Focusing on the role of the leader of a community organizer, we read about both the possible pitfalls, but also of the successes that comes with it. The characteristics of the right leader seem to require specific skills to not only maintain the morale and energy of the group, but also not create an hierarchy where members feel they are not in charge. With this, the person in this position is asked of many skill sets. There’s a lot of talk about optimizing situations through strategic planning and to gear these events towards your cause, but I wonder how much of it is also based on chance and just being at the right place at the right time. In which, in that case, will it be the event drawing out a community leader, or the leader drawing this event out?
There seem to be a lot of politics around being the leader, at what point does this detracts from their actual job as the organizer?
It does though, seem appropriate that the leader must have all the specified characteristics because the playing field is much larger and spans across a larger and more powerful audience, which is why I felt the David and Goliath was an appropriate example for Ganz. And just like all other practices, one must know how to speak the language, but in this case, one must also need to walk the walk.