Traditionally, there have been two ways of leading a social organization: either a handful of powerful individuals, groups or organizations dictate an organization’s course, or those who have proximity to the social problem and its solution lead the way.
The former—top-down leadership—was once the most widely practiced approach. Now, many view it as largely obsolete. There are exceptions, for example in military command-and-control structures, regulatory systems where rules designed to ensure public health and safety need enforcing and organizations that are in serious need of a turnaround. Particularly when it comes to generating broad-based social progress, the model has proved inadequate. Time and again—at the national, state, regional, local and community levels—a top-down approach has failed to deliver effective solutions to social problems, because it doesn’t consider feedback, input or buy-in from those most affected by the issues at hand.
By contrast, bottom-up leadership strives to incorporate the insights of those who know what will and won’t work for their communities; it seeks to reflect the democratic evolution of institutions brought forth by the people. But while the “let a thousand flowers bloom” philosophy underlying this approach typically encourages innovation, it also tends to consume more time and resources and often struggles to identify and scale the most powerful solutions.
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