Tonight I got to meet Paul Schmitz, a former Obama Administration adviser who now works for the Collective Impact Forum. He is speaking tomorrow at the Heartland 2050 Summit about how cities can build cultures of collaboration. Tonight he said something I agree with: If you're looking to identify leaders in a community, go to a church service or a neighborhood event and see who's still there when it's over. Who’s still standing in the parking lot? Who’s still having conversations? It's a small shop owner who knows everyone in the neighborhood. It's an old man who's lived there forever who remembers everything. When we look for leadership, we have notice all of these ways people are leading that aren't visible in an institutional framework. 

To people who have experience leading in communities, who have experience working on the grassroots level, this is intuitive stuff. It’s common sense. All people have what it takes to be leaders. We have to look at what’s going well, where our strengths are, and where we’re already getting wins and give people who are doing that work the support to be even better. Everyday people do so much with so little, and for so little credit. Those people inspire me like nothing else. 

With Paul Schmitz and Kimara Snipe.