ABSTRACT
This paper is based on the observation and reflection carried out during my practice and teaching of psychosocial community psychology concerning community leadership, a subject I have found difficult to grasp, sometimes exasperating, and full of surprises. I believe most community organisations and psychologists have had to lead with both the lack of community leaders, and the excesses of some community leaders, and every community psychologist knows how efficient and surprising can be community leaders. The reflections I want to share have been gathered at work with three community programmes in low income zones of the city of Caracas, Venezuela. The data were collected between 1992-2001 under the form of fieldwork notes, interviews, and group discussions carried out by myself (Montero, 1995) and by some of my undergraduate and graduate students (Farias, 2002), and research assistants (Domínguez, 2001). What I have done is to study the interviews and transcriptions of discussions looking for the narratives of leaders of those communities, referring to their conception of their task as conductors of community activities, and compare them with my own notes (another narrative), describing community working sessions, workshops, and assemblies where they had participated. And this is what I have learned and produced out of that process.
