We have a program in Latin America called "Liderazgo Moral" by Nur University in Santa Cruz de la Sierra. The Nur was founded by Bahá'ís and friends of Bahá'ís (i.e., the human race!) and is an interesting outfit. For example (you won't believe this, but I'll say it anyway) their professors are all trained in participatory learning, and their classes all follow through a progressive, active cycle that touches on several different "kinds of intelligence" (you know, as in Gardner). Professors who know how to teach? Yep!

I'm sure that you can instantly find unlimited material on the Web in Spanish, but a number of the founding geniuses are native speakers of English, so I'm sure that a request to the U will readily get you to someone who can poke around in their project proposals and doctoral dissertations and come up with more material than you were really looking for!

Their programs include planning projects with communities. For example, when folks lament that this logical planning framework is too difficult, my Bernarda (who studied with the Nur) just smiles and runs them through it the way Nur did the log frame, and in a little while no one is afraid of it anymore! She has campesinos/as coming from all over the province to work on projects and their trappings, using the Nur materials and approaches.

When Liderazgo Moral started a couple of decades ago, and no one had heard of it (now they have done lots more in Ecuador, including a World-Bank-funded M.A. program for thousands of teachers!) I used to explain it this way (it's better in Spanish, but still makes enough sense in English):

Normal leaders dominate others to serve themselves – moral leaders dominate themselves to serve others!

Sam duBois

I think the key is the difference of structures in army, corporations and communities like this one; the first two have vertical structures and the last aims to have horizontal structures. So, I think that we have to find a different kind of dynamics; not thinking just on leadership but that every and each role is absolutely necessary in a group to achieve a goal. The group's psychology could help us to understand this better (see group dynamics and group roles). 

The main question is: "Should we still think on leadership, as we did up to now, or should we try another form of thinking about groups or organizations?

We are very used to personalize groups, to think in one person who is the leader, who dictates to the others, who represents the others, who is the face of a movement. But, instead of this, I think we have to promote that the team is the more important than an individual leader, that every role in a group is important in it, not only the leader. For example,  leaderships could be the shared with 2 or more persons, or the group could have commissions for different functions, and one of these is in charge of representing the group. If we think horizontally, we should promote horizontal structures too.

I'll think more about it, and everything I could find on this matter, i'll share with you
cheers
Ana Paula Silvestre

Whereas all said is correct in some way or other. But the fundamental question that remains is why we need leaders or leadership in communities.  Of course, the answer varies from communities to communities based on their context. However, the basic idea behind community leadership or leader for community, is to have leader or leadership that could provoke community or keeps community together (mobilized in other words).  Beside, community also need leadership for facilitation of thought process on various issues and their solutions.  Of course there could be variety of other reasons for having leaders or leadership in community.

While it is right that there is a structure difference between armies/corporates and communities. yet there exists a vertical structure in many communities ..... where establishment of horizontal structure is a larger aim of community interventions in many community development initiatives.  For example, in Pakistan, there always is a community notable or group notables to lead community and he is (or they are) usually someone who is thought to be above the community (Just as a corporate director or military top official).  He has to decide the fate of community leaders. In case where exists fuedal system. there are these fuedal lords as self-proclaimed leaders of communities and they are in many ways worst than military dictatorship.  Of course, their decision making process also varies from case to case.  In communities, where communities are closely linked to each other, the notables undertake a consultative process and the decision is reached through a complete consensus or by voting.  Whereas in other case, the notables verdict is final and is to be followed by rest of the community fellows whether they are pleased are not.  Of course this kind of leadership should not desired.

Within communities there often exists structures based on cultural values, religion, local values. In worst case, these structures become worst barrier to the community development and we often call them cultural and religious institutions.

What we or I here often mean is we need a participatory leadership, or in other words shared leadership, in communities. But we really need to learn the academics or philosophy of leaders and leaderships types.  They are types are mainly determined based on the conduct of a leader or the decision making process he/she likes. If he/she likes to impose, its autocrat or whatever ..... continues ...... (may be bit later) ....

Now why we need leadership training for community mobilizers? Because they are always present in communities trying to mobilize them or do other actions as per projects or needs of communities. They are some way or other leading community. So they need a good understanding of the leadership skills in order to better take on their work. Caution for them is to always check if they are trying to impose anything on communities or there are trying create those hierarchical structures themselves by trying to master of communities' fate/decisions/issues .......

May be more later ..... I need to refine my ideas more .... for this I would some feedback as well.

Hassan Mirani