I have my own experience as a leader in communities. Despite being fully aware that I did not lead complex groups, I had my "roller coaster" and remarkable experiences.
I had been a leader for my colleagues for almost 5 years and am still counting, I guess. To be honest, the first year will forever be the hardest to get through. It didn't take long for me to face problems and issues, such as clashes between members, gathering different opinions, and taking decisions in the middle of debates. I remembered that I tried to mediate my conflicting members and ended up smashing a table as they blamed each other intensely. Of course it didn't do anything; what did I expect? My members started to not listen to my instructions and didn't show up at gatherings. Maybe the last one is debatable. At the peak of my early years as a leader, I cried a lot. I cried when I realized how my community treated me; I cried when I remembered the reason I chose to be a leader; and I even cried when I wanted my members to get pity on me. The last things a leader should do.
After going through these stages, I would like to share my findings from my experiences as a leader.
The first thing has to be that we should set up our goal. What motivates us to be leaders? Do you find your answers to be self-based benefits? It is okay. But we need to consider that being a leader will get us into hard situations where some short or weak benefits may not be enough to drive us further. So, prepare our goals---big ones, strong ones---and do not forget to make sure that the benefits have a bigger portion for us than other people.
Secondly, make the members owe us as much gratitude as possible. I actually want to say "spend time with our friends," but I think the more precise purpose will be having so much trade-off with our members. Leadership among colleagues is more like a combination of romantic and business relationships. If we give others something, we will expect them to give back. If we don't give something meaningful, it will easily fade away. We can do simple things continuously, like giving attention, replying to stories, tilting our heads a little bit when they tell stories, or maybe sending inside jokes or the same interests reels. I am sorry to say this, but we need to do it every single chance we have. Why? We don't pay them. We always expect that they will follow us; unfortunately, they don't. People have their own world, goals, and interests. Following you without any tight-knit bonds is an unnecessary activity.
Thirdly, picture your members profiles, including their characteristics, capabilities, weaknesses, and interests. In a certain situation, we will be faced with the option of standing up for our community or facing external critics. It has been easier to evaluate other people than ourselves. Critics will always come from the outside, and sometimes they come from more superior communities. Will we be scared? It is easy to say, "We are not afraid, and we will be standing for our community!" but not giving an "f" to the critics will damage our images and relationships, which will give us disadvantages in the future. Morgan Housel, in his book "The Psychology of Money," says that people tend to make a make-sense decision rather than a rational one. What is the measurement of a make-sense decision? For me, it is a decision that is acceptable to our community. Communities have their own accepted cultural norms and standards. Therefore, picturing your community profile will give you better references to make decisions, both in the long and short term. But it is notable that being an "opo jare arek-areak" or "F all of them! Let's do what we want" is not always a good method to make a decision. As democracy has its own weaknesses, it is highly possible to be directed by the foolish. The wiser our community is, the better decisions we will make.
Fourthly, don't mix your personalities; manage them. We can be humorous, which I highly recommend, but we also need to know when to be serious. In some cases, leaders tend to mix their humorous parts with serious ones for better nuances. I believe that it is better to maintain our positive vibes to influence people but still have that label as the reliable person in the group. We don't mix different personalities, but rather we need to show people that we use it when we need it.
Fifthly, be a generalist, not a specialist. As a magnet and center of the community, we need to be reliable, at least in some fields. It will bring more power to us, as I mentioned in the second finding. The broader fields we know, the bigger potential power we can have. We want to make ourselves as reliable as possible. There will be communities inside the community, or what we called "circles." We need to build our power generally, but strong enough to influence the circles. We can also say that we need to have enough capability to open different circles's doors.
Well, it is too much typing for me today. I want to share my favorite line from Robert Kiyosaki's book, "Rich Dad, Poor Dad.".
"What is in your head determines what is in your hand."
Basic common sense, but not all people take it seriously. A leader shapes the community. Sometimes, we assume that our failures are caused by other people's mistakes. But maybe we are the problem. We are not wise enough to handle our community.
