Page 409 - Mike Ratner CC - WISR Complete Dissertation - v6

Community Conversations, Aware Experiences and Emerging Leaders-as-Exemplified

Community Conversations "Community leadership" is an amalgamation of distinct ideas,

communities in conversation and leadership. The concept of community, who belongs to it and

what resources are available to members, depends upon perspective. Outsiders frequently perceive

"other" as a monolithic society with access to resources within their geographic boundaries.

However, within a community, different subgroups emerge with their own conceptions of place

within the greater community and understanding of the ‘powers’ governing access to resources.

Once community scale has been identified, leadership can be examined. Leadership seems

to have two distinct aspects: the ability to create consensus and synergies within a community, and

the ability to represent a community in interactions and negotiations with other entities. In addition,

through the process of Community Conversations, you see the emergence of similarities that are

common among members in sharing their experiences and understanding making it more likely

that members can share similar views on various issues, including establishing objectives,

communication methods and the type of desired lead-the-way cohesiveness that can evolve the

dialogue.

In general, higher agreement among members on group rules and norms results in greater

trust and less dysfunctional conflict. This, in turn, strengthens both emotional and task

cohesiveness which has the advantage of demonstrating and proliferating the idea of leader-as-

exemplified among all members who step up spurred on through the CC dialogue process. Social

comparison theory, initially proposed by social psychologist Leon Festinger in 1954, centers on

the belief that there is a drive within individuals to gain accurate self-evaluations.

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