By Deborah Reidy
A couple of weekends ago, I was teaching a leadership program for a group of families of people with disabilities. One mother had taken on the challenge of revitalizing a parent advisory committee in the city where she lived. She described how much work she had put into getting people involved, with modest results. Many families were just too occupied with their own day-to-day lives. They didn't have the time or energy left over to join another committee or get involved in a cause. This is not an unusual experience for any leader trying to mobilize people to work toward a larger purpose when most people find just managing everyday life practically impossible. Whether it's advocacy on behalf of people with disabilities, raising funds for a new public library, or creating a high performing project team, leadership starts with making the case for why people ought to commit to work toward that larger purpose.
I've been there, you've been there, and we know it can be really frustrating. Maybe we get into blaming mode: Blaming ourselves for not being persuasive enough, blaming others for not being sufficiently motivated. What was interesting about the mother I'm describing is that she didn't seem especially frustrated and she wasn't blaming anyone. Instead, she seemed mildly concerned yet patient. She said, "So even though I couldn't recruit all these people to get involved in the committee, I decided to start calling them up and just asking them how they're doing. Not with an agenda in mind."
And I thought, "Bingo!" That's part of the work of leadership that I've never consciously identified. I've often thought that the main way leaders connect people to a larger purpose is by fostering a shared vision. That's important, sure. But there's a more relational way of connecting to people that is equally important. It's about creating goodwill by taking positive actions that are not tied to a particular agenda, just like this mother has done. In today's jargon this is known as building social capital and it's seen as an important process whereby communities and networks become and remain strong. One definition refers to social capital as stocks of social trust, norms and networks that people can draw upon to solve common problems.
There's a lot that's been written on social capital, why it's needed and how to build it. Some good places to look are listed below. But it's not like we need to learn how to do it. Most of us do it all the time. We give someone a recommendation or a referral. We take the time to listen when someone comes to us with a dilemma, even though we are running behind ourselves. We introduce two people that we think would get along. Social capital is what strengthens community, keeps relationships strong, and repairs misunderstandings or misbehavior. Building social capital is just as important a part of what leaders need to be doing as creating shared vision. It's an investment whose payoff is not guaranteed. However, as this mother reminded us, making that investment to reach out to people may well yield big dividends in the end. And if it doesn't? At least she made the connection.
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