"Shared Leadership in Social Change Organizations: Insights from a Participatory Research Perspective," a presentation by the Research Center for Leadership in Action, April 2007

1. Shared Leadership in Social Change Organizations
Insights from a Participatory Research Perspective
Leadership Learning Community
Creating Space VIII
April 11-13, 2007
Baltimore, Maryland

2. Research Center for Leadership in Action
Mission and Key Assumptions
“To support change agents by developing new knowledge and
implementing innovative tools that help diverse constituents
accomplish desired change.”
RCLA’s mission is premised on these basic assumptions:
• Focus on leadership as a collective achievement
• Participatory processes facilitate effective change
• Knowledge resides in many sources
• Practitioners and academics collaborate to create knowledge

3. Research Center for Leadership in Action
How We Work
We produce social-science, practice-based, action-oriented research on multiple
dimensions of public service leadership
We select research methods that encourage practitioner engagement
We create products that are useful both to the academic and the practitioner
community
Research Goals:
• Develop deeper understanding about leadership
• Identify the components of successful leadership for social change
• Use practice as the source of knowledge
• Understand leadership in the context of community-based nonprofit organizations
• Consider different leadership models (not just heroic)
• Support effective leadership

4. Leadership for a Changing World
Background
Ford Foundation’s national recognition program for community-based
leadership in the social justice field
Goal: Contribute to changing conversations about leadership in the US
17 – 20 awards each year. Five groups:
• 91 Organizations and more than 150 leaders (Teams as well as
individuals)
• $115,000 for program support
Partnership (Ford Foundation, Advocacy Institute, RCLA)

5. Leadership for a Changing World
Initial Views of Leadership
• We know a lot about “leaders” but very little about “leadership”
“Leaders” is about individuals
“Leadership” is about groups
• Leadership is not about the characteristics of a single person
(the “leader”)
• Leadership is about group achievement
• Leadership belongs to the entire group

6. Leadership for a Changing World
A Participatory Approach to Research
• Doing research with leaders rather than on leaders
• Using a participatory research model (co-production of knowledge)
• Creating activities for co-researchers to observe & analyze their own
experience
• Making room for leaders to share their experiences and learn from
others
• Co-producing research products that are useful for practitioners

7. Leadership for a Changing World
Research Design
Research Stream Participants
of a community
in conversation
team members
make meaning
Core research
Products
with members
(co-researchers)
Participatory and Appreciative Inquiry
In what ways
do
communities
Ethnographic Inquiry: Collective Integration trying to make
Looking at leadership
social change
from the inside
•Continuity Up to 3 LCW
engage in the
Ethnographies work of
•Context participants’
leadership?
LCW participants
make meaning in
•In-depth focus/thick communities
research team
conversation
descriptions
members
with core
In what ways
Horizontal can academics
Narrative Inquiry: Leadership
LCW participants Analysis and
The LCW participants use Stories
and representatives practitioners
their own voices to reflect
of their communities
about leadership and co-produce
construct meaning. leadership
research and
knowledge that
Co-Operative Inquiry: Up to 2 groups of Inquiry Reports
make meaning
Selected LCW
is valid and
from practice
participants
Co-researchers (in an inquiry 6-8 LCW
useful to both?
group) generate participants each
meaning/knowledge of
leadership in action.

8. Leadership for a Changing World
Research Stream - Ethnography
Ethnographies
• Offer in-depth and rich portraits of leadership
• Locally based ethnographers and awardees negotiate the research
questions and design the research in ways that will contribute to the
awardees’ organizational objectives and leadership practices.
• Each ethnography is unique in its focus, method and writing style.
• Some incorporate creative forms, such as photography and video,
which are non-traditional forms of representation in research.
• They all provide detailed information about the history of
organizations, their leadership dynamics, collaborations,
transformations and development.

9. Highlighting Collective Leadership Themes across Ethnographies
 Shifting away from lens of individual traits to consider leadership as an ongoing
process, co-constructed and supported by social dynamic and organizational norms.
 The organizations value inclusiveness, pluralism, respect, dignity, democracy,
equity, and a shared sense of struggle.
 Collective leadership is a transformative process that exists in communal
relationships and is distributed across all levels of the organization.
 Equalizing relationship between community members and professional “experts”
 Individual relationship building is a key component of collective leadership, which
involves building trust through long term, genuine, and compelling engagement with
community members.
 Engaging community members in the planning process while supporting open
communication and respect of differences to develop shared values and vision.

10. Contact Us
Research Center for Leadership in Action
Robert F. Wagner Graduate School of Public Service
The Puck Building, 295 Lafayette Street, 2nd Floor
New York, NY 10012
Web: http://wagner.nyu.edu/leadership
Email: wagner.leadership@nyu.edu