What defines one’s worth? How do you situate yourself into the myriad of tangled webs that form your life? How does worth, and a sense of being, cohabitate within the day to day schedule of today’s busy lives? What is it that makes people step out, or more appropriately, step up to a position that benefits more than just themselves? The purpose of this paper is to examine the idea of the citizen leader with respect to why we have such leaders, the common characteristics found within this group, examples of various citizen leaders amongst us, and the benefits of this style of leadership.
I have to say firstly that I am not yet a citizen leader. I would like to be but I am not. Not that ideas are not circulating in my brain. They just have not emerged, nor have I had the time and commitment to take on the challenge. The question for many might be, what is a citizen leader? One who leads citizens would be the obvious quick answer. In The Leaders Companion (1995), Wren includes the chapter called Defining a Citizen Leader, which was written by Richard Couto. In this chapter Couto describes a citizen leader as follows:
“The citizen leader I have in mind facilitates organized action to improve conditions of people in low-income communities and to address other basic needs of society at the local level. Their goal is to raise the floor beneath all members of society, rather than to enable a few to touch its vaulted ceiling. Sometimes citizen leaders work for change, protesting proposed toxic waste dumping near their homes, for example. In all cases, they exhibit the leadership which occurs when people take sustained action to bring about change that will permit them continued or increasing well-being. They recognize the existence of c...
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Personal conversations – Capt. Charles Moore, founder, Agalita Marine Research Foundation, May 28 - June 1, 2010 & July 21, 2010
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Paul Schmitz was the CEO of an organization called Public Allies from 200 to 2013 wrote about his experiences in leadership in the book Everybody Leads. Within the book, Paul describes in detail Public Allies’ goals, missions and objectives, as well as provides real life examples of leadership from the organization. Like the title suggest, Paul’s own experiences in life, as well as in the organization have provided him the experience necessary to argue that everybody (yes everybody) has leadership potential in them. Paul writes that the process of finding this potential within the individual then placing individuals in community leadership positions is what Public Allies is about.
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What is a leader? According to the dictionary a leader is a "person who leads or commands a group, organization, or country." (Merriam Webster) Though that may be what the term leader is defined by, one would assume that it takes much more to be considered a "good" one. A leader, is in many cases the voice of the people, he is the one whom everyone looks to in a time of panic, the one whom the people entrust to make the hard decisions and the one whom is supposed to value his constituents wants and need. Unfortunately most leaders fall short of accomplishing the things they set out to do, "as principal chief during the 1830s John Ross faced the most critical period in Cherokee History, and somehow
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Leaders is an effective tool for summarizing and inspiring leadership, not in that it teaches tough strategies and manipulations, but that when looking at an overview of its content, Bennis and Nanus are essentially teaching human relations and human decency. All in all, this book highlights strategies for us all to be better in our lives and our everyday interactions.
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A community leader expands their collective experience, skills and energy to drive positive social change and enable their communities to thrive. Throughout elementary school and high school, I engaged in school clubs and special classes, volunteered in my community, took on leading roles for fundraising and acquired many jobs. I have become a leader in my community because of references from jobs or activities, connections with other leaders and by achieving high academic grades and excelling in sports, I have chosen to share my abilities with others and proceed to make a change.
Leadership is complex to define In the past century, more than 10,000 articles have been published about leadership. Through the decades, the complex definition of leadership has intrigued the masses. In the book The Extraordinary Leader, the authors Zenger and Folkman write that there has been no way to define the different constituencies of the leader (Folkman, 2009). According to J.M. Burns, “Leadership is one of the most observed and least understood phenomena on earth.” Leadership is a p...
Lussier, R.N. & Achua, C.F. (2010). Leadership: Theory, application, skill development (5th ed.). Mason, OH: South-Western.