Home Concepts Concepts of Leadership Community Engagement The Varieties of Civic Involvement: Senior Sage Leaders

The Varieties of Civic Involvement: Senior Sage Leaders

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Reflections

Civic engagement in organizations that serve youth are particularly compelling and gratifying for many senior sage leaders. Often they do this for their own children who are now parents, and that bridge across three generations is critical for the community’s vitality because it keeps Grass Valley and Nevada City from “becoming an old folks community” — or what Robert Bellah and his colleagues calls “lifestyle enclaves” that can derail our American democratic experience.

The Meta-Level Organization

Most communities have service organizations like Rotary and distinctive nonprofit organizations like Music in the Mountains and the United Way. Grass Valley and Nevada City are blessed to have a third type of organization: The Center for Nonprofit Leadership (CNL). CNL sponsors nonprofit leadership seminars and offers best practice workshops and forums that help to strengthen and advance the 50 nonprofit member organizations that take advantage of its services. This third, meta-level type of organization is rarely found in most communities, and we believe it is critical to the fostering and promoting of senior-level sage engagement in Twin Towns.

Community Leadership: Diversity and Nimbleness of the Heart

Most senior sages are able to identify a litany of nonprofit organizations in which they are actively engaged; on average, each is involved in at least three, ranging from political action groups to arts organizations and from work with youth to work with the elderly. Senior sages are also involved in multiple sectors of community life. Lessons learned in one (e.g., the arts) are applied to a second (e.g., the environment) and to a third (e.g., politics), and the networks established with one are engaged on behalf of the others.

In many instances the unifying factor is the interest that senior sage leaders have in the complex workings of Grass Valley and Nevada City. As they begin to understand the various community sectors, they come to fully appreciate the interwoven relationships that exist; and when this happens they see the need to become involved in more than one sector. The hearts of senior sages are diverse, and these sages are nimble in their movement across boundaries as they acquire knowledge and experience in many areas. They are even more agile in their capacity to simultaneously keep many balls in the air and—perhaps most telling—deft in their capacity and willingness to engage various leadership styles and strategies in different organizations.

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2 Comments

  1. Jefferson Davis

    March 15, 2013 at 1:26 am

    I am impressed with your article William. Civic leadership is crucial for the societies to survive. You discussed about senior sage leaders and their way of undertaking tasks in a beautiful way. However, I will suggest some type of leadership coaching for these leaders.

    Reply

  2. libraryofprofessionalcoaching

    March 15, 2013 at 9:14 am

    I agree with Jefferson. We do need to trace out the implications of the Sage Leadership research study for those who are coaching the emerging and senior sage leaders. We would be pleased to insert articles in our new issue of Sage that trace out these implications.

    Reply

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