ABSTRACT
Recent considerations of the notion of community leadership have been based on a view that emphasizes relationships and interaction rather than leader behavior. This perspective looks at leadership as an emergent property arising from specific kinds of relationships among community actors. A commensurate view of community is the interactional perspective or “field theory.” Synthesizing these two perspectives provides strong support for significant modifications to community leadership education and development approaches. Community leadership education based on leadership principles derived from studies in formal organizations can be misleading.
