“There is no power for change greater than a community discovering what it cares about.” – Margaret J. Wheatley
So far in this series I’ve covered many issues that I feel educators face in the two atmospheres of the profession; the classroom and the conference room. These issues have ranged from power and control, culture, and complacency. If these issues were easy to solve we wouldn’t be talking about them today. So, understand then that this post offers a solution, but one that can be significantly difficult to apply and know that it is a slow burn that will take time to progress.
Community is one of those phrases that in the workplace can at times seem a little cheesy and more often than not it tends to be taken to mean a group of overly cheerful, laughing, joyous and never debating group of individuals. However, that is not a community, that is a utopia. A community is group of individuals working together with clear communication, and an understanding of one another and their differences. A community celebrates individuality while also encouraging congeniality and comradery. Community also abhors control.
In order to have power one must first have control. This can at times make community the antithesis to power. Many tyrants will purposely create an atmosphere of confusion and division in order to create an atmosphere of cohorts working independently or against one another which allows the tyrant to assert their power over an individual or a small cohort rather than a large, united community which can be quite difficult and require more resources and effort. So thus, by uniting as a community a group of individuals can combine their efforts to overcome tyranny and by this means a community can also wield power.
In the act of unity a community diminishes adversarial power through the combined power of the community’s individuals. In the authoritarian example above that power can lead to revolution. In the more common conference room it can lead to a louder voice and unified voting which can shift agendas and create avenues for substantive change. An altruistic leader understands this and rather than acting as a tyrant and dividing a community they will instead work to find ways to unite it and use this combined power to help fulfill the community’s needs.
In the classroom adversarial power isn’t usually defined as an individual or individuals but rather a task or project. In which case all of the principles above still apply. In the classroom a community of students’ combined power usually equates to combining and sharing resources, methods and techniques, and brain power. When this power is wielded by students they are also able redistribute their efforts by working on parts or steps individually and then combining those to create the whole (if a project allows for this).
Community has more to offer leadership than being a unified force. Community is also the vehicle for changing culture. As mentioned in Part II of this series culture is a side effect of how we do things. It is through community that the need for a change in culture is best recognized and assessed because it is the community that in its unification and understanding of its individual members is able to identify toxic or problematic attributes present in the culture. Changing culture must also be a shared and united effort because in doing so the burden and uncomfortably of change when distributed amongst the entirety of the community can be diminished. When a community works together to do things differently an individual shares accountability which can make changing a task, or doing something new seem smaller and less daunting.
Community’s effect on culture is affective in both the conference room and classroom. But, in the classroom as both the person in power and the leader the educator must work to help the community recognize the flaws in the culture and create (sometimes through brainstorming with students) and implement new ways and systems for doing things. In the conference room this can be more difficult, especially if you are not in a position of power in which case you will have to lead through the encouragement of unification and bringing up topics that can result in conversations of toxic or problematic flaws in the culture.
Community even has the ability to combat what I mentioned in the previous post to be what I felt is the greatest evil faced in leadership; complacency. Since community works to share effort it almost forcibly places accountability on the complacent. Because of this, complacent individuals may keep to themselves and resist becoming a part of a community and only doing what is required. However, rarely do people (students and fellow faculty alike) enjoy being left out and through this community can encourage their participation.
Community can also help fight some of the symptoms of complacency such as cynicism, and hypocrisy by creating hopefulness and providing motivations for efforts. As mentioned in the quote at the start of this post by leadership and organizational guru Meg Wheatley, a community when united around what it cares about can be a great power. This power can be an outstanding impetus to combating cynicism by creating hope that through the power of a community, change can occur, and success over obstacles can be achieved.
Community isn’t a cure-all and it definitely isn’t a light switch that can simply be switched on, but it is a solution to many of the issues faced in leadership today. It is also one that is commonly ignored and scoffed at by those who abuse power or reside in their own complacency. I have rarely seen community implemented in the conference room environment without immediately facing opposition by someone in power and I have rarely seen it implemented in the classroom without facing complacency from smug and over-confident students. Because of this community is something that must be fought for, and at times it can be worth falling on your sword for.
