Brian Woytovich posted an interesting tweet the other day:
My I suggest, we appoint leadership to the #SharePoint #Community, & have a more organized effort helping one another through elected roles.
That simple suggestion pulled a few (some may say heated) responses from the Twittersphere about the effectiveness of any elected leadership within the community.
Though it did make me think of the concept of leadership altogether on the web.
I personally feel the traditional role of one or more people (even elected) representing what is quite a diverse and large community is unrealistic. Microsoft control the platform and take the lead on any changes in the vision or design. What is left for the ‘community’ to lead?
I think rather than leadership what we are really missing is a well-known centralised location where practitioners of all levels can get together and share ideas or problem solve. Built upon the ideals of an open community looking to share knowledge. An organised leadership could emerge around that; The Wikimedia foundation is a model which could be adopted.
In closing I feel before we worry about leadership, we need to focus on community.
