How can you build community relationships through service leadership?

It's important to go into interactions with the community not just with an in-ward focus, but with an out-ward focus and a system focus, which will help you pay attention to others involved and the organization(s) involved and not just on your own needs and agenda. An important element of building community relationships is to build trust and for that, people need to see that you are in it not just for yourself but that you have a genuine and authentic interest in helping others and providing value. So, think about the experience(s) and/or expertise you have that could be of value and of service to others and think about ways in which you can offer those to others generously and without a self agenda. Try that and see how it goes!

Building community relationships through services leadership is a wonderful way to fulfill the goal of supporting community organizations and making a positive impact. A three-pronged strategy I use when building relationships in a new setting is active community engagement, assessing the current needs, and collaborating with key stakeholders and changemakers. This process will increase the community's trust and confidence in you and your ability to assist them.

While understanding and engaging with your community are fantastically important to building an equitable and humane society, don't forget that the foundational element of such engagement is clear and honest communications. Being able to explain your ideas in simple easily understood terms will advance the chances for the success of any such conversation.

Der erste Schritt hin zu einer erfolgreichen Service Leadership, bei der der Aufbau von Beziehungen in der Community im Mittelpunkt steht, besteht darin, Ihre Community in all ihren Facetten zu verstehen. Dies beinhaltet die Ergründung ihrer St?rken, Herausforderungen, Bedürfnisse, Werte und Ziele. Um dieses Verst?ndnis zu erlangen, gibt es verschiedene Wege: von umfassenden Recherchen über Umfragen und Interviews bis hin zu Fokusgruppen und Beobachtungen.

It means deeply understanding your own community. This requires exploring strengths, challenges, values and aspirations through surveys, interviews or in-person interactions such as events and social media. By understanding your community, you can identify gaps, opportunities, and priorities to deliver services and advocacy more effectively.

One of the best ways of communicating your vision and particularly your values with your community is through actively demonstrating them. It's one thing to tell someone what you believe. But it's much more effective to show them through the decisions you make and actions you take.

This goes beyond just giving your community a seat at the table. It's important to provide the community with the agency to drive change. We must be thoughtful and intentional about sharing decision rights when possible. This takes transparency, authenticity, and awareness that on occasion we must fail forward. This can be especially true when a potential solution does not resonate with your community as intended.

Communities are comprised of people living together and having common interests in quality of life issues that shape their lives. They can encompass a few families living on a single block or hundreds of families living on the same side of town. Everyone shares the desire for a happy, healthy life. The challenge is recognizing that our differences provide us strength in confronting the problems we all face, rather then reasons to pull us apart.