Community Leadership #1: What is a Community Leader?
Hello team!
When I joined Listener Support Room, I was so fascinated and inspired by different badges like Peer Support, and Chatroom Mentor and I was like I wanted it. I want to be a Community Leader. I believe many like me have that moment when you thought how cool it is and I want to be one as well.
But let me tell you something that not many talk about often. Community Leader is not about having lots of badges or many roles. Community leadership is about serving. Serving the people. So to talk about it, I am starting the Community Leadership Series to talk about a few things that I learned from my mentors, teams, and you all. In the first round, I will be covering 7 lessons of being a community leader and learn together more about community leadership.
In this post, we will talk about community leaders and what is the core element of being a community leader. You probably heard that leaders are not born, they become one through their efforts to be one. Community leaders take responsibility for the well-being and improvement of their people and community. Let’s take a moment and try to answer these questions
- Are you someone who wants to give back to the community?
- Are you someone who wants to support & improve the community?
- Are you doing something to contribute?
- Are you someone who isn’t around waiting for someone else to take steps to get a job done?
- Are you someone who recognizes a problem, has an idea to solve it, and taking steps to do that?
So, if you have answered “yes” to any of the above questions, then congratulations! You are a community leader already or on your way to becoming one. You don’t have to have a role as a first step to be a community leader. Your first step is to decide to take responsibility for something in your community. It can be supporting your fellow friends in a group chat, supporting a member in the forums, helping or guiding someone to navigate the community or shape their experiences, and so on.
You know community leadership starts from within even before taking a role. You can take responsibility and contribute to support the community the way you are willing to. Now many might be thinking, if we all are community leaders, then why do some roles or badges fascinate us?
Many learn community leadership by trial and error. It is not a bad way, but it can be a long road where you have to figure on your own what you doing right or wrong. So, I see roles and badges are helping hands to help you contribute. These roles come with specific training that you get to help you prepare and equip you with the knowledge and understanding to become better at what you are willing to do.
But, it doesn’t mean that you will be a perfect leader. You still have a lot to learn, make mistakes, and learn more. And, the focus is to serve your people, your community. Also, to serve, we do the non-glamorous parts of the job like showing up early and staying late. Taking one more step to strive to help better, organize and sometimes also mean doing spring clean up. I will share more about it in the next posts.
In a nutshell, community leadership is:
- About serving people
- Taking responsibility for the well-being and improvement
- Role & badges are helping hands to equip one with relevant knowledge and information.
- Community leadership comes with non-glamorous parts of the job too.
- It is about consistency and taking your small steps daily.
So, what is community leadership to you?
All thoughts are welcomed. There is no right or wrong version. We all imagined community leadership in our unique ways and this is an opportunity to learn from each other and together.
You can also explore the "Become a Leader" page here!
@ASilentObserver
There are a lot of great ideas in this thread. I will put my spin on it. I think that a leader, on the most basic level, is someone who others choose to follow (not to be confused with someone that someone they have to follow). What makes someone a good leader at 7 cups is the same thing that makes them a good leader anywhere else. In my view, that involves as many of the following as possible:
- Earnest desire to lead and serve
- Ability to be a good role model: Consistently - and with integrity - acting in a way that others respect, find inspirational, and hope to copy. Demonstrating earnest commitment to their own values and to the values of the group they are trying to lead.
- Creative problem-solving ability
- Comfort taking initiative
- Courage to have their own opinions and speak up
- Knowledge and experience in the areas related to their leadership
- Interest in improving themselves. This means things like continuing to learn and being open to individual feedback.
- Interest in the improvement of whoever they’re trying to lead (whether it’s a coaching session, a study group, a program, an organization, etc.). This means trying to solve problems and taking feedback and input about those they're trying to lead.
- Interest in others’ skills, abilities, education, comfort, feelings, opinions, etc.
- Adaptability
- Willingness to make mistakes, admit to them, and be accountable
- Willingness to do "behind-the-scenes" work that's not so fun or interesting
Skill in guiding people and helping them solve conflicts
I may think these things have something to do with good leadership based on observation and experience, but nothing is ever black and white. Determining good leadership is not a formula. It's not a matter of deciding if someone has one or another of these traits, or how much of a trait they may have, but rather if they have enough of various traits to be helpful - enough to work in a positive way for whoever they're trying to lead. Enough for people to want to follow them.
I'd like to think that I embody many of these traits to some degree, and I also continue to work on many things. There is never a "final" product, but hopefully what I have to offer is what works in a positive way for those around me! :)
@JustSophia Thank you Sophia. That sounds like a well-thought-out definition of a leader. It seems like you believe that anyone can become a leader by developing these qualities.
@ASilentObserver
Thanks Obs. Perhaps. Not everyone will want to, though, and not everyone's personality will be suited for it (both of which are totally fine, by the way). I suspect that the best leaders are those who are well-suited to it from the start, and who are driven (and have the opportunity) to learn whatever helps them be a good leader.
@JustSophia I love this spirit: "but hopefully what I have to offer is what works in a positive way for those around me! :)" I feel this is the essence of good leadership! Wanting to contribute and help people, above all. This selfless and pure intention to help is the seed of all good qualities in a leader.
@JustSophia
❤️❤️❤️
@ASilentObserver
Thank you Obs for sharing your thoughts on community leadership and initiating the Community Leadership Series. 💓
Community leadership, to me, embodies the spirit of selflessness and dedication to the collective well-being. It is a journey of continuous growth and learning. It's about embracing opportunities for personal and collective development while staying grounded in the core values of empathy, integrity, and compassion.
