People usually don’t know they have a weakness, or they deny that they have it. Some weaknesses for community leaders are being cold and uncaring, overly defensive, and reluctance to give praise to others. Mentoring and training can help community leaders overcome their weaknesses. However, some weaknesses that community leaders have can be chronic character flaws. Sometimes a therapist is needed to help the community leader resolve their more serious and chronic character flaws. It is useful for community leaders to recognize their flaws and correct them.
Key Takeaways:
- There a number of ways that a community leader can evoke qualities that can be detrimental to the growth of the community.
- One way is if the community leader comes off as cold and therefore unwilling to offer praise for good efforts.
- Besides a seeming lack of empathy, a community leader can seem to lack engagement with other users. Leaders that do engage can seem less than confident in their views and advice.
“For example, if you didn’t receive much praise as a child or always felt in competition with a sibling for attention, you might be reluctant to give praise and feel you need to ‘win’ an argument against members. These probably need a trained therapist (p.s. there’s no shame in working with a therapist to rectify these weaknesses).”
