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The role of formal leaders
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The role of participants
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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.