safety

During adversity, people need to be able to communicate information leaders may not want to hear.

Create conditions in which people can:

• Report mistakes
• Raise risks
• Ask for help
• Challenge assumptions
• Admit uncertainty
• Say when workload or conditions are unsafe

Psychological safety does not eliminate accountability. It helps organizations obtain accurate information before problems become worse.

Use strengths without minimizing problems

During difficult periods, it can be useful to identify what is still working.

Ask:

• Which services remain strong?
• Which partnerships are working?
• What skills and resources can we build on?
• What did we handle better than expected?

This strengths-based approach should not become forced optimism.

People also need leaders to acknowledge losses, uncertainty, mistakes, and legitimate concerns.

Keep mission and responsibilities in view

Mission can help an organization prioritize during disruption.

Ask:

• Which work is most essential to the mission?
• Which obligations must continue?
• Which activities can be delayed or reduced?
• Does the current strategy still fit the community and the conditions?

Do not preserve a particular program or method simply because it has existed for a long time.

The mission may remain important even when the strategy used to pursue it needs substantial change.

Use social connection thoughtfully

Optional opportunities for people to connect can support relationships during difficult periods.

This may include informal check-ins, team gatherings, peer groups, or other activities appropriate to the organization.

Participation should be voluntary and accessible.

Social activities are not substitutes for adequate staffing, compensation, supervision, workload management, or professional support.

Use humor carefully

Humor may relieve tension for some people and teams.

Use judgment.

Humor should not minimize:

• Loss
• Trauma
• Layoffs
• Safety concerns
• Discrimination
• Serious financial consequences

Don't pressure people to be cheerful during genuinely difficult circumstances.

Document important decisions and actions

During fast-moving situations, decisions can be difficult to reconstruct later.

Record appropriate information such as:

• What happened
• What information was available
• Major decisions
• Who had decision authority
• Actions taken
• Known risks and uncertainties
• Follow-up responsibilities

Follow applicable confidentiality and record-retention requirements.

Review what happened

After the immediate situation stabilizes, conduct an appropriate review.

Ask:

• What happened?
• What worked?
• What did not work?
• What information arrived too late?
• Were roles and authority clear?
• Were people able to raise concerns?
• Did continuity plans work?
• What unintended consequences occurred?
• What should change before the next disruption?

Review near misses as well as major failures. A problem that almost caused serious harm can reveal vulnerabilities before a worse event occurs.

Turn lessons into organizational changes

Learning matters only if it changes practice.

Depending on what happened, update:

• Policies
• Training
• Financial controls
• Continuity plans
• Staffing or backup arrangements
• Communication systems
• Technology
• Vendor arrangements
• Program design
• Governance or escalation procedures

Make important lessons accessible so the organization does not lose them when staff or leaders change.

Know when recovery does not mean returning to the old normal

Some conditions are temporary.

Others permanently change the environment in which the organization works.

Leaders may need to decide whether to:

• Restore the previous approach
• Adapt it
• Reduce the scope of work
• Transfer a program to another organization
• Merge or share operations
• End a program
• Develop an entirely different strategy

Continuing the same activity indefinitely is not always evidence of commitment.

Sometimes resilience means changing direction.

Transition out of crisis mode

Emergency practices should not automatically become permanent.

Determine when:

• Temporary authority returns to normal governance
• Emergency staffing or schedules end
• Deferred leave can be restored
• Deferred work should resume or be discontinued
• Temporary communication procedures can end

Recovery includes restoring the people and systems that carried the organization through the difficult period.

In Summary

Setbacks and adversity are different but overlapping forms of disruption. A setback is usually a discrete event or series of events, while adversity is a difficult condition that persists or repeatedly interferes with the work.

Both require leadership, but leadership in difficult conditions does not mean projecting certainty, forcing optimism, or personally carrying the entire organization through the problem.

Effective response begins with protecting people and essential functions, understanding what is known and unknown, clarifying roles and decision authority, communicating honestly, and taking action proportionate to the situation.

Organizations should examine both immediate causes and broader system conditions, involve relevant people in planning, seek outside expertise when needed, protect financial sustainability, and support the well-being and capacity of staff and volunteers.

Persistent adverse conditions require review as well as perseverance. Organizations should be willing to modify programs, reduce scope, change strategies, or stop work that is no longer sustainable or effective.

Finally, resilience is an organizational capacity, not a heroic personal trait. It depends on preparedness, governance, financial stewardship, continuity planning, trustworthy communication, healthy working conditions, strong partnerships, learning, and the ability to adapt when circumstances change.

What do we mean by setbacks and adversity?

___A setback is a single event or specific series of events that impedes your forward progress as an organization

___Adversity, rather than a distinct occurrence, is more likely to be an ongoing unfavorable condition

___Setbacks and adversity each make different demands on a leader

Why is it important to focus on overcoming setbacks and adversity?

___To keep the organization moving forward

___To avoid discouragement and despair

___To keep staff/volunteer morale high

___To maintain standing in the community

___To add to your and the organization’s store of knowledge

___To enhance your development as a person and as a leader

___To maintain the organization’s faith in its leadership

___To keep the focus on your mission, and continue to serve or work for those at whom the effort is aimed

When should you work to overcome setbacks and adversity?

___In the case of a setback, action should usually be immediate, and geared specifically to reversing the situation, whatever it is

___In adversity, you have to move forward steadily, both to get the organization through difficulties and in order to overcome them

How do you, as a leader, overcome setbacks and adversity?

___Stay calm

___Communicate

___Take action

___Determine what went wrong, and use your analysis to fix the problem, if it’s within your control, or to get around or cope with it, if it’s not

___Develop a strategic plan for coping with the situation

___Involve everyone in the organization in planning your coping strategy

___Ask for help from outside the organization if you need it . . . and sometimes even if you don’t

___Emphasize moving the organization forward

___Accentuate the positive

___As a leader, share the hardships of the situation with the rest of the organization

___Use the situation to build solidarity within the organization

___Make sure everyone in the organization, including you, gets the emotional and other support he needs

___Don’t be too serious

___Point out the learning that came out of the situation

___Always keep the big picture in mind

___Don’t let up

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