Build the Team

Section Contents:

Social justice advocates often struggle with questions of effectiveness: “How do we plan better; how do we more powerfully deliver our message?” In seeking to be more effective, the answer may lie not in “how,” but in “who.”

Before focusing on strategy planning or message development and delivery, we suggest you take a step back and look first at the team that's leading and carrying out your campaign. Might you be missing some key players?

At the Advocacy and Leadership Center, we've worked with effective social justice advocates to identify the distinct, yet complementary leadership roles that are almost always present in a successful campaign. We find that the right combination of leadership roles can result in a coalition that responds faster, more flexibly, more strategically to its challenges, increasing its chances of success. Our current version of this evolving "taxonomy," or set of leadership roles, includes:

• Visionaries who raise the view of the possible
• Strategists who chart the vision and achieve what's attainable
• Statespersons who elevate the cause in the minds of both the public and decision-makers
• Experts who wield knowledge to back up the movement's positions
• Outside Sparkplugs who goad and energize, fiercely holding those in power to account
• Inside Advocates who understand how to turn power structures and established rules and procedures to advantage
• Strategic Communicators who deploy the rhetoric to intensify and direct public passion toward the movement's objectives
• Movement Builders who generate optimism and good will, infecting others with dedication to the common good
• Generalists who anchor a movement, grounded in years of experience
• Historians who uphold a movement's memory, collecting and conveying its stories
• Cultural Activists who pair movements with powerful cultural forces

Though some individuals may fill several roles, no one person can fill them all. Assess your campaign and leadership team to identify which roles are missing so you can be strategic in bringing in new leaders or developing existing ones.