Understanding Local Leadership in Building the Capacity of Rural Communities in Australia

Contributed Papers

Understanding Local Leadership in Building theCapacity of Rural Communities in Australia

AMANDA DAVIESSchool of Social Sciences and Asian Languages, Curtin University of Technology, GPO Box U1987,Perth, WA 6845, Australia. Email: [email protected]

Received 30 November 2006; Revised 27 September 2007; Accepted 14 February 2008

AbstractCurrent approaches to rural community development in Australia provide forlimited government intervention. Such intervention is usually housed withinprogrammes that seek to build the internal capacity of communities to achievelong term socio-economic sustainability. A fundamental implementation strategyfor capacity building has been developing local leadership. The underlyingassumption of this approach is that good leadership will result in existingresources being mobilised for a more sustainable function and new resourcesattracted. What though is good leadership in terms of building the capacity ofrural communities to develop sustainable socio-economic futures? This papercompares the conceptualisation of leadership within rural development policiesand leadership training programmes with the nature of local leadership as it existsin on-ground community building projects. From an in-depth review of the roleand nature of local leadership within six Australian rural communities it wasfound that local leadership could result in improved adaptive capacity if theleadership is similar in nature to Burn’s (1978) transformational model of lead-ership. Within policy, local leadership was most often conceptualised as beingsimilar to this transformational model. However, rural leadership training pro-grammes tended to conceptualise leadership as a top-down process, similar toBurn’s (1978) transactional model. While this study of leadership within ruralcommunities revealed that transactional skills, as taught in leadership trainingprogrammes, were important for successful project management, such skills didnot necessarily result in improved community adaptive capacity. It is suggestedthat, while transactional leadership can have an important role in influencing thedevelopment of rural communities, greater attention needs to be given to devel-oping strategies to support transformational leadership.

KEY WORDS Capacity building; leadership; rural development; rural leaders

Introductiongeor_586 380..389

As neoliberal ideologies continue to dominatethe rural policy landscape (Beer et al., 2005),capacity building has become a popular policyapproach to rural development. Capacity buildingpolicies encourage, and necessitate, communitiesand industries to ‘better’ utilise existing capitalresources – particularly produced, natural and

human capital – to adapt to changing socio-economic conditions and generate new viablesocio-economic structures. Capacity buildingapproaches also see governments maintain a‘governing at a distance’ position, with limiteddirect financial or infrastructure investment beingprovided to rural communities or industries(Herbert-Cheshire, 2000). Most capacity building

380 Geographical Research • December 2009 • 47(4):380–389doi: 10.1111/j.1745-5871.2009.00586.x

mailto:[email protected]

policies for rural development, at State andNational scale, tend to promote activities thatenhance human and social capital with the desiredoutcome being growth in socio-economic func-tions and economic resources. There is, however,a significant degree of disjuncture between theoutcome priorities of capacity building policiesand those possible through current implementa-tion frameworks.

The purpose of this paper is to identify thenature of local leadership in endogenous capacitybuilding initiatives and to consider how thisdiffers from the nature of leadership as promotedin policy rhetoric and taught in rural leadershiptraining courses. The paper begins with a reviewof the emergence of the capacity buildingapproach within rural development policy inAustralia and explores how the role of leadershiphas been conceptualised as being an implemen-tation tool for capacity building. The nature oflocal leadership, as characterised in capacitybuilding policies and associated leadership train-ing programmes, is then reviewed and contrastedwith the characteristics of local leadership asobserved in a number of endogenous develop-ment projects. It is argued that the conceptuali-sation of the nature of leadership in capacitybuilding policies, and in associated implementa-tion programmes, is not consistent with thenature of local leadership as it was empiricallyobserved in rural communities. This research fur-thers our understandings of the role and nature oflocal leadership in rural communities and of howthis might relate to the adaptive capacity of ruralcommunities.

Emergence of the capacity building approachfor rural developmentAustralia’s rural development policies have beensignificantly reshaped over the last few decades.In general terms, rural development policy hasbecome increasingly influenced by neoliberalideologies, moving away from protectionist andinterventionist style policies (Argent, 2005;HORSCOPIARS, 2000; Productivity Commis-sion, 1999). During the 1970s and 1980s govern-ment financial and infrastructure investment inrural industries and communities was signifi-cantly rolled back. This shift away from protec-tionist and interventionist policies, largely inresponse to changes to Australia’s internationaltrading arrangements, improved access to inter-national markets, and at the same time the chang-ing demands of consumers propelled a ‘freeing-up’ of market regulations (Emy and Hughes,

1991; Sorensen and Epps, 1993). For rural areas,the shift to market-based drivers for servicedelivery and rural development affected not onlyindustry but also local economies and communi-ties (Gray and Lawrence, 2001). Beer (2000) andTonts and Haslam-McKenzie (2005) providegood reviews of the development of, and changesto, rural policy over the last four decades.Numerous researchers, including Lawrence(1987), Argent and Rolley (2000), Tonts andJones (1997) and Gray and Lawrence (2001)have outlined the nature of the social and eco-nomic impacts that the restructuring of govern-ment involvement in rural development has hadon Australia’s rural communities. They arguedthat the winding back of government investmentin rural communities and industries had uneven,and wide reaching negative impacts, finding thatmarket-based mechanisms for social and eco-nomic development had seriously underminedthe viability of many small inland and marginalrural communities.

Following significant political backlash duringthe 1996 Federal election to this market-basedapproach to rural development, governmentsonce again adjusted their approach (McManusand Pritchard, 2000). Narrow, market-basedapproaches were tempered and State and Federalgovernments positioned themselves to provideincreased, although still limited, support andguidance for rural industries and communities(Tonts and Haslam-McKenzie, 2005). This newapproach recognised the need for rural com-munities to perform in an economically viablemanner, but also that governments had a role inhelping communities to achieve a viable futurebeyond simply maintaining the security andprosperity of the economy at a national scale.Peck and Tickell (2002) recognised similartrends in North America and Europe describingthe increased involvement of government in ruraldevelopment as a mutation of neoliberalism,rather than a shift away from it.

Currently, rural policy in Australia is designedto ‘assist communities to assist themselves’ toachieve a viable economy (and society) by betterutilising existing resources (see for example,Department of Local Government and RegionalDevelopment, 2002). Governments have posi-tioned themselves as the provider of guidancefor rural community development efforts, whilemaintaining policies that offer only very limiteddirect financial or infrastructural investment forrural capacity building. This approach to regionaldevelopment aims to improve the resilience of

A. Davies: Understanding Local Leadership in Building the Capacity of Rural Communities in Australia 381

© 2009 The AuthorJournal compilation © 2009 Institute of Australian Geographers

vulnerable communities, as well as to furtherenhance the capacity of those that are alreadyperforming strongly (Kenyon and Black, 2001).Governments support capacity building by pro-viding training and mentoring for communityprojects and business development and someopportunities for funding for ‘appropriate’ com-munity and industry ventures.1

Capacity building policies are fundamentallyconcerned with building the internal capacityof rural communities, meaning building theresources within a community so that thecommunity will be able to adapt to changingconditions without on-going external assistance(Macadam et al., 2004). To date, implementa-tion of capacity building policies have largelyfocused on skilling selected residents in the useof leadership and project management tools. Theresults of these capacity building policies have,however, been limited. This paper reviews theeffectiveness of leadership training as animplementation strategy for community capacitybuilding through comparing conceptualisationsof leadership in policy and training strategieswith leadership as it existed in on-ground com-munity building initiatives. The purpose of thisinquiry is to identify the nature(s) of local lead-ership that result(s) in improved communityadaptive capacity, and to identify how policymight be developed to better support thison-ground capacity building.

Leadership in policy: leadership in practiceRecent policies for rural development have pro-moted local leadership as a principal means offostering capacity building in rural communities(Department of Transport and Regional Services,2004). Subsequently, leadership training pro-grammes have proliferated. The developmentof rural local leadership has been specificallyidentified as an aim in many policies, includingthose concerning health, economic developmentand environmental management, and as beingan important means by which communities canadapt to change (Haslam McKenzie, 2002;Department of Local Government and RegionalDevelopment, 2002). This role for rural leader-ship is also supported by the findings of recentcase study based research (see McKinsey andCo., 1994; Johns et al., 2001; Epps andSorensen, 1996; Sorensen and Epps, 1996).Leaders in rural communities have been creditedwith revitalising communities, generating neweconomic prosperity and strengthening socialbonds (Kenyon, 1999; Sorensen, 2002). Interest-

ingly, though, despite the efforts of govern-ments to promote the virtues of rural leadership,there is limited research which specifically inter-rogates the extent to which rural leadership caninfluence the socio-economic viability of ruralcommunities.

Leadership training programmes, explicitlydesigned to improve the capacity of rural com-munities, have been running for more than tenyears and represent an investment from Stateand Federal governments of tens of millions ofdollars in rural development. Such programmespromote local leaders as people who can putforward their ideas and solutions to deal withproblems, and who can and will implement strat-egies (including sourcing funding and volun-teers) to deal with these problems2. Communityleaders are recognised as having, or at leastrequiring, skills in community planning, facilita-tion, team building and conflict resolution, andimportantly as being able to move from projectto project, dealing with a range of issues andimplementing a range of solution strategies (seeDepartment of Local Government and RegionalDevelopment, 2002, 24; Kenyon, 1999). Despitethese efforts to ‘skill’ rural leaders throughformal training, many rural community and busi-ness representatives argue that these training pro-grammes have had little impact in securing thesocio-economic viability of rural communities.This is certainly not to say that local communityand business leaders have not had significantpositive impacts in some communities (seeSorensen and Epps, 1996), rather that leadershiptraining programmes have been criticised forfalling far short of intended goals (Barker, 1997).

Rural leadership training programmes aredeveloped on the assumption that, for effectiveleadership, individuals need to be competentin a number of pre-determined leadership tasks.Within this conceptualisation of leadership, it isthe individual who holds all the necessary com-ponents for leadership to be effective. Trainingprogrammes teach the individual how to writegrant applications, network with stakeholders,manage teams and, financially manage projects.Andersen et al. (2002) reviewed the content of48 leadership programmes offered in New SouthWales in 2001. They found that there was anoverwhelming focus on simply developing theindividual’s skills and abilities. This top-downapproach is evident in many leadership pro-grammes. Table 1 provides a summary of theSouth Australian Rural Leadership programme,which is a representative example. This

382 Geographical Research • December 2009 • 47(4):380–389


programme is run over six days each year and haslimited places for participants who are selectedon their demonstrated capacity to be involved inleadership roles. This is also a typical character-istic of many rural leadership programmes.

The conceptualisation of leadership withinleadership training programmes as being a ‘top-down’ phenomenon is closely based on Burn’s1978 definition of transactional leadership.Transactional leaders are those who assign, or getagreement on, what needs to be done, usually inexchange for rewards for satisfactorily carryingout these assignments (Burns, 1978). Transac-tional leaders also monitor the progress of activi-ties and take corrective action when they deviatefrom the prescribed path (Burns, 1978). Subse-quent research has indicated that this type oftop-down ‘change management’ leadership iseffective in corporate and institutional environ-ments which have fairly tightly defined opera-tional parameters (Bass, 1998). Rada (1999)suggests that this model of leadership may not beas effective in groups that have more fluid opera-tional parameters – and perhaps in much morecomplex socio-economic systems and networks.Nevertheless, rural leadership programmes thathave been run in Australia over the last decadehave focused on teaching ‘key’ individuals coreskills based on the top-down transactional model.Of these type of programmes Epps and Sorensen(1996, 376) comment,

There are leadership training courses avail-able but the results are often less thanconvincing. Very few [previous courseparticipants] provided any indication thatthese actually produced leaders. Rather, theywere seen to have the capacity to improve

people’s confidence, develop a sense of com-mitment, and encourage them to stand up forwhat they believe in. To some extent, they canfoster better managerial and executive skills,but the prospect of them creating leaders [nec-essary for improving community capacity] isremote.

By way of contrast to this conceptualisation ofleadership, rural development rhetoric (withinpolicy) tends to promote a conceptual model ofleadership similar to Burns’ (1978) transfor-mational model of leadership. Transformationalleadership involves ‘leaders and followersworking together to develop mutual goals, torecognise and achieve higher order needs basedon the needs hierarchies postulated by develop-ment theorists, and to intend substantive change’(Rada, 1999, 18). Transformational leadershipinvolves the transformation of both the group andorganisation and the people involved. It is nottop-down and can occur between all levels of anorganisation or society (Rada 1999). Einstein andHumphreys (2001) suggest that the ultimate goalof transformational leaders is to bring the follow-ers up to a level where they are able to achievesuccess in accomplishing the tasks associatedwith a project and take ownership of a projectwithout the leader’s direct involvement. There-fore, transformational leadership for rural devel-opment is concerned with building the capacityof rural dwellers to be able to effectively respondto future challenges as they arise. Rural policiestend to describe leadership in terms similar tothose of the transformational model, as acomplex relationship between leaders and theircommunity, with leaders’ roles extending beyondchange management. However, the implementa-

Table 1 Content of the South Australian Rural Leadership Programme.

• Personal and community leadership, self esteem, vision and values� Develop a vision for rural South Australia

• Communication skills� Learn to communicate more effectively through increased skills in listening, questioning and being more assertive

• Mentoring, team work, problem solving� Use a practical tool for mentoring, team work and problem solving; Develop an agreement with a mentor

• Strategic planning decision making, change management� Understand the strategic planning process; Understand personal core values and link values with decision making;

Understand the concept of conflict of interest• Working with governments and boards

� Understand the role and process of government• Facilitation

� Develop facilitation techniques

Source: Department of Primary Industries and Resources South Australia, 2007.



tion strategies for these policies tend to followthe top-down transactional model.

Given this disjuncture between how leadershipis described in policy and how it is taught intraining programmes, it is interesting to con-sider how local leadership operates in practice inrural communities. In particular, it is interest-ing to consider the nature of local leadershipthat has resulted in improved adaptive capacity(for example, more residents becoming activelyinvolved in initiating and managing efforts toimprove community socio-economic viability),and that which has not, and the relationship ofboth with that which is promoted in trainingprogrammes and development policy.

The nature of local leadershipfor rural developmentIn reviewing the role and nature of local leader-ship in influencing rural community adaptivecapacity, the recent socio-economic developmenthistory of six small inland agricultural commu-nities in Australia was examined3. These commu-nities, all with populations of less than 1500, hadfaced similar development pressures largelyassociated with changes in the dominant agricul-tural industry and, given their small size, theyhad limited capacity to develop significant newindustries. Issues of declining youth populationand in-migration, declining economic activityand diversity, and declining social and sportingnetworks were all typical of the communitiesstudied. The research examined how the natureof their community leadership had influenced thesocio-economic development of these six smallagricultural towns over the previous 5–10 yearperiod.

Socio-economic profiles for each commun-ity charting the trends in social and economicactivities and population were constructed.Information on new businesses, business turn-over, business staffing and business closures wascollected through a review of local newspapers,phonebooks, council minutes and other relevantdocuments. Interviews with current councilmembers provided further information. Similarsources were used to gather information onchanges to the social networks and facilities. Thisinformation was used to identify two endogenousdevelopment projects aimed at improving thesocio-economic viability for each communityand also relevant informants. Following this aseries of in-depth interviews with 51 communityleaders from the six towns were conductedbetween 2002 and 2004. In addition to this, a

number of supporting interviews were conductedwith other community members, with represen-tatives from the various government agenciesresponsible for promoting and running leader-ship training for rural capacity building, and withparticipants in leadership training programmes.The data from the interviews were used to tracethe development of leadership in two endog-enous socio-economic development projectsfrom each community (twelve in total). Table 2provides a summary of the nature of each project,the type of leadership involved and the outcomeof each project.

The study revealed that the nature of leader-ship and indeed the role of the leaders oftenchanged through the course of a project, gener-ally progressing from transactional to transfor-mational. Skills taught in leadership trainingprogrammes, including grant writing and projectmanagement, were important to the successfulrunning of a project. However, projects thatfacilitated enhanced socio-economic vibrancy ofthe community were those that generated widecommunity support and enabled communityparticipation. Projects that simply adopted atop-down leadership model, and maintained thisstyle of leadership throughout the project, wereoften successful in delivering new infrastructureor resources to the community; however theywere frequently lacking in community supportand participation. Such top-down projectstended to be one-off projects. The lack ofcommunity participation resulted in residentsnot being in a position to leverage the capitalbuilt through the project, be it institutional, pro-duced or human, to develop further communitybuilding activities. Such top-down projects didnot facilitate community ownership of theproject or, more importantly, the wider socio-economic development issue being addressed bythe project.

On the other hand, in projects where theleaders actively engaged community partici-pation, residents became actively involved insubsequent community building efforts. Thistransformational leadership style, which encour-aged wide community participation, also facili-tated formation of new social networks andlearning opportunities about leadership andproject management.

As previously mentioned, the nature of lead-ership tended to change throughout the course ofa project. In particular, this was the case withthose projects that developed transformationalleadership. Most projects required effective



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transactional leadership skills in their initialstages. Transformational leadership generallyemerged as projects became increasingly visibleto the wider community, and as the wider com-munity became increasingly involved in, or sup-portive of, the project. The study revealed that,while transactional leadership, which is the styletaught in leadership training programmes, doesnot encourage wide community participation orfacilitate on-going community building efforts,transactional ‘top-down’ skills are important forthe successful development and implementationof community development projects. Effectivetransactional leadership can be the platformfrom which transformational leadership (whichfacilitates improved community capacity) canbe developed. The following examples illustratehow transactional leadership is important for thesuccessful establishment and management of aproject and how transformational leadership isimportant in generating community support andinvolvement which thereby leads to the buildingof community capacity.

The first example is drawn from a WesternAustralian Wheatbelt community with just over1000 residents. In response to declining partici-pation in traditional social clubs and networks, aproject was initiated by local leaders (who werenot in formal leadership positions) to provideresidents with a new venue for social activitiesand networking and thereby to improve the socialvibrancy of the community. Traditional socialmeeting places such as sporting clubs hadsteadily declined in patronage over previousdecades due to long-term socio-cultural andpopulation changes. As a consequence, manyresidents were no longer participating incommunity building efforts, such as busy beesor fundraising drives. Furthermore, as resid-ents increasingly accessed social opportunitiesoutside of the town, they also shifted their busi-ness and shopping activities outside of the town.These socio-cultural and population changesresulted in the closure of some businesses andsocial functions and therefore undermined theviability of the community.

The project leaders realised that, to increasethe viability of the town, there needed to beincreased participation in community activities.

The community needs to get more involved inthe town. People need to realise that if theydon’t help themselves no one will. The councilcan’t do everything. They can’t force peopleto participate (respondent BK9).

It was also recognised that the town needed todifferentiate itself from nearby towns which wereessentially in competition for the same market.The town had to provide some facility that wouldattract increased community participation, butwhich was not in direct competition with whatwas offered in nearby towns, and which wouldprovide a new social meeting venue, away fromthe declining sporting clubs.

We needed something that would make thetown unique, that others didn’t have and thatthe residents would be proud of (respondentBK1).

To encourage community participation, and toprovide residents with a central meeting place,the Council built an amphitheatre in the mainstreet of town, opposite the shopping precinct.Throughout the planning and building phasescommunity consultation was sought, and,through these efforts, support for the projectgrew. Once the building was complete, a numberof local people became closely involved withrunning events and maintaining the amphitheatre.

The amphitheatre is equipped with profes-sional lighting and sound equipment and is thussuitable for plays, concerts and meetings. Sincethe amphitheatre was opened a number oflarge regional theatre performances have beenattracted to play in the town. Also, a number ofmusic concerts and local meetings have beenheld in the amphitheatre. As part of the amphi-theatre complex the land adjacent to it was devel-oped into a civic art park. Community memberswere actively engaged in the planning of thisspace and invited to submit sculptures andother forms of suitable art to be placed in thepark. This part of the project received over-whelming support from the community, withpark benches, rubbish bins, garden sculpturesand paving stones, created by local residents,donated to the park. Each piece of artwork dealtwith a subject relating to the unique culture andlifestyle in the area.

Throughout the project the objective was notsimply to acquire a new facility for the town butto establish a facility that would encourage wideparticipation in social events. There was recog-nition that the process of designing and buildingthe project itself could be a valuable commun-ity capacity building activity. Indeed, throughinvolvement in the project, a number of residentsgained improved transactional leadership skills,including experience in project management.Furthermore, many residents became aware of



the role that the community could have in over-coming at least some socio-economic problems.Since the amphitheatre was built, a number ofnew social clubs associated with the facility havebeen established. Some community members,who took on leadership roles in the project, havesince led other community development projects.Also, a number of new residents reported that theamphitheatre and the social activities associatedwith it had influenced their decision to move tothe community.

The second example occurred in a nearbyWheatbelt community, with a similarly smallpopulation and facing similar socio-economicdevelopment pressures. In this case the projectalso aimed at developing a unique social meetingvenue. However, this project specifically targetedyouth. The aim of the project was to provide afacility for local youth to develop social net-works and ties to the community. It was antici-pated that, if youth developed strong positivesocial networks with the community they weremore likely to remain in the community follow-ing their education. This project was aimed atreducing the high population out-migration rate,particularly among those aged 15–24. Unlike inthe first community, where the project was led bya team of volunteers and coordinated by theCouncil, this project was led by a single localresident who also had formal involvement withthe local Progress Association.

The leadership in this project closely followedthe top-down model. The leader designed theproject and secured a State Government grant tofund the project. The leader then revealed to thecommunity (at a local Progress Associationmeeting) that there would be a ‘youth base’ con-structed in the town. Although many communitymembers were pleased that the State Governmenthad recognised the town’s need for financialsupport to improve its social capacity, there wasa high level of community opposition to the‘youth base’ project. Generally, residents wereangry that they had not been consulted and sub-sequently felt that they had little power to influ-ence the social development trajectory of thecommunity. Despite the overwhelming opposi-tion to the project, the leader designed an imple-mentation strategy for the project which did notaccount for the community concerns and did notactively seek community participation.

Due to the community opposition, the ‘youthbase’ project was largely boycotted by residents.They were concerned that their children wouldnot have any supervision at the ‘youth base’ and

that, without appropriate supervision, negativesocial networks could be formed. In this case,due to the lack of consultation with the commu-nity and lack of community involvement, theproject was not successful in improving theadaptive capacity of the community. Whilethe leader’s top-down transactional style washighly effective for securing a valuable asset forthe community in the form of a building, theleader’s actions also resulted in many commu-nity members feeling isolated from local com-munity power nodes.

In more recent times, following the ‘boycott’of the facility, the project leader has acknowl-edged the concerns of residents. In an effort tomake sure that youth at the centre are supervisedand are encouraged to participate in positivesocial networks and behaviours, the leader hassecured funding for a support officer. The role ofthe support officer is to provide structured socialactivities and support for youth attending the‘youth base’. The ‘youth base’ is now well uti-lised for both formal and informal activities andis widely supported by the community. As aresult of activities run at the ‘youth base’, thelocal youth have become more involved in com-munity groups and activities. Participation insporting clubs has also increased.

The youth base has been here for three yearsnow and up until late last year it was consid-ered the worst lemon in [our community]. . . Because a small select group were verykeen on it and in particular one person andthe majority of the community did not want tosee it. They did not think that our youthneeded anything. And they couldn’t see thatour kids needed something to keep them here,to keep them occupied. They thought that thebasic sport, maybe a bit of TV and the pool,that should be enough. They couldn’t realisethat the kids needed more than just thosethings. They need other things to occupy them.There is still a lot of resistance but the youthbase is a classic. We really stuck by it and wehave a few people who have been very keenabout it (respondent H1).

In this case, the leader demonstrated a very effi-cient style of transactional leadership. As a resultthe community secured a valuable facility.However, the leader’s initial marginalisation ofcommunity concerns and failure to engage resi-dents in the project resulted in many residentsfeeling powerless and excluded from communitydevelopment efforts. Contrastingly, in the first



community where the leadership style was moretransformational in nature and therefore activelysought to involve residents, many residents wereempowered, learnt new skills, developed newsocial networks and went on to be involved insubsequent development initiatives.

ConclusionAs direct government investment into small ruralcommunities has declined over the last fewdecades, rural communities have had to adjust tothis decreased level of support and to learn toeffectively mobilise and diversify their existingresources. More recent government approachesto rural development recognise that communitiesneed to take responsibility for their own futuresbut also recognise that governments have a rolein assisting communities to achieve this. Localleadership has been highlighted in rural devel-opment rhetoric as being a major factor in influ-encing a community’s capacity to adapt. As aconsequence, rural leadership training pro-grammes have proliferated.

This paper has argued that the current con-ceptualisation of the role and nature of leader-ship in policy, which is similar to Burn’s (1978)transformational model, differs significantlyfrom leadership as it is currently taught in train-ing programmes. Within rural leadership trainingprogrammes, leadership tends to be concep-tualised as being similar to Burn’s (1978)transactional model. This model advocates thedevelopment of leaders who take on top-downchange management roles and focus on develop-ing skills such as grant writing and project man-agement. In this model, the individual leader isregarded as the possessor of the necessary quali-ties to develop a ‘successful’ project. Such topdown leaders are often successful in acquiringnew funding and new infrastructure for theircommunity. However if they fail to translate theirtransactional leadership skills to others, they canfail to engage the community in taking owner-ship of their development efforts.

Through studying the role and nature of leader-ship in six small agricultural communities it wasidentified that the leadership style most likely toresult in improved community capacity wassimilar to Burn’s transformational leadership.Leaders who actively sought community partici-pation and encouraged and facilitated subsequentcommunity development efforts made a greatercontribution to building a community’s adaptivecapacity than did those leaders who closely sub-scribed to Burn’s transactional model. However,

the study also revealed that, in all cases, effectivetransactional leadership skills were required.Leaders needed to know how to effectivelymanage projects and project finances. These‘management’ skills were frequently the focus ofrural leadership training courses. From thisresearch it was found that, while it is likely thatrural leadership training courses can be useful inimproving rural residents’ ‘project managementskills’ they cannot in isolation enhance the adap-tive capacity of rural communities.

NOTES1. For example see the New South Wales Community

Development Grants Programme available at www.communitybuilders.nsw.gov.au/funding/2902.html

2. See for example: Victoria’s ‘Community Capacity Build-ing Initiative’; South Australia’s ‘Rural Leadership Pro-gramme’, and; Queensland’s ‘Building Rural LeadersFoundation Programme’.

3. This research was completed as part of the author’s PhDstudies. Further details are available in Davies, 2005 andDavies, 2007.

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Documents

Understanding Local Leadership in Building the Capacity of Rural Communities in Australia