By Hu Wo (Cuckoo’s Song)
COMMUNITY leader, whether he is a school principal or whatever, tends to take a significant role in his community, perceived to represent the community’s interests, including protecting them. Some community leaders do it only to get paid, but others do it voluntarily. However, community leaders have possessed a variety of roles ranging from mobilizing communities for a good cause to designing any course of action for overcoming common challenges. Unless the locomotive of a train derails, its following train carriages will go straight like clockwork for sure. In other words, a great community leader seems to be a figure of authority or a public figure to a certain degree.
The following are the ten most important qualities or character features of community leaders in accordance with their leadership roles.
Personality traits: Self-awareness, Empathy, Honesty and Integrity, Forward-thinking, Intelligence
Any leader should be aware of himself or herself first of all, which means that leaders must be knowledgeable about their strengths and weaknesses. Nobody can do anything, we know. Seeing one’s strengths or weaknesses will enable one to exploit one’s abilities better while asking for help from others in weak areas. Self-acceptance allows the selection of one’s best-fit roles and share of responsibilities with others. Secondly, a community leader must learn to listen to others, appreciating their suggestions and changing courses of action if necessary, which automatically leads to mutual respect between community members. Thirdly, a leader has to be so trustworthy to the community and other leaders that this honesty and integrity facilitates the production of discussions and desired social changes. Not only that, leaders need to be visionary as community leaders; that is, they are required to dream for their community, effectively share the dream, think of the future and set sustainable goals by improving their own critical thinking skills and involving younger generations. At last, a competent leader likes to have intelligence or grey matter that is beyond being smart to resolve the tough stuff which may happen to him or her and the community, with higher levels of both emotional and social intelligence in particular.
Personal Manners: Eagerness to learn and adapt, Interpersonal Skills
A leader can never refuse to accept how his or her community has recognized him or her, whether he or she should be the real leader of a community. Only if community leaders are always in their members’ shoes will they be able to imagine diverse points of view from the community and understand its feelings, thus increasing their credibility in the community. Also, a community leader has the ability to interact with other members of the community; to be said better, good communication and collaboration skills in negotiating, mediating and articulating arguments and working with community members in and outside of the community.
Efficient and Effective Actions: Dedication, Service, Motivation
In fact, the well-mannered society of a nation has not appeared in a few days. It often takes time, especially years, sometimes dozens or even hundreds of years, to build up a well-developed society. Therefore, community leaders usually dedicate their time, energy, material and even life to give birth to well-behaved citizens. And involving oneself in general community services for community members legitimizes one’s role in the community. Finally, a great leader ought to be an inspirational person to create desirable potential for the community, as well as he can do this in various ways and must always remember to include others in his thought process.
Anybody may be a community leader sometime and also has a chance of being so. But if a person is not born with leadership skills for the community at all, he or she does not deserve to be a community leader in any way. Every and each community leader must have accepted responsibility and accountability for whatever he or she does in the community. Above all, the most essential quality of a community leader is nothing but the trust of the public. Once trust is broken, respect is diminished, and productivity is eliminated. Hence, the best community leader will have to build trust with all individuals in the whole society.
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