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Leadership Development Working Group/LDP/section 2

< Leadership Development Working Group
Leadership Development Plan

Through calls, surveys, and brainstorming sessions, community members emphasized the following as common leadership topics that need attention and guidance. These include:

  • Burnout and Managing Stress
  • Encouraging Diversity, Equity and Inclusion in Leadership
  • Toxic or Ineffective Leadership
  • Self-Assessment and Continuous Learning
  • Passing on Knowledge and Mentorship

This section includes an overview of each topic and practical suggestions to navigate the leadership situations. The recommendations are written based on community insights, secondary research and the working group members’ lived experiences in the Wikimedia movement. While we have elaborated on these specific topics, there are many other common and relevant leadership topics that have not been included, such as engaging and retaining volunteers, conflict mediation, and managing competing priorities. This section serves as a starting point and inspiration for others to surface leadership situations and share resources so that we can learn together.

Resources Directory

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Find below a quick overview of the tools, resources and reading materials in this section.

Burnout and Managing Stress

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Overview

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As members of a decentralized, distributed, volunteer-led movement, Wikimedians are fueled by personal passion and motivation for advancing free and equitable knowledge. Personal wellbeing and sustainability, though complicated and nuanced processes, are critical to sustaining passion. Social scientist Laurence Cox shares that personal sustainability includes all the conditions that allow individuals to participate in a movement.[1] This includes physical and economic aspects such as time, skills, and paid or unpaid work; it also includes psychological and emotional dimensions such as mental health and emotional management skills. Nurturing all these conditions for participation is connected with building a movement where its members can participate in a healthy and sustained manner.

In this section, you will find a summary of a common psychological and emotional condition that harms personal sustainability and deplete passion: burnout. You will also find recommendations for personal and community-led strategies for overcoming burnout and managing stress.

What is burnout?

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[Trigger warning: Burnout is a traumatizing experience, and we acknowledge reading about the symptoms and causes of burnout in this section may activate stress for readers. If you believe this to be relevant in your case, consider skipping to the Managing Burnout sub-section to read about Personal & Community Strategies.]

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), burnout is a psychological syndrome resulting from “chronic workplace stress.”[2] Burnout is also described as the decline in psychological, emotional, and physical well-being intensified by feelings of hopelessness.[3] It is a severe condition that often leads activists to temporarily or even permanently withdraw from activism.[3]

The following experiences are common symptoms of burnout[4]:

  • Deterioration of psychological and emotional wellbeing
    • Overwhelming challenges with stress and anxiety
    • Insomnia due to overthinking about work stress
    • Inability to think clearly and make decisions
    • Emotional exhaustion and chronic fatigue
  • Deterioration of physical wellbeing[5]
    • Loss of appetite and/or unhealthy eating patterns
    • Chronic physical exhaustion
    • Compromised immunity - falling sick more often
  • Disillusionment and hopelessness[5]
    • Loss of hope to the point where you question the purpose of your efforts
    • Feeling like you’re never doing enough
    • No longer being able to see or feel fulfilled by the impact of your work

Burnout in the Wikimedia context

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Over the last few years, the Wikimedia movement has witnessed a range of conversations on burnout and its impact on community health and movement sustainability. A few of these are listed below for your reference:

Managing burnout and stress

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Burnout and chronic stress can be caused by feeling a lack of support, unclear expectations, and extreme amounts of stressful, monotonous or chaotic activities.[6] While structural or organizational changes can alleviate these conditions, there are ways we can manage our own stress and burnout in the meantime. To make this guide practical and action-oriented, we share a few personal and collective strategies for taking care of one another.

Individual strategies

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As described earlier, burnout is a mental and physical syndrome. If you find yourself experiencing symptoms of burnout, consider developing a practice of care and emotional regulation that addresses your specific symptoms. If accessible, also consider enlisting the support of a trained medical professional.

Here is a list of suggested individual tools and practices:

  • Breathwork for tackling anxiety and stress
  • Incorporate rest and play into you routine[7]
    • Build a practice of spending time in nature. Even 10 minutes outside can do wonders for your nervous system, and help you tackle your anxiety
    • Eat healthy. Commit to making nourishing, wholesome meals. If you struggle to eat healthily and regularly, start small by committing to one homemade meal a day
    • Stay hydrated. This may seem fairly obvious, but we often spend hours on our screens without remembering to drink water! And no, your choice of caffeinated drink doesn’t count! Set reminders throughout your day to sip water
    • Stretch. Incorporate simple stretches into you work hours
    • Digital detox. Schedule time in your routine to entirely switch off from your email, work calls, social media, news alerts, and everything else digital!
    • Develop a hobby. Find something you enjoy doing [outside of Wikimedia movement work!] and make space for it in your life. It could be anything at all, big or small, whatever you can afford at this time in your life to do for just pure joy
  • Notice and honor your feelings
    • The Feeling Wheel Exercise is an activity to help you reflect and articulate your emotions[8]
    • Behind the Mask is a self-diagnostic tool for managing the emotional challenges of leadership. It includes suggested remedies for common emotional issues

Collective strategies

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Here are recommendations for group activities and practices you can initiate within your own Wikimedia context to identify and manage stress, and reconnect to passion:

Further resources

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Encouraging Diversity, Equity and Inclusion in Leadership

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Overview

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In this section you will find a breakdown of how diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) relate to our work in the Wikimedia movement and suggested tools and practical guides to promote DEI in your communities. Use the tools to guide conversations and make real change to the diversity, equity and inclusion of the groups and projects you support. Some of these tools are also meant as personal reflection and assessment guides for you to think critically about your own leadership qualities and mindset.

What is diversity, equity and inclusion?

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Diversity, equity and inclusion are terms with meanings and interpretations around the world, from corporate team settings to grassroots social justice movements. In essence, these terms refer to how power is distributed in any setting where human interactions take place.

While often used interchangeably with the acronym DEI, diversity, equity and inclusion are three distinct concepts. It is important to acknowledge and understand each term individually to ensure that leadership development initiatives in our movement appropriately address DEI as a whole:

  • Diversity refers to the physical presence or representation of individuals with different backgrounds, identities and experiences
  • Inclusion is the involvement of individuals and groups, particularly those who are excluded or prevented from using their voice, in policies, practices, and decision making
  • Equity is about just treatment and fair access or distribution of resources for individuals and groups. Equity[9] refers to the practice of accounting for the differences in individuals’ starting points and removing barriers so that social disparities are eliminated. It is the effort of transforming social, political, and economic systems of oppression and injustice

One example[10] that is often used to explain these power dynamics is as follows:

  • Diversity is when everyone is invited to the party
  • Inclusion is when everyone gets to contribute to the music playlist
  • Equity is when everyone has the opportunity to listen, enjoy, or dance to the music

In other words, diversity is when people from different identities and cultures are present. Inclusion is when all these people are able to share their opinions and perspectives. Equity is when these diverse groups of people are able to benefit from the decisions being made.

It is important to point out that the presence of a diverse group of people is not sufficient to ensure they are included in the decision making process. Diversity does not mean inclusion. Efforts must be made to include them in the conversation, for example, by actively moderating the discussion in a way that people from marginalized identities feel safe and invited to share their perspectives.

Further, diversity and inclusion are not enough on their own. Critics of DEI sometimes argue that groups stop at diversity and inclusion and don’t give enough attention to equity. Equity involves identifying and then removing barriers to participation. This is long-term work needed to ensure that everyone has the ability and access to participate.

DEI in the Wikimedia movement

One of the core priorities of the Wikimedia Strategic Direction [2017] is Knowledge Equity: “As a social movement, we will focus our efforts on the knowledge and communities that have been left out by structures of power and privilege. We will welcome people from every background to build strong and diverse communities. We will break down the social, political, and technical barriers preventing people from accessing and contributing to free knowledge.”

Service and equity are key to the Wikimedia movement’s vision for the future. As leaders in this movement, diversity, equity and inclusion are integral to your leadership approach.

How does DEI translate to the organizations, projects, programs and campaigns in the movement? Below you will find a few examples of initiatives within our movement that are leading the way in implementing the principles of service and equity in their work. This is not an exhaustive list, rather it is meant to provide a glimpse into the variety of initiatives being undertaken by community members.

  • The Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Hub is an “initiative for affiliates and volunteers who are working on equity, gender gap, and gender communities, minorities, languages, culture, ethnicity, age, disability, in one word: diversity in Wikimedia projects”
  • The Knowledge Equity Calendar initiated by Wikimedia Deutschland is an example of a project designed to spotlight stories of Wikimedians working towards achieving knowledge equity in their respective contexts
  • Wiki Movement Brazil User Group came up with a Diversity Plan to incorporate knowledge equity in their programs and projects. Read more about how they co-created their diversity definition to reflect their particular socio-cultural context
  • Wikimedia Movement Equity Data Landscape is an initiative of the Global Data and Insights Team of the Wikimedia Foundation to map the existing wealth of data in order to develop an equity landscape data reference. They also aim to build an equity landscape index to track the movement’s progress in breaking down the social, political, and technical barriers to full participation in free knowledge. Read more about their pilot and community consultation
  • Whose Knowledge? has curated critical arguments in favor of diversifying knowledge on Wikipedia. In addition, they have created a process to help communities and projects map knowledge with the aim of diversifying whose knowledge is being created, served and made visible
  • Art + Feminism published their Equity Statement in 2022 showcasing their deep commitment to embedding equity throughout all their actions and processes

While important work has been done, we also acknowledge that DEI initiatives are not evenly spread across the regions of our movement. The discourse on these concepts tends to be heavily informed by Western and North experiences and contexts. In fact, the data we collected from the community-facing leadership research survey earlier this year showed that DEI is not a term that all regional communities use or understand. This finding showed a need for more practical resources that could support community members in discussing and reflecting on DEI in their regional, cultural and linguistic contexts.

Suggested practices

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  • Individual strategies
    • Project Implicit Bias is a test to measure one’s hidden biases, also known as unconscious or implicit bias
    • SPACE2 Model of Mindful Inclusion is a set of strategies that help people notice and override their automatic reflexes
    • Mental Checklist - an introspective set of questions to help you uncover how particular actions or decisions are influenced by dominant cultural / social norms, power dynamics and expectations
  • Collective strategies
    • Culture Sharing is a team building tool to build appreciation for cultural diversity
    • Diversity Welcome - a collective tool that can be used to acknowledge and make space for the diversity of lived experiences in your group, community or whatever constellation of Wiki collaborators you’re a part of
    • Big Wind Blows - a group activity to deepen conversations on themes of diversity and to invite risk-taking around vulnerability in group settings
    • Team Types: Four Personality Tendencies in Team Building - a group activity to explore diversity in personalities, approaches to work, and how the team can improve working relations
    • Learning Circles - A Tool for Understanding Root Cause - this tool fosters critical thinking and analysis among circle participants, who begin to form and re-examine their assumptions about their role in community life and their ability to propose solutions for community change
    • Creating Cultures and Practices for Racial Equity is a guidebook containing a variety of tools for cultural workers to imagine, plan, and implement racial equity strategies
    • Turning Towards Each Other: A Conflict Workbook offers individual and group exercises to build collective self-awareness and conflict resilience. These tools can help resolve interpersonal tensions and increase the capacity to work together to dismantle oppressive systems and create regenerative ones

Further resources

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Toxic or Ineffective Leadership

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Overview

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The Leadership Development Working Group’s definition of leadership clarifies the qualities, actions, and outcomes effective leaders possess. It is important to recognize the ways in which toxic or ineffective leadership impacts our community health, and to suggest tools that can mitigate the impacts of this kind of destructive leadership.

Our hope is that Wikimedians reading this section, whether you have experienced toxic leadership or have received feedback about ineffective leadership, can begin to test out the tools recommended in this section.

What is toxic leadership?

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It can be quite challenging to have a universally applicable definition of toxic leadership, since it is essentially determined by the subjective experience of a working relationship between a co-worker or colleague and their leader. However, for the sake of clarity and a shared understanding of this phenomenon, you will find a few elaborations below.

Political scientist Dr. Marcia Lynn Whicker was the first to link toxicity with leadership in her germinal book Toxic Leaders: When Organisations Go Bad. She defines toxic leadership as individuals or groups who have responsibility over others and abuse the leader-follower relationship.[11] Toxic leaders leave the group or organization in a poorer condition than when they started.

Some theorists argue that destructive leadership results from the confluence of three main components – a leader who makes the decision to become destructive, the follower who is susceptible in their work with the leader, and the environment in which they operate, including the policies, procedures, values, and culture that are promoted.[12]

Common traits of toxic leadership

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Toxic leaders often display autocratic and hierarchy-driven behaviors resulting in a hostile and demotivating work environment. Over time, and if unchecked, this leads to short-term and long-term consequences for group members and communities.

Here are eight common traits of toxic leaders to help you identify if you’re in a working relationship with a toxic leader.[13]

1. Unrealistic expectations and dishonesty
Honesty between colleagues and team members helps build trust and reliability. Toxic leaders, on the contrary, are often inconsistent with their commitments and frequently lie about agreed upon expectations. Gaslighting is also a tool that toxic leaders use in their manipulation of expectations.
Example: your toxic project leader told you at the beginning of the week that your project updates were to be shared by Friday, then reprimands you for not having it completed by Wednesday. They now insist that Wednesday was the original deadline making you question your memory.
2. Take feedback personally
Toxic leaders are averse to any kind of constructive feedback. They usually take criticism of any kind personally. Any concerns from team members are not welcome which leads the toxic leader to stay stuck in their ways.
Example: you think that your project team volunteers could make better use of their limited time by adding their feedback and comments asynchronously on a shared document instead of discussing at the weekly synchronous meeting. However, your project leader refuses to accept this suggestion. They take this feedback personally since it was their idea to have weekly live meetings.
3. Arrogance
Toxic leaders want their team members to believe them without questions or corrections. They think they are always right.
Example: At your monthly meeting, the campaign leader states that the upcoming edit-a-thon does not require translation support and this can be removed from the event resources. You know that to be false since there are 50 registered participants who speak different languages and they specifically asked for translation support. If you try to correct your campaign leader, they either berate you or ignore your correction.
4. Dependency on hierarchy
They depend on the roles and positions within the team to exert their control over the group.
Example: community members of a user group want to take part in the decision making of a newly-funded program but their suggestion for more collaborative decision making is discouraged by the user group’s leader.
5. Discriminates between team members
They do not practice inclusive leadership and display subjective judgments of team members. This could manifest practically as preferential treatment to their friends, for example. Or, it could show up as ageism, sexism, racism, homophobia and more.
Example: your affiliate’s leader constantly praises the work of your colleague. When you do the same work, the leader doesn’t respond with the same positive recognition.
6. Low confidence
Lack of confidence can be an underlying reason for a toxic leader’s behavior, as it’s a form of overcompensation. This can also result in a lack of trust in others
Example: the leaders of your subcommittee micromanage you because they don’t trust you to perform your task well.
7. Incompetency
They may struggle to do their jobs well and make poor decisions. Correspondingly, they may criticize and shame others in an effort to hide their own incompetence.
Example: a leader of a technical project delegates a difficult task to another software developer with a short turnaround time. Without fully understanding how to complete the task themselves, the leader pressures and scrutinizes the developer’s work so much so that they can’t finish the task at all.
8. Self-serving
Toxic leaders serve their own careers and professional growth. They do not hesitate to sabotage or defame their colleagues’ reputation and track record to show themselves in a good light. They also tend to take credit for work they have not done.

Impacts of toxic leadership[14]

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For movement members to advance the mission of free and accessible knowledge, healthy communities and environments are necessary. Hostile behaviors, harassment, and incivility are fundamentally opposed to our shared values and mission. As a result of one’s role or influence, toxic leaders have the ability to greatly and negatively impact community settings. Next we share a few ways that this type of leadership can affect community members.

  • Culture of silence: community members stop sharing ideas, concerns, and questions to shield themselves from further harm, defamation, and mental or emotional stress. As a result, the otherwise unacceptable behavior of the toxic leader gradually becomes acceptable, and alters the work culture
  • Organizational cynicism: toxic leadership can result in community members developing low satisfaction and intents to quit. They may feel a lack of sincerity, honesty, and justice in the organization or community
  • Decrease in volunteer participation: community members may feel demotivated or discouraged from contributing if they feel unsupported or mistreated
  • Organizational rigidity: toxic leadership can have a stifling effect on people, processes, and structures, which can lead to a reduction in new ideas, people, and improvement.
  • Burnout: if continuous interaction with toxic leaders leads one to feel consistent stress, chaos, uncertainty or lack of support, burnout may be possible. Refer to the Burnout and Managing Stress section for further details
  • Negative emotions and behaviors: community members can develop emotions such as aggravation, tension, anxiety, discomfort, and disrespect. This type of leadership can also lead people to respond in unfavorable ways, including using sarcastic or hurtful language, name calling, or harsh judgments
  • Losing trust in yourself: a harmful consequence of toxic leadership is the loss of self-esteem and lowered sense of self-worth
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Narcissistic or destructive leaders may not always realize the damage they cause due to a lack of self-awareness or emotional awareness.[15] However, with the right kind of interventions, leaders who display toxic or destructive traits can be supported to grow into effective leaders. Next, we share a few recommendations and tools to consider.

1. Contemplate conflict

  • Take time to process experiences if you feel confused, overwhelmed or agitated
  • Note uncertainties and possible misunderstandings in your interactions, including cultural differences
  • Distinguish people's actions from your feelings about them. They are both important, but they are different
  • Distinguish disagreement from personal hostility

Suggested tools

2. Invite conversation

  • If you're unable to resolve a conflict[16] on your own, invite conversation. The sooner the better

Suggested tools

3. Develop a plan

  • Foster inclusive dialogue by sharing ideas, asking clarifying questions, and responding to others' ideas
  • Identify and establish clear personal desires and needs
  • Make offers or requests
  • In complex conflicts, develop points of agreement to facilitate progress
  • Propose plans to treat conflict in a mutually satisfactory way
  • Mutually sign written plans in serious cases, or whenever desired
  • Follow up

Suggested tools

4. Reflect on your own leadership traits

  • Behind the Mask is a self-diagnostic tool to contemplate the emotional challenges one experiences as a leader beyond the appearance of having everything under control
  • Reflecting on Practice is a metaphor-based exercise for reflecting on your own practice of leadership, learning, and development within the Wikimedia community. In the context of learning and development, metaphors about the learning environment can reveal new insights about group dynamics, learning objectives, and the overall relationship with community members
  • Seek Mentorship. You may want to seek mentorship from experienced members in the Wikimedia movement who have been or are in similar leadership positions as you. You will find more details about mentorship in the Wikimedia context in the Passing on Knowledge and Mentorship section. You can also read the Movement Learning and Leadership Development Project Report on Mentorship for an overview of effective mentorship in the Wikimedia movement
  • Delegation worksheet is a template for campaign organizers, project leaders, program managers to help you delegate tasks within your group of collaborators
  • The Art of Delegating is a toolkit that helps leaders sharpen their delegation skills. One sign of an effective leader is the ability to assess your group members’ strengths, opportunities for improvement, and motivations
  • Comparative Advantage Worksheet is a self-diagnostic tool to assist leaders in identifying the tasks they’re uniquely suited to complete and those they should delegate to others. This template helps you take a step back from your responsibilities and critically assess optimal use of your time and how best to engage your collaborators
  • Check-in Meeting Agenda Template helps you prepare regular, one-on-one meetings with your collaborators. Check-ins[19] are an easy meeting format with multiple benefits. Over time, and if conducted regularly, they help you identify your group members’ needs, give and receive timely feedback, build trust and safety in your working relationships, and develop a deep human connection. You can set the frequency of these meetings collaboratively with your team members and reassess at regular intervals if the frequency needs to be adjusted

Further resources

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Self-Assessment and Continuous Learning

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Overview

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Self-assessment and continuous learning help leaders grow their capacities to lead. Self-assessment is the process of reflecting on one's own actions, behaviors, and decisions. Through self-assessment, leaders can identify strengths and weaknesses, determine areas for improvement, and increase overall self-awareness. Continuous learning takes self-assessment further and focuses on ongoing, lifelong, and self-motivated learning.[20] It comes from the belief that the learning process never ends and we all have the potential to constantly change and grow. In the Wikimedia context, self-assessment and continuous learning are essential for leadership development. They allow you to routinely gain new knowledge and skills to adapt to changing community needs and improve the ways you support your communities.

Performing a self-assessment

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Self-assessment is a helpful tool for leadership development. It can enhance performance, decision-making, goal-setting, and other leadership-related activities.[21] Yet for it to be successful, individuals must be prepared to be honest with themselves about their personal performance, attitudes and behaviors. Self-assessment processes occur in a variety of contexts such as in your workplace, in your Wikimedia communities, or in projects you contribute to. It can involve asking for feedback from peers or colleagues or using available tools and platforms such as 360 feedback surveys.

When to perform a self-assessment

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It is encouraged that you perform self evaluations regularly and systematically. Depending on the type of work or activities you do and the goals you are trying to achieve as a leader, this can mean performing self-assessments monthly, quarterly or yearly. Here are a few suggested moments when a self-assessment would be valuable:

  • After a significant project or milestone has been achieved
  • When receiving challenging feedback from team or community members on behaviors or decisions that you have made
  • Before setting new goals, objectives or priorities for teams, projects or communities
  • If a project or process has failed or if you experienced a setback
  • If you are starting a new role or taking on new responsibilities
  • At the end of a project or process that involved multiple stakeholders to complete
  • If you experience significant challenges in your role, community or during a project
  • If you feel unmotivated or uncomfortable about taking next steps with a project or role

Methods of self-assessment

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There are many methods to perform a self-assessment. We outline a few examples of free or low-cost methods below and encourage you to experiment to determine the methods most appropriate for your context. If a method you try doesn’t feel relevant or is too challenging, try another one until you find one that fits your needs.

  • Self reflection journals and/or worksheets: journaling is a simple and effective way to reflect on your performance and document goals for improvement
  • A 360-degree feedback assessment: this process involves gathering anonymous feedback from multiple sources such as peers, managers, direct reports, and contributors. This insight provides a comprehensive view on multiple aspects of an individual’s performance
  • Peer feedback: asking a peer, volunteer or someone you trust for feedback is another way to gather insight about your abilities as a leader. Keep in mind that receiving feedback can be uncomfortable. When receiving feedback remember to:
    • Listen actively and try to understand their perspective or insight
    • Ask questions if something is unclear or you are unsure how to interpret the feedback
    • Take notes. This will allow you to remember what was shared and reflect on it at a later time
    • Think about ways you can improve and where their feedback can be applied in your professional or volunteer work
    • Thank the person providing feedback to you. It takes effort to prepare feedback and showing gratitude encourages them to share feedback with you in the future
  • Work with a mentor: working with a trusted mentor or a coach can provide a safe space and individualized guidance to think through your leadership skills and performance
  • Research online tools and resources: there are various online tools[22] that can provide insight into your leadership styles and competencies
  • Build your own: sometimes existing tools may not serve your specific context, culture or language. One way to overcome this is to build your own assessment. It can be as simple as creating a list of reflection questions or creating a survey for others to complete. To help you do this, we created a list of Leadership Self-Assessment Questions you can use to create a self-assessment. An example you can reference is the Leadership Skills Assessment from Section 1 of this document, which assesses your leadership skills according to the leadership definition

Ultimately, the most effective resource for self-assessment will depend on your individual goals. It's important for leaders to regularly review their performance and find resources or people that can help support their development as leaders.

Continuous learning and leadership

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While self-assessment is the introspective process of better understanding yourself, continuous learning is the active process of improvement. It’s your ongoing commitment to gain skills, knowledge and competencies throughout your lifetime. As a leader, continuous learning needs to be a core part of your mindset and actions. When leaders prioritize learning new things and finding ways to incorporate that knowledge into their work, they demonstrate a dedication to growth, which hopefully encourages and inspires others to do the same. Through ongoing learning, they stay updated on changing trends, emerging best practices and policy changes that can improve organizational cultures and community health.

Continuous learning methods

Learning how to learn[23] is a skill in itself. Professors Barbara Oakley and Terrence Sejnowski share learning techniques[24] that promote learning competence, such as chunking information, taking breaks to activate diffuse thinking,[25] and retrieval practice[26]. Techniques such as these are helpful to understand and apply as you continue your learning journey. Besides such techniques, there are other ways to learn in the Wikimedia movement, for example:

  • Attending online courses or workshops on leadership development
  • Performing self-assessments to measure performance and impact
  • Challenging yourself to start a new initiative or improve an existing one
  • Attending conferences or events that focus on a topic of interest
  • Learning about new topics and contributing to Wikimedia projects as a way to showcase your learning

Passing on Knowledge and Mentorship

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Overview

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Sharing knowledge is a critical component of developing effective leaders and building resilient and strong communities. As communities, organizations, and projects develop, leaders can change over time. Sharing knowledge about best practices, important history, and strategies for growth will ensure lessons are retained and prepare future leaders for their roles. When leaders transition out of roles, it is important that they have a plan in place to share knowledge with those who will be stepping in to take over their responsibilities.

Methods of passing on knowledge

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There are many methods to pass on knowledge. The most effective approach for you will depend on the kind of knowledge shared and the priorities of the teams, groups or communities involved. A few methods include:

  • Onboarding to new members and staff: having a structured onboarding process helps those joining a community, organization or project for the first time understand the goals, strategic priorities, processes, and available resources and support
  • Group training: organizing sessions or workshops can facilitate sharing knowledge continuously and to a large group of people
  • Knowledge-sharing platforms: establishing platforms such as wikis or forums can encourage team or community members to share experiences and encourage collaboration
  • Documentation: it is critical to document important processes, procedures, key relationships, and anything vital to the operations of your organization or community. What may seem obvious to you may not be the case for others, so it’s valuable to document even seemingly commonplace activities
  • Mentorship: mentorship provides a unique opportunity to learn directly from a trusted, experienced peer or leader in a 1-on-1 or group relationship
  • Apprenticeship: learning on-the-job by shadowing or working under an expert provides real-life, hands-on experience

Mentorship

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Mentorship is an important way to pass on knowledge and an example of the Wikimedia mission in action. By sharing knowledge and skills, experienced leaders can empower volunteers and communities to contribute to the free knowledge movement. As a method, mentorship is useful because it allows experienced leaders to share individualized guidance that is specific and contextually-relevant to the emerging leader mentees. To name a few benefits, good mentorship can enable emerging leaders to better navigate their specific challenges, evaluate their personal strengths, and create a professional development path that fits their values and goals.

What is mentorship?

Mentorship is the active relationship between an experienced or knowledgeable individual (mentor) who provides guidance and shares their experiences with a less experienced individual (mentee) to help them grow and achieve their goals. The relationship between a mentor and mentee is based on trust, open communication and mutual respect. It involves a commitment to supporting a mentee's personal or professional development over a period of time.

A mentor is a community member who has significant experience in a particular area of work and may have held different leadership roles in an organization, project, or community. They possess relevant knowledge and have a desire to share this with others. On the other hand, a mentee is an individual who is motivated to seek guidance and support. They may be aware of the areas in which they would like to grow personally or professionally and are motivated to learn. Sometimes mentors and mentees connect through a structured program, and other times they occur informally.

Types of mentorship

There are a few models[27] of mentorship present in the Wikimedia movement. They include:

  • Traditional mentorship: this is the most common type of mentorship and can happen both informally or formally. It involves an experienced person supporting and advising a less experienced person. A related approach to this form of mentoring is coaching, which forms a relationship between a coach and coachee. Whereas mentoring may include more specific skill or knowledge guidance from the mentor, coaching tends to involve the coach asking questions and encouraging self-reflection
  • Group mentorship: this form of mentorship involves a group of people who are mentored by an experienced mentor. Group mentoring can create a supportive environment for a large group of people to learn from one another and share their experiences
  • Peer mentorship: in this model, individuals of similar experiences or roles mentor one another. One advantage of this approach is the ability to create a mutually beneficial relationship where both people learn and help learn[28]

Examples of mentorship in the Wikimedia context

  • The Kiwix Mentorship Program, hosted by Open Foundation West Africa, is a structured mentorship program that provides training and support to mentees with the goal of advancing access to free educational content
  • The Wikidata: Wiki Mentor Africa is a mentorship program aiming to develop the technical capacities of new software developers in African communities
  • Education User Group organizes a mentorship program focused on supporting Wikimedia groups interested in developing programs that promotes Wikimedia in education

Further resources

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Notes

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  1. ↑ How do we keep going? Activist burnout and personal sustainability in social movements
  2. ↑ Burn-out an “occupational phenomenon”: International Classification of Diseases
  3. ↑ a b Preventing Burnout - Effective Activist
  4. ↑ Frayed All Over - The Causes and Consequences of Activist Burnout - Gorski & Chen [p. 12]
  5. ↑ a b Gorski & Chen [p. 13]
  6. ↑ Job burnout: How to spot it and take action
  7. ↑ 10 great resources for activist wellbeing
  8. ↑ An additional resources to help with the exercise is The Emotion Wheel: What It Is and How to Use It
  9. ↑ Equity definition & meaning
  10. ↑ Defining DEI | Diversity, Equity & Inclusion - University of Michigan
  11. ↑ Toxic leadership - Strategies for Managing Change
  12. ↑ Destructive Leadership: Its Origin, Impact and Resolution - Marc Belanger University of Guelph
  13. ↑ The 8 toxic leadership traits - BetterUp
  14. ↑ Organizational Cynicism and Its Impact on Organizational Pride in Industrial Organizations - Durrah, Omar, Monica Chaudhary, and Moaz Gharib
  15. ↑ Four Ways to Address Toxic Leadership Behaviors - Mindclass
  16. ↑ Conflict Resolution Resources - Loomio Cooperative Handbook
  17. ↑ The Situation Behaviors Impact Feedback Tool - Mind Tools
  18. ↑ Give More [and Better Feedback with CSAW - The Management Centre]
  19. ↑ Why Your Team Members Need Daily Check-ins
  20. ↑ Learning for Life: White Paper on Adult Education - Department of Education, Dublin (Ireland)
  21. ↑ Your complete guide to self-assessments
  22. ↑ A few leadership self-assessments include the Leadership Compass Skills Assessment by Be The Change Consulting; the Leadership Style Assessment by R. M. Galford and R. F. Maruca; and the Leadership Framework Self-Assessment by the NHS Leadership Academy
  23. ↑ Learning how to learn - Barbara Oakley
  24. ↑ Learning to Learn: A Teacher’s Guide - Structural Learning
  25. ↑ Learning how to learn: A guide for kids and teens - Barbara Oakle
  26. ↑ Using Retrieval Practice to Increase Student Learning - Washington University in St. Louis
  27. ↑ Mentoring models - Institut d'assurance
  28. ↑ How Mentorship Benefits Peer Mentors - Mentor Collective
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