Matt McAlister - What makes a good leader of a participatory community
"I suspect that all of them share a handful of key qualities that make them unusual leaders including things like…
* Total dedication, focus and passion for the service the community is providing to itself
* A laissez faire attitude toward conflict but quick to identify resolutions
* Motivated by a desire to do something important, not by money. They want to be part of something bigger than themselves.
* A very creative mind that thrives on solving problems though not necessarily skilled in traditional artistic disciplines
* Collaborative leadership styles, the extreme opposite of authoritarian, mandate-driven leadership"
my friend matt raises some great points regarding personality traits that he believes are present w/in peer-based, participatory community leaders, then asks how mainstream media businesses will approach adding on social media capabilities to traditional properties and whether or not they'll be successful (which he doubts)...
so yes, these traits seem really valid when applied toward shepherding an online community and exactly the opposite from the traits most authoritarian personalities exhibit in my experience, but authoritarian traits are not what make up the highest percentage of folks currently working w/in mainstream media businesses (and for that matter large online tech industry companies too)...
sure some leaders most certainly do exhibit these traits (we read about them all the time) but consider the folks doing most of the day-to-day work in the trenches - i don't think mainstream actually does have a "lack of the key qualities required to shepherd a community"...
instead because most mainstream media companies are in fact highly distributed and diverse they do require leaders who "understand the decentralized and collaborative mentality" as well as lead through influence and leverage evangelical methodologies, instead of relying on a pure push down from the top authorization model...
in my experience, the traits matt listed are already in use inside the firewall of media properities - so the mainstream media industry is in fact full of very creative folks that understand the same nuance that the craig newmarks, stewart butterfields and other peer community pioneers have had to foster to insure the growth and success of their communities - now the questions matt raise are still very valid - can the authority-minded figureheads stay out of the mix long enough to let the folks that understand collaboration and community building foster a new mainstream media model that has some of the values we're seeing in peer based communities outside of mainstream?
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