Leadership and Hierarchy -- Aurora 08:56, 21 June 2012 (PDT)
I'd like to comment for some lines on the part about leadership. Robin said, that he thinks that the statements of Barbara Epstien about leadership and the "automatic" development of leadership in groups is no longer valid due to internet technology. Barbara Epsien said, that in a group, there will always be some who become leaders and a leadership develops and to fail to recognize this is to ignore something that is there, with such ignorance leading to severe problems later, because the existence of leadership does not go away by denying it. I agree that a hierarchical leadership in terms of someone commanding others or imposing his will on others is not needed and should definitely be avoided. I think B. Epstien would agree on that. I would agree to Robin, that decisionmaking also does not need leadership and developing ideas does not either. This is especially true in internet based structures, but - at least in smaller groups - can also be possible without technology (talking circles etc). What I think, B.Epstien was referring to is the kind of leadership that consists of contributing a lot to the cause, having abilities or knowledge that can be respected by others and thus decisions on that area of expertise are given to certain "leaders". This would be fluctuating leadership. Basically it means that some person will have the time and enthusiasm to for example organize meetings, mediate talking circles, moderating a discussion forum, orgamize tents, materials etc, while others do not have so much time. Automatically, the role of that person in the group becomes different - and rightfully so, because otherwise would be to dismiss his/her work and contribution. The same goes for someone who has participated in organizing an event and who is in a group of newcomers. Automatically, that person is going to be asked how to organize things, due to his/her experience in that matter. Both examples are type of leadership that are neither opressive or hierarchical. They are also transient and leadership can change rapidly, even depending on the topic at hand (e.g. one person knows how to set up tents, the other how to organize food - one is then the "tent leader", the other the "food leader" for that single event).
So I think "leadership" is not supposed to be a bad word, just we are often conflating leadership with hierarchy and dominance due to our upbringing in a society that does connect these three things on a regular basis.
This is just my opinion, what do you think?