Transformation to leadership: Learning about self, the community, the organization, and the system

Leadership development is an important practice in community organizing. Although this importance is often acknowledged, relatively little scholarship details how leadership development is actually executed, or how concepts of leadership development are applied in organizing practice. This study reports on a thesis conducted by a community organizer utilizing a critical reflexive methodology. Eight active leaders from a community organizing effort in New Orleans, LA were interviewed about their interpretations of their own development as leaders. Leadership development as experienced by leaders is supplemented with observations from the organizer working with these leaders, providing triangulation on developmental processes in practice. Findings demonstrate the potential for transformation among community residents as they work to build collective power for social change.