One reason why communities succeed is based on their leadership. A great leader can give you the greatest of opportunities. Among other things, communities need to be challenged and given the opportunity to evolve and expand.
5 processes to becoming a better leader are:
1) Model the way
2) Inspire a shared vision
3) Challenge the process
4) Enable others to act
5) Encouraging the heart
I found that these 5 processes can also apply to community development. Leadership is a quality that is contagious, once the way is modeled and a vision is shared, the process of changing needs to be challenged. The way things were "before" vs how things can get better is what Kouzes and Posner call challenging the process.
All 5 of these processes involve people and the community. Each member has to be on board and involved, because if one person turns into a negative attitude it can also become contagious and then it turns into a cancer that takes a lot of effort to squash.
Each of the communities I blogged about need to be active. All members of the community are essential for the success of their communities. Even though each community was based on separate values and goals, they each aspire to become better.
The Cougar community has the potential to gain support and get involved as role models and leaders as teams and individuals, whereas the Leduc community has the opportunity to learn and grow from each other and become a potential landmark community.
For these communities to be successful and continue challenging the process they must prioritize. Learn from past mistakes, encourage each other to get involved and gain the courage to try, try, try again, until finally you succeed.
Start looking at challenges as adventures and opportunities to become better; better as an individual, better as teams, better as communities.
It is so vital to be able to prioritize in order to meet goals in any situation. Also by being able to identify the task, engage others and learn from mistakes is so useful. I really agree with the part where communities must "gain the courage to try, try, try again, until finally you succeed." This is probably the hardest thing to do, as failing is so discouraging, but it is so important to keep trying. Well done Megan.
ReplyDeleteGreat post Megan! I really like the beginning of the post where you state that "A great leader can give you the greatest of opportunities." This is so true in any community. If a leader doesn't have what it takes to inspire and encourage others in their community, the community will not be able to succeed. I fully agree with the fact that communities need to learn from the past and encourage each other to keep trying until they succeed. GO COUGARS!
ReplyDeleteNice post Megan, I agree that we as cougar athletes have the potential to become great role models. Nice work on including the steps we talked about in class. Well done!!
ReplyDeleteGood post Megan! I really like how you linked being a better leader to achieving priorities. That was a connection that I overlooked and I appreciate that you dug deep enough to make it. I believe that modeling the way can only get you so far (embodiment is not always the strongest form of reform). I like how you used all of the blogs and tied them together! “The Cougar community has the potential to gain support and get involved as role models and leaders as teams and individuals” I completely agree and believe that with the current teams and staff that a real community can be developed here.
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