Personal fit to the particular job demands (which can include some subset of: lots of people-time, navigating conflict, frequent task-switching, personal initiative, weighing values (or performing triage), etc.)
Personal investment in appropriate values, and a lasting commitment to doing the role well.
Having it be fairly clear what they’re biting off, what resources they can use, and what additional resources they can petition for. Having these things be actually fairly realistic.
(Minimum expertise to thrive is probably set by needing to find someone who will advocate for these things well enough to make them clear, or who can at least learn how to. Nebulous roles can be navigated, but it is harder, and in practice means they need to be able to survive redefining the role for themselves several times.)
Having some connections they (and others) respect who will help support what (and how) they’re doing, lend some consistent sense of meaning to the work, and people who will offer reliable outside judgement. Quite possibly, these things come from different people.
(Public opinion is often too noisy and fickle for most human brains to learn off of it alone.)
For roles that require the buy-in of others, it’s helpful if they have enough general respect or backing that they will mostly be treated as “legitimate” in the role. But some roles really only require a small subset of high-buy-in people.
Also, some sort of step-down procedure.
Extracted from a FB thread, where I was thinking about burnout around nebulously-defined community leader roles, and what preparedness and a good role would look like. Parts of this answer feel like I’m being too vague and obvious, but I thought it was worth making the list slightly more findable.
On Community Coordinator Roles
Some things I think help are:
Personal fit to the particular job demands (which can include some subset of: lots of people-time, navigating conflict, frequent task-switching, personal initiative, weighing values (or performing triage), etc.)
Personal investment in appropriate values, and a lasting commitment to doing the role well.
Having it be fairly clear what they’re biting off, what resources they can use, and what additional resources they can petition for. Having these things be actually fairly realistic.
(Minimum expertise to thrive is probably set by needing to find someone who will advocate for these things well enough to make them clear, or who can at least learn how to. Nebulous roles can be navigated, but it is harder, and in practice means they need to be able to survive redefining the role for themselves several times.)
Having some connections they (and others) respect who will help support what (and how) they’re doing, lend some consistent sense of meaning to the work, and people who will offer reliable outside judgement. Quite possibly, these things come from different people.
(Public opinion is often too noisy and fickle for most human brains to learn off of it alone.)
For roles that require the buy-in of others, it’s helpful if they have enough general respect or backing that they will mostly be treated as “legitimate” in the role. But some roles really only require a small subset of high-buy-in people.
Also, some sort of step-down procedure.
Extracted from a FB thread, where I was thinking about burnout around nebulously-defined community leader roles, and what preparedness and a good role would look like. Parts of this answer feel like I’m being too vague and obvious, but I thought it was worth making the list slightly more findable.