Guest Post: 6 Principles to Lead a Thriving Community
Guest Author: Virginie Glaenzer
Today, communities have become a tool and a marketing tactic for many organizations used to build brand awareness and sell more of their products.
Years ago, American Express started a small business community until they forgot that their brand matters less than their audience’s needs and challenges. I also often hear people complaining about WeWork‘s unfulfilled promise of their “private, professional, social network for members to access the global community “.
However, when a community is based on good intention and thought as a way to improve people’s lives, it can infuse an amazing feeling of empowerment and life-changing opportunities for the community as a whole, and for the leader of that community.
A few years ago, while working as the EVP Marketing for an energy company located in Brooklyn, NY, I hired Tom Asacker, a brand consultant who taught me several leadership values that, today, as the Founder of the AcornOak Agency, I teach in my innovation workshop.
Here are those 6 principles on how to lead a thriving community and empower other people:
Principle #1: Be a Guide
It starts with an awareness and a choice of leading a team by being their guide, a sort of sherpa because it’s about helping people go where they desire to go. The key is really to turn the expectation into a selfless desire for the well being of the other person. It’s not about your journey, rather, it’s about their own journey.
Principle #2: Understand Your Community
Once you have made the decision to guide people where they want to go, you need to understand their perspectives, their desires, and their beliefs. This requires a true listening approach based on a Socratic method and a suspension of your current assumptions. Ask them what it is that they are trying to accomplish.
