Members of Leadership Asheville 24 participate in a team exercise on leadership and communications. Leadership participants (front to back): Elaine Robinson, Ed McGowan, Jr., Audran Stephens, Jackie Dula, Michael Shoffner, Gregory Wheeler, Kay Manley, Todd Sharpe, face obscured, Barry Hendren, Bill Kelley, and Kim Ferguson.

by Gerry Goertz

As Executive Director of Leadership Asheville for the last four-and-one-half years, I’ve had an opportunity to get to know more than 170 members of our community. Spending nine months with these participants has left me with the feeling that there is a real desire growing in the region: a desire to build a better community, not just for themselves, but for all members of the greater Asheville area.

Did they enter the program feeling that way? Based on my conversations, many did, although in most cases that wasn’t what motivated them to apply. Many different reasons were mentioned: the networking opportunity, meeting with community leaders, learning about the history of the area, analyzing community challenges, strengthening their leadership abilities, touring different parts of the area, etc.

Nine months later, something else emerges in addition to a stronger interest in building a better community. Having spent time together in class, on community interviews and in small team projects, there is an esprit de corps that you normally associate with the military and athletic teams. This spirit is accompanied by a trust among the participants that didn’t exist at the beginning of the program.

Over nine months, it’s amazing to see how having conversations about interests they share and how working shoulder-to-shoulder can produce mutual respect and trust. Once they get to know each other better, they aren’t so quick to question each other’s motives. They may not always agree on the solution, but they know that the other person cares about getting to a similar result. To me, this is one of the keys to building a stronger community. It is also an important element to acting differently. We must build trust among community leaders — a trust that each will act in good faith.

Knowing each other and their shared values better can often be the difference between healthy conflict and conflict that can tear a class, neighborhood, organization or community apart. In a speech Frederick Douglas made in 1857, he talks about the dangers of unhealthy conflict:

I am not trying to abolish conflict. There is great value in healthy conflict. And the dangers of group-think are real. Conflict can inspire creative leadership. Where there are fundamental conflicts over values, they should not be ignored in a sentimental yearning for consensus. The problem in our communities today is not that we have conflict, but that we manufacture conflict and exaggerate differences to the point where it is very difficult to make meaningful change. Too often we abandon basic civility and cannot disagree without questioning the motives of our adversaries. Our standard as we debate should be similar to doctors’ Hippocratic Oath: “Do no harm.” Disagree, but don’t tear the community apart as you do.

These words resonate with me and, I believe, with most of the nearly 1,000 citizens who have graduated from Leadership Asheville. They know that the quality of our conversations is an important element in building a healthier community.

At the end of the program, I also see a heightened sense of personal responsibility and accountability for the condition of our community. The Leadership Asheville experience stresses the importance of that responsibility to strengthen the civic capacity of our communities. Strong government and private sectors aren’t sufficient to ensure community health. Communities need a fundamentally new way of thinking about how a community does its business: a commitment to build a new collaborative approach to community leadership. Leadership Asheville graduates recognize the pitfalls of continuing business as usual. They know the importance of having leaders who are able to reach across boundaries and work constructively for community change.

One program can’t unite or change a community, but I do believe that the graduates of one program can. As part of the Leadership Asheville program, I’ve seen small groups come together and provide an extraordinary service to the community in just nine months. I’ve seen graduates go on to assume important public leadership roles in our community and observed important work performed by graduates about whom you never read. I’ve seen firsthand Leadership Asheville participants subscribing to the words of Parker Palmer, a Senior Advisor to the Fetzer Institute: “Let’s learn to think of community as a gift we have been given — and then embrace the hard work necessary to receive that gift. The work of community involves discipline and dialogue and accountability.”

Widespread citizen leadership is a critical component of a healthy community.

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