COMMUNITY DYNAMICS

• Community dynamics

  • Community power
  • Leadership
  • Community relationships
  • Social change
• Pluralistic community power


  Individual influence with occasional collaborative grouping
• Elitist community power


  One person, family, or tightly-knit group or hierarchy
• Class-based community power


  Social class determines who holds power
• Growth machine community power


  Special interest; single-focus cause, certain sectors
• How can a community build power

  • Shared leadership (leadership development programming)
  • Civic involvement (in identifying important issues)
  • Citizen voice (in public prioritization and decision-making)
  • Developing structures are systems that allow for shared power and decision making
• Leadership


  Community leadership is the courage, creativity, and capacity to inspire participation, development, and sustainability for strong communities
• Top-down leadership


  Decision making process occurs at the highest level and is then communicated to the rest of the team
• Advantages vs disadvantages of top-down leadership


  A: saves time, less conflict, widespread familiarity, clearer communication, problems are easily located, faster implementation

  
  

  D: poor leadership impact, less room for creativity, team disengagement, low proximity to decision makers
• Bottom-up leadership 


  Those at the top of the pyramid welcome the shared expectations values and ideas from those under them to create plans and execute change.
• Advantages vs disadvantages of bottom-up leadership


  A: more informed decisions, better team morale, more room for creativity

  D: low momentum, shift in leadership dynamics, lack of high level insights
• Participative leadership


  A style of leadership in which all members of the organizations work together to make decisions. Participative leadership is also known as democratic leadership as everyone is encouraged to participate
• Community relationships


  May be long-term or short term and are often formed because of some type of commonality built within the community
• Competition


  Form of social action in which we strive against each other for the possession of our use of some limited material and non-material goods
• Conflict


  A clash of interest. The basis of conflict may vary but it is always a part of society. Basis of conflict may be personal, racial, caste, political and international
• Accommodation


  Is the process by which individuals and groups make the necessary internal adjustments to social situations which have been created by competition and conflict
• Cooperation


  Is an integrating activity, goal oriented, and conscious form of social interaction. It involves two elements: common end and organized efforts
• Social change


  Any significant alteration over time in behavior patterns and cultural values and norms. By "significant" alteration, sociologist mean changes yielding profound social consequences