Core Competencies of Community Leadership

From the Summer, 2007 issue (Vol. 6 No. 2) of the Community Leader newsletter:

In 2003 we incorporated three Core Competencies into our leadership programs – Framing, Building and Using Social Capital and Mobilizing for Action. In this issue of the Community Leader we are taking a more in-depth look at how framing a complex community issue, like diversity, can help to define its opportunities and challenges in ways that result in effective action.

Framing – a definition: Framing means helping a group or community recognize and define its opportunities and issues in ways that result in effective action.

Framing helps (click triangle image on the right to enlarge):

• the group or community decide what needs to be done
• define why it is important that it be done and how it has to be done
• to communicate that in clear and compelling ways

Community Example of Framing: A Welcoming Community

When you drive into this town your first reaction is, this must be that mythical, quiet, small-town America community I read about somewhere. It looks like a Norman Rockwell painting. Within five minutes, however, you realize it can’t be that place. Everyone may be ‘handsome’ and ‘good-looking’ (borrowing Garrison Keillor’s description of people in the small town of Lake Wobegon, MN.). At the same time, you see faces of every hue and color. You hear children speaking in English and to their grandparents in Spanish, Cambodian or Somali. You sense a vibrancy in the community as a local radio station runs ads for the upcoming multicultural festival.

The transformation of this community started 15 years ago. That’s when the labor needs of its major industries, which focus on food production, outgrew the local workforce. Soon jobs were being filled by waves of newcomers from Latin America, Southeast Asia and Africa.

As this trend accelerated, the mayor convened a diverse group – people from communities of color, members of the city staff, representatives from the school, and spokespersons from the area’s major employers. She asked these people to become a task force to document the population changes that had already taken place. She also wanted them to anticipate what changes were coming next and predict their implications.

The task force’s report was rich in detail. Yet, it could be summarized in two key points:

• The population trends are likely to continue, with the community becoming more diverse in the foreseeable future.
• The way that current residents, units of government, local groups, and local organizations respond to this change will significantly affect how unified or fragmented the community becomes in the future.

The report was shared with and discussed by the various community groups represented on the task force. Next, the members of the task force challenged themselves with a question, What values should guide our community’s responses to newcomers?

That conversation was not easy. But the group was able, with the help of the mayor, to agree that:

• Every resident is a potential asset to the community.
• No matter where they come from, new residents are more apt to see themselves as an asset – and to be seen by others as an asset – if their transition into the community is a positive one.

As the discussion drew to a close, one of the task force members captured the essence of the group’s agreement: ‘I was taught that community is the gift or legacy we give the next generation. Tonight we’ve decided that the legacy we want to leave is to be a welcoming community for everyone.’

Editor’s Note: The above text was excerpted from The Community Leadership Handbook by James Krile, Gordy Curphy and Duane R. Lund. The above passage provides one example of framing the diversity issue. Diversity, however, is not only an issue of color or ethnicity, but can also be an issue of gender, economics, religion, sexual orientation, age or culture. And, with that in mind, every community has opportunities to turn its diversity into an asset.

Questions
In what way has your community been impacted by diversity?
How has your community framed diversity opportunities and issues?

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