In our power-hungry society, the language of leadership is often attached to desires for control over, authority over, and management of other people. We are taught through media portrayals that our hopes and dreams should be attached to the trappings of individual power - money, possessions, control, and life beyond accountability.
Business, management, sports, and other media often confuse the position of power over others with the character of leadership. We seem to think that leadership is what a person with power over others does, and that any work position or office that promises such control endows on the person in it the mantle of leader.
In this context, my area of study and expertise - that is, leadership - takes on a confusing character. I have found that universities, nonprofits, and ad-hoc community groups sometimes ask for my help in community-based leadership settings assuming or hoping that I'll bring with me the language and practices of a Barnes and Noble "Management" section. They're often looking for short-cuts, lists of best practices, and political language to justify whatever action they take in the community.
That's why I have started to differentiate between "Leadership" and "Community Leadership".
As I use the terms on this website and in my work, I refer to the commitment to the efforts to promote and facilitate work for the common good as "Community Leadership". This is further characterized by active efforts in service of social, racial, gender, and environmental justice.
Attempting to attach these kinds of values to a rather generic term like "Community Leadership" is a difficult task. Like so many other terms, including "Leadership" as I've described above, Community Leadership can be defined by lots of different people.
It's also tempting to attach Community Leadership to a specific school of leadership practice (e.g. transformational leadership, service leadership, etc.). But in this space, Community Leadership represents an aspiration and commitment to certain ways of being and desired outcomes. That commitment resists the celebration of one school of thought.
At Looking Bear Leadership, we hope to create a space where leadership is clearly connected to a way of being and commitment to justice rather than reduced to a job title. For that reason, LBL facilitates reflection and action for people regardless of title or office.
If you are committed to the vision of a more just and peaceful world through embodied values and practices - you are a Community Leader.
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