Community Leadership Development

Book excerpt: 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.