Decentralized Leadership Quotes

I do not think it is possible for anyone, not even the leaders of a political organization, really to know in detail the exact situation in every locality. That is why we hold primaries, so that the people who live in the locality may have the opportunity to choose the best man as they see him and know him.

I believe that the capacity that any organisation needs is for leadership to appear anywhere it is needed, when it is needed.

I do not lead the Hong Kong protests, because no one person leads the protests.

The Secret Service is a strange group. They don't really have a leader. It's not set up like a military. Each one is supposed to be able to act like a leader when something comes up.

We need to organize ourselves and protest against existing order - against war, against economic and sexual exploitation, against racism, etc. But to organize ourselves in such a way that means correspond to the ends, and to organize ourselves in such a way as to create kind of human relationship that should exist in future society. That would mean to organize ourselves without centralize authority, without charismatic leader, in a way that represents in miniature the ideal of the future egalitarian society.

[Ella Baker]'s second defining characteristic was her dislike of top-down leadership... 'She felt leaders were not appointed but the rose up. Someone will rise. Someone will emerge'. It was an attitude Baker shared with some of the older women in the movement.

Very often, we think of leadership being at the very top of an organisation. I think what's unique about ABG is that we have a very strong cadre of leaders across the organisation who are highly empowered and therefore play a very major role in the growth and evolution of the organization.

I think one of the beauties so far of the so-called Spirit of Seattle is there aren't any leaders, pop stars, or guru figures that everyone else is falling in line with and following. No [Nelson] Mandela, Havel, or Subcomandante Ski Mask riding in on a white horse and everybody else just wanting to follow them to the promised land. We're stitching it together and doing it ourselves.

I think a revolution can survive without single centralized leadership.

Our decentralized, localized leadership structure has really allowed for Black Lives Matter structures in their own communities to take on the state and take on some of the most egregious acts against black people.

Hope that there are many, many small leaders.

If you understand the Black Lives Matter movement, there's no central leadership of the movement. This is an organic, grassroots movement all around America.

The leader builds dispersed and diverse leadership - distributing leadership to the outermost edges of the circle to unleash the power of shared responsibility.

I don't believe in traditional company structures because the best ideas do not always come from the top.

I don't think you can impose a social order from the top down.

Organizations that empower folks further down the chain or try to get rid of the big hierarchal chains and allow decision making to happen on a more local level end up being more adaptive and resilient because there are more minds involved in the problem.

I want to make a city that can run smoothly with anyone in charge, even without a mayor in place.

I think it is quite dangerous for an organisation to think they can predict where they are going to need leadership. It needs to be something that people are willing to assume if it feels relevant, given the context of any situation.