Community leadership is critical for building communities that can grow and scale. This leadership isn’t just important for ensuring the community can make the right choices and accomplish their results, but also in training and developing future generations of participants and leaders. We simply can’t build a community without great leadership.

So, along these lines, at DevXCon in San Francisco I delivered a keynote on community leadership; a largely non-technical talk for a largely technical developer relations crowd.

“You are bonkers, Bacon”, I hear you say.

Well, hold your horses. Effective leadership, how we identify quality leaders, and how we foster great leadership at scale is critical to all communities, and isn’t a technology challenge. It is a culture challenge.

Here is the keynote:

Can’t see the video? Click here.

In the session I talk about:

• Behavioral economics and how it drives the way we think.
• The two different parts of our brain and how it affects our behavior.
• The importance of active listening.
• How we make more efficient decisions.
• How to get productive work done.
• The importance of humility and conviction.
• How self awareness is critical in developing leadership skills.
• An approach to formulating these principles in a way to consistently identify and grow community leaders and use them to mentor and grow others.

I talk quite a bit about community leadership. You may also want to check out Effect Project Management (Without Sucking), as well as how to use Mimicry and the Ikea Effect to develop more effective leadership

I would love to hear your ideas about what great leadership consists of and how you have approached this. Share your thoughts in the comments!