The Communities of Practice
Playbook

Joint Research Centre
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Leadership

  • Leadership

    How will you ensure strong leadership participation?

  • Core group

    How do you get your core group to steer the community?

  • Investment and sponsorship

    What are key elements to building trust and guaranteeing a safe place?

The components of community leadership are twofold: (1) leadership from inside the community of practice and (2) support, investment and participation from senior and middle management, the sponsor and the alliance of sponsors in the field of your community of practice.

In our understanding of community leadership, everyone is a leader when they take initiative, bring people together and take responsibility. A core group of community members taking the lead and steering the community has been identified as a key element for success in our research. The community appreciates and values their input.

Identify your community leaders and seek strong leadership participation. This section is very much linked to vision and community management (see Sections 3.2 and 3.7, respectively) and is about identifying the core group, the community leaders and other sponsors and influencers with authority in the practice. The members of the core group together work out how they will steer the community towards its vision and agree on what the community will commit to through the set governance processes

You will learn:

  1. how to identify your core group, leadership and sponsorship
  2. how to map and situate community leadership stakeholders in your community ecosystem
  3. how to form responsive and inclusive leadership structures