hi Pine, this is an excellent point, and I believe there are definitely too few systematic studies on the topic, as well as targeted programs.
<blatant promotion mode on> In my book, "Common Knowledge? An Ethnography of Wikipedia", which has left the press last week, I have a whole chapter ("Between Anarchy and Bureaucracy: Wikimedia Governance") dedicated to issues of governance and internal leadership. http://www.sup.org/book.cgi?id=24010 Unfortunately, Google Books preview has most of the pages limited (and Stanford University Press is not too keen on open access of their publications, sadly). http://books.google.pl/books?id=hBpuAwAAQBAJ&lpg=PA178&dq=jemielniak%20common%20knowledge%20leadership&hl=pl&pg=PP1#v=snippet&q=between%20anarchy&f=false </blatant promotion mode off> best, dariusz "pundit" On Mon, May 19, 2014 at 7:12 AM, ENWP Pine <deyntest...@hotmail.com> wrote: > > > > > > > Hi all, > > I've heard the word "leadership" used a lot in WMF, synonymously with > "management" in my experience. That makes sense in a somewhat hierarchical > organization like WMF, although this model has received some criticism from > the community for allegedly excessive top-down thinking. I'm not familiar > enough with the culture in the WMF Office to comment about its strengths > and weaknesses, but I would like to ask questions about leadership in the > community. > > In the community, which is diffuse and where roles are highly flexible, > there have been some studies done done about leadership but the ones I know > about usually focus on hierarchies within the community, especially how > people get chosen for administrator roles on-wiki. As we are thinking about > our online culture, we can be thinking about movement leadership. Who are > the leaders, how are they trained, how are they selected, what do they do, > what makes them effective, and how can they be given ongoing support and > training? I think many of us would agree that adminship and leadership are > not always synonymous, and there are many ways that people exercise > leadership in non-hierarchical ways. > > I hear frequently about stress from members of English Wikipedia's Arbcom, > and I hope WMF is thinking about how to train and support people who get > chosen for such visible, important, and often stressful volunteer roles. > > I would also like to point out that Wikimedia is developing training > materials for leaders of chapters and programs. > > Is there anyone at WMF who is taking a holistic view of community > leadership and how to understand, train and support it in ways that support > the strategic plan goals? > > Training that might be relevant could include how to create friendly > spaces online, > resolve online conflicts, engage in cross-cultural communication, > encourage strategic thinking, influence change, and maintain morale. I > think a series of five-minute training modules could be helpful for online > and offline volunteers, along with dedicating some Program & Evaluation or > Research time to understanding leadership in the non-hierarchical > community. These initiatives could help with encouraging teamwork and > collaboration online by influencing and training "leaders". > > I would also be interested in hearing about how WMF thinks about > "leadership" internally, since there seems to be some community feeling > that WMF's thinking about leadership is incompatible with the community's. > I don't have an opinion but I would like to be more informed, and hopefully > encourage WMF to think about how the organization as a whole interacts with > the community. > > Thanks, > > Pine > > > > _______________________________________________ > Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines > wikimedi...@lists.wikimedia.org > Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, > <mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe> -- __________________________ dr hab. Dariusz Jemielniak profesor zarządzania kierownik katedry Zarządzania Międzynarodowego i centrum badawczego CROW Akademia Leona Koźmińskiego http://www.crow.alk.edu.pl członek Akademii Młodych Uczonych Polskiej Akademii Nauk
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