Community Leadership Development

A Compendium of Theory, Research, and Application

Mark A. Brennan

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2014
• ISBN:
  9781317980773
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Architecture
• Subtopic: Urban Planning & Landscaping

The development of leadership capacities addresses a vital and continuing need in communities and organizations as they attempt to adapt to a wide range of social, economic, environmental, and political changes. Leadership development activities that focus on building new skills and fostering new ideas directly shape local and organizational capacity. At the organizational level, leadership is a valued resource as organizations are faced with challenges of limited resources, funding, and other capacities. Community leadership operates within a different domain; an environment with different dynamics, structures, and goals. Community leadership is distinctive in that leaders often do not have formal training or authority to dictate and facilitate change. Instead, community leaders must rely on informal networks of diverse citizens, each with a unique local capacity, as the basis for change.

This book brings together classic and contemporary articles drawn from Community Development. Divided into two sections, the book begins with a range of seminal leadership theory and conceptualization pieces. These have been instrumental in shaping leadership development in a wide range of settings. Following the theory section, a variety of research and application chapters are presented. These chapters operationalize theory through applied research and programming, and provide replicable frameworks for future research and programs.

This book is a compilation of articles published in the journal Community Development.

COMMUNITY LEADERSHIP DEVELOPMENT: A PRIMER TO THEORY, RESEARCH, AND APPLICATION

Brennan Mark A.

The Pennsylvania State University

INTRODUCTION

The development of leadership capacities addresses a vital and continuing need in communities and organizations across the world as they attempt to adapt to a wide range of social, economic, environmental, and political changes. However, historically most of our leadership development efforts have focused on the organizational level and catered largely to already established leaders or elites in corporate and political settings. These actions while useful ignore the environment where the majority of our activism, mobilization, and social change occur: the community level. Despite contrary beliefs that citizen action means little, the need for local leadership has been increasingly visible in recent years. We need look no further than the Arab Spring of 2011 and the Occupy movement of 2012 to witness the continued relevance of an active citizenry. These, and other less reported efforts at the local level (challenging unwanted industrial development, natural resource exploitation, and a host of other conditions) stress the need for the development of effective leadership capacities at the local level to facilitate social change, protect the uniqueness of local communities, and to enhance local decision making. Without community leadership, our localities are likely doomed to exploitation by extra-local interests or to be ignored by governmental bureaucracies. More importantly, without this local leadership capacities (at all levels), communities will remain oblivious to their ability to act.

Leadership development programs address a vital and continuing need in communities and organizations across the world as they ensure an adequate supply of effective leaders (Langone & Rohs, 1995). Building new skills, fostering new ideas, and extending professional networks; leadership development programs directly contribute to local and organizational capacity (Pigg, 1999; King & Hustedde, 2001; Russon, 2004; Emery et al., 2007; Korsching et al., 2007). Within the social sciences, leadership has historically been identified as a specific trait, competency, or ability possessed by few individuals (Bass, 1990). However, this definition has recently expanded to acknowledge that leadership is a process and that knowledge and skills can be learned and improved with practice. Even so, as leadership continues to be a strong focus area of interest, development, and research the definition and dimensions of the concept remains unclear. Nevertheless, clear distinctions have been made between organizational and community leadership, with the latter encouraged in grassroots development settings.

At the organizational level, leadership is a valued resource as organizations at all levels are faced with challenges of limited resources, funding, and other dwindling capacities. The need for effective leadership is real within organizations as well as in their broader communities. Leadership is equally evident at regional and national levels as organizations strive to adapt to changing social, economic, and cultural dynamics and emerging opportunities. Such challenges extend to diverse organizations as they seek new partnership in order to maximize resources, shape broader agendas, and revitalize endangered regional economies.

Alternately community leadership is essential as well. Hustedde and Woodward (1996) and others (Wilkinson, 1991; Brennan et al., 2009; Brennan & Israel, 2008; Bridger, Brennan, & Luloff, 2010) argue that the key to resolving rural and urban development issues is to build the capacity of local leaders. Leadership capacities at the community, organizational, and higher levels share many similarities. However, community-level grassroots leadership is unique in many ways. Community leadership operates within a different domain; an environment with different dynamics, structures, and goals. Community leadership is distinctive in that leaders and leadership capacities often do not have formal authority or power to dictate and immediately facilitate change. Instead, community leaders must rely on informal networks of diverse citizens, each with a unique local capacity, as the basis for change (Wilkinson, 1991; Brennan et al., 2009; Bridger, Brennan, & Luloff, 2010). Essential to community leadership is the establishment and maintenance of personal relationships through extensive interactions within the community and among its residents. In this context, leadership effectiveness is dependent upon the relationships of diverse individuals or groups brought together to meet common general needs (Wilkinson, 1991).

AN INTERACTIONAL APPROACH TO COMMUNITY LEADERSHIP

In understanding leadership application at the local level, we must first understand community and the process by which it and related collective capacity emerge.

Conceptualizing Community

While often used casually to describe a geographic region or other entity, the concept of community represents far more. Most theoretical perspectives of community revolve around structure and tend to exist at the macro level. Alternately, an interactional approach to community focuses on the central element of process (Wilkinson, 1991; Bridger, Brennan, & Luloff, 2010). This perspective centers on the indispensable elements of local citizen interaction, mobilization, and residents working together as they address place-relevant matters. This process, fueled by interaction, transcends divisions, self-interests, and local divides and central to interactional theory. The key is the recognition of common, general needs and goals that serve as the basis for collective action. This approach provides a particularly useful conceptualization of community for understanding leadership and social change.

Building on the seminal contributions of Kaufman (1959) and Wilkinson (1991), the interactional perspective has been applied to a wide range of substantive areas, conditions, problems, and issues (Bridger, Brennan, & Luloff, 2010). Seen from this vantage point, community is best thought of in dynamic terms. It represents a complex social, economic, and psychological entity reflective of a place, its people, and their myriad relationships (Kaufman, 1959; Christenson & Robinson, 1989; Wilkinson, 1991, Pigg, 1999; Bridger, Luloff, & Krannich, 2003; Bridger, Brennan, & Luloff, 2010). As a field of social interactions, community emerges from the collective actions of its members. This collective capacity allows citizens to participate purposively in the creation, articulation, and maintenance of efforts designed to support and/or change social structures. What is most unique about the interactional approach is its emphasis on the emergence of community. Unlike other theories of community organization, community is not taken as a given. Instead, it is developed, created, and recreated through social interaction. In this process, the collection of individuals creates an entity whose whole is greater than the sum of its parts.

The Emergence of the Community Field

In every community, groups exist that are organized around various self interests and goals. Instead of these entities being described as well-defined systems or subsystems, they are viewed as relatively unbounded fields of interaction (Wilkinson, 1991; Bridger, Brennan, & Luloff, 2010). For instance, in most communities, it is possible to identify a social field focusing on economic growth and development. There are also many other social fields addressing issues such as social services, health care, and parks and recreation. All have their own self interests, agenda, and priorities, which at times can be at odds with other local fields. However, they all also have common general needs, which can be achieved much more effectively as a collective group than as single entities. Effective leadership links these groups and helps facilitate cross-group interaction and collaborative action efforts.

For community to emerge there must be a mechanism or process capable of connecting the acts occurring in the special interest fields into a discernible whole. According to the interactional perspective, this is accomplished by the broader community field. Like other social fields, the community field is made up of actors, agencies, and associations. However, unlike these more narrow fields, the community field does not pursue a single set of interests. Instead, it creates linkages and channels of communication between and among the actions and interests of other social fields.

Through this process of interaction, awareness of common interests emerges, as do opportunities for direct involvement in activities for meeting common needs. This community field and corresponding community leadership builds linkages across class, race, and ethnic lines; organized groups and associations; and other entities within a local population, the community field provides the interactional context supportive of individual and social well-being (Bridger & Alter, 2008). As these relationships are strengthened, they simultaneously increase local capacity to address the many problems and issues that inevitably cut across special-interest fields.

Describing the community field in these terms should not be taken to mean that structural or system-level characteristics are unimportant. Nor does it presuppose a Utopian view of community that is devoid of conflict and self-interest. Indeed, sociodemographics, the local economy, organizations, natural resources, institutions, and conflict are vital to the makeup of a community and its residents (Brennan, 2007; Brennan & Israel, 2008; Brown & Swanson, 2003; Luloff & Bridger, 2003; Bridger, Brennan, & Luloff, 2010). However, such distinctive pieces of the local society serve only as the backdrop for local participation and action. They reveal little about the motivations and ability of local people to work together to meet common goals.

Community Agency, Action and Leadership

From an interactional perspective, the community is a constantly changing environment characterized by community action and social interaction (Wilkinson, 1991; Bridger, Brennan, & Luloff, 2010). As the various social fields adapt to and act in response to a constantly changing environment, groups and organizations take on the quality of community agency, which reflects not only the motives of people to act, but also their capability to do so (Wilkinson, 1991; Luloff & Swanson, 1995; Swanson, 2001; Bridger, Brennan, & Luloff, 2010). This adaptive capacity is reflected in the ability of people to manage, utilize, and enhance those resources available to them in addressing local issues (Brennan & Luloff, 2007; Bridger & Luloff, 1999; Wilkinson, 1991).

The existence of community agency directs attention to the fact that local people, through interacting and effective community leadership, have the power to transform and change society (Gaventa et al., 1995; Bridger, Brennan, & Luloff, 2010). Community agency reflects the creation of local relationships capable of increasing the adaptive capacity of people within a common territory. With this capacity in hand, a host of leadership skills (management, conflict resolution, visioning) can be learned to significantly advance local life.

Community Leadership

Leadership has been conceptualized in a variety of models that depict differences in the relationship between a leader and followers ranging from purely autocratic and coercive leadership styles to more democratic and extending to laissez-faire approaches. It is defined (Northouse, 2009, p. 3) as “a process whereby an individual influences a group of individuals to achieve a common goal.” Leadership has also been described in a variety of other ways such as, the focus of group processes, the formation of group structure, a condition of personality, and as particular behaviors. Leadership can be viewed as influence or power, such as inducing compliance, exercising influence or persuasion, or as an instrument to achieve personal or community goals. In short, leadership may be viewed as the ability to mobilize people toward a shared vision, while encouraging individual contributions to the process.

While leadership is envisioned as process characterized by a dynamic relationship between a leader and followers, Northouse (2009) also described six major categories of personal traits that influence leadership effectiveness. He identifies these as: intelligence, confidence, charisma, determination, sociability, and integrity. Community members naturally possess these traits to varying degrees and each individual citizen is unique in that regard. Nevertheless, many of those leadership traits are subject to modification based on learning and experience. Based on the view that leadership, like community, is a process … and that leadership effectiveness is influenced by these categories of traits that are subject to improvement through learning and experience, it stands to reason that leadership can be learned, with the expectation that citizen leadership skills are improved as a result.

THEORY, RESEARCH, AND APPLICATION

This book brings together classic and contemporary articles drawn from Community Development: Journal of the Community Development Society. Divided into two parts, the book begins with a range of seminal theory and conceptualization chapters that lay the foundation for our understanding of community leadership. These have been instrumental in shaping leadership development research, teaching, policy, and practice in a wide range of settings. Following this section a variety of research and application chapters are presented. These operationalize theory through applied research and programming, and provide replicable frameworks for future research and programs. Chapters included in both parts directly contribute to the body of knowledge that significantly advances our communities through leadership and local capacity development.

Part I: Foundations of Community Leadership

The first part begins with Kenneth Pigg’s “Community Leadership and Community Theory: A Practical Synthesis.” This widely recognized article sets the stage for a detailed understanding of the process by which leadership emerges and grows within our communities. Pigg’s exploration is particularly important in its analysis of the shift from the traditional notion of leadership development focusing on leader behaviors, to a view that emphasizes relationships and interaction. His examination focuses on leadership as an emergent property arising from specific kinds of relationships among diverse community actors. Utilizing an interactional theoretical approach Pigg synthesizes traditional and emergent perspectives on leadership, and provides strong support for significant modifications to community leadership education and development efforts.

Pigg continues the investigation and evolution of leadership theory in “Three Faces of Empowerment: Expanding the Theory of Empowerment in Community Development.” Here, he explores empowerment as a process in leadership education which is seen as fundamental to community development. Most often, empowerment is considered only from the individual, psychological perspective in community development efforts. Pigg argues that empowerment transcends the individual level as both an outcome of interpersonal (mutual empowerment) and collective social action (social empowerment). Ultimately he argues that the extent to which community developers incorporate these dimensions into their programs via leadership education can directly signify the success or failure of programs.

Similarly to the work of Pigg is that of Wituk, Ealy, Clark, Heiny, and Meissen, “Community Development through Community Leadership Programs: Insights from a Statewide Community Leadership Initiative.” The authors argue that community leadership programs represent a mechanism for the development of leadership skills and concepts...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Citation Information
• 1. Community Leadership Development: A Primer to Theory, Research, and Application
• Section I: Seminal Leadership Theory
• Section II: Leadership Development Research and Application
• Index