Leadership and power in fostering a collaborative community in a non-profit professional organization

Organization development issues among small-scale local professional organizations have rarely been addressed in the adult education human resource development (HRD) literature. In this paper, I provide a first-hand account of an organization development effort in an all-volunteer chapter of an HRD professional organization. This effort grew into an attempt to foster a professional community of practitioners, while examining the power dynamics within the group, specifically the power exercised by myself, as a leader of the group. Due to space constraints, I primarily focus on the self-study aspects of the process of forming the committee and working through issues of leadership and power. In September 2005, I was asked to become the director of a local area branch (LAB) of this chapter. The chapter covers a large geographic area and consists of four regions with separate (but affiliated) groups and activities. Each LAB has a director. This particular LAB had become inactive in the prior year, due to some leadership transitions and lack of member interest. After agreeing to take on the role, I planned to organize a few small activities, so that the local group would not fade away entirely. I was not interested in putting much work into this effort, due to other commitments. As I will explain later, my interest evolved and I became interested in seeing the group grow into an active professional development community for HRD practitioners. Action research was utilized as we sought these goals