Overall description of academic paper (100 words or less): As part of a larger mixed methods study, this quantitative study examined longitudinal trends in community leadership structures via four variables of interest: capacity for change, community growth mindset, civic engagement, and effective local leadership. Societal growth curve modeling, multiple regression, and trend analyses were conducted to compare communities with a record of community leadership success with their demographic and economic counterparts. Models revealed higher scores and a more favorable growth trajectory in capacity for change, growth mindset, civic engagement, and effective leadership for identified communities compared to their matched counterparts, offering insight into the dimensionality of community leadership structures.
Explanation of how academic paper relates to conference theme Innovative Pathways to Thriving Communities and conference track(s) selected (250 words or less): Today’s global challenges have complicated community thriving so much that community leaders can no longer rely on traditional leadership practices. Transformative change demands new ways of thinking about and practicing leadership development that considers both global realities and local norms. This research offers pathways toward an innovative approach to leadership development that goes beyond individual leader training to engage communities in creating a leadership ecosystem that builds more robust leadership capacity and culture. Our unique contribution to sustainable community thriving lies in moving past the band-aid approach of swooping in to do leader training at a single point in time. Rather, this approach concentrates on community-based systems that support community members in developing their gifts on their journey toward individual efficacy and community wellbeing. This study applied rigorous theoretical and empirical approaches to innovatively advance local and regional leadership structures that play a key role in promoting rural prosperity. The quantitative strand of this mixed-methods research design identified communities with strong leadership profiles and control communities with matched demographic and economic profiles to analyze the evolution of community leadership structural dimensions. As a result of this research, we see people-driven solutions and place-based collaborative opportunities to revolutionize community leadership development, incorporating existing leader development resources into a larger systemic approach to supporting strong rural community leadership systems capable of addressing climate, demographic, socioeconomic and other global challenges impacting the well-being and prosperity of rural communities.
Abstract: This quantitative study, as part of a larger mixed methods study, examined longitudinal trends in community leadership structures via four variables of interest: capacity for change, community growth mindset, civic engagement, and effective local leadership. Societal growth curve modeling, multiple regression, and trend analyses were conducted to compare communities with a record of community leadership success with their demographic and economic counterparts. Societal growth curve models indicated that the identified communities, collectively, demonstrated higher values on all four outcomes than matched communities and that this pattern held across time, whereby the identified communities consistently demonstrated higher scores on the outcomes at each time point included in the data and across all time points, revealing a more positive (or less negative) growth trajectory on the community leadership dimensions. Furthermore, multiple regression analyses for each pair of identified and matched communities revealed that, where significance was found, community group membership mattered. Taken together, communities with previous success in community development initiatives were observed to have noticeable and quantifiable growth in community leadership structures. These findings offer insight into the dimensionality of community leadership structures, opening innovative pathways for revolutionizing community leadership development into a larger systemic approach capable of addressing challenges impacting the well-being and thriving of rural communities.
