A Community Leadership Series

To live is so startling it leaves very little time for anything else.

-Emily Dickinson

Beginning last September, my colleague and friend, Dr. Marghi Hagen, and I began a weekly leadership series here on the coast.  Representing the Democrats United for Progress and the Redwood Coast Alliance of Non-Profits, we set about to engage community members in an exploration of leadership, including the generous contributions of well-respected community leaders.  “Our community” consists of the coast of southern Mendocino County and northern Sonoma County and the little towns of Point Arena, Gualala, and The Sea Ranch.  We were surprised and delighted when 36 people showed up, ages 15 to 83.  Our intention was to enhance the leadership capacity of the community…a thrilling goal.

When the fall series ended, we met again in January and scheduled monthly leadership meetings, this time joined by Gail Taylor an internationally known consultant and founder of Tomorrowmakers.

During this year, we taught, demonstrated, and conversed about some of the following topics: reframing the meaning of leadership; communication; conflict resolution; organizational effectiveness, design and sustainability; leading volunteers with informal authority;  facilitation of meetings; consensus building; among other topics. In the spring, we added projects designed too strengthen our community.

Last Tuesday was our last class in the series, although we will meet at Marghi’s home for a potluck and conversation on August 3.  If the group decides to continue into the next year, it will be with rotating facilitation among members.

What would it mean to our democracy to strengthen community leadership capacity??

Next week:  John Steinbeck, Literary Leader

Have a great week!

This entry was posted on Monday, June 7th, 2010 at 6:04 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.