Leadership Development Working Group/LDP/Appendix

Glossary of Key Terms

Term	Definition
Asynchronous initiatives	Asynchronous initiatives refer to leadership development programs or activities where learning materials are published and accessed by participants at their own pace and convenience. In these initiatives, participants have the flexibility to engage with the content and complete the learning activities based on their individual schedules and preferences.
Burnout	Burnout refers to a syndrome that results from chronic workplace stress. It is characterized by emotional, physical, and mental exhaustion, often accompanied by feelings of cynicism, detachment, and reduced effectiveness. Burnout can manifest as a decline in overall well-being, including decreased motivation, energy, and productivity.
Continuous Learning	Continuous learning is the process of acquiring knowledge, skills, and competencies throughout one's life to adapt to changing circumstances and improve personal and professional development. It involves actively seeking opportunities to expand knowledge, acquire new skills, and stay up-to-date with the latest developments in one's field or area of interest.
Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI)	Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) are terms that refer to how power is distributed in settings where human interactions take place. Diversity involves the representation of individuals with different backgrounds and experiences, inclusion involves the involvement of individuals and groups in decision-making, and equity focuses on fair access and distribution of resources.
Hard skills	Hard skills refer to specific technical, administrative, task-specific, or role-specific abilities and knowledge that are acquired through formal education, training programs, or practical experience. These skills are often measurable and quantifiable, and they are directly applicable to a particular job or field.
Leadership	Leadership is the ability to guide, inspire, build autonomy, encourage, and motivate a group of people towards a shared goal or common vision. It involves demonstrating leadership qualities and actions such as empathy, trust-building, and creating supportive environments for others to thrive.
Leadership roles	Leadership roles are various roles held by leaders in different contexts within the Wikimedia movement, whether formally or informally. The resource identifies a list of contexts and their respective roles to develop a common understanding of where and how leadership surfaces in the movement.
Leadership skills	Soft skills allow individuals to encourage, motivate, and develop others. These skills include personal attributes and social skills, and they are relevant in all Wikimedia contexts where leadership appears.
Leadership situations	Leadership situations refer to various scenarios or circumstances that leaders commonly encounter in their roles. These situations can present challenges, opportunities, or complexities that require leadership skills and decision-making.
Mentorship	Mentorship is the patronage, influence, guidance, or direction given by a mentor. A mentor is someone who teaches or gives help and advice to a less experienced and often younger person.
Onboarding	Onboarding is an induction process by which new members are provided the orientation, knowledge and skills to become effective contributing members of the organization, community or project. This may include a series of meetings, audio-visual materials, trainings, presentations, and other methods through which the culture and working mechanisms of the community or work team are introduced to the new member.
Self-assessment	Self-assessment involves reflecting on one's own performance, strengths, weaknesses, and areas for improvement. It is a process of self-reflection and evaluation that helps leaders gain insights into their abilities, behaviors, and leadership effectiveness.
Soft skills	Soft skills refer to a set of personal attributes and social skills that enable individuals to effectively interact, communicate, collaborate, and lead others. These skills are often related to emotional intelligence, interpersonal abilities, and personal qualities that contribute to positive relationships and successful outcomes in various contexts. Soft skills are distinct from hard skills, which are specific technical or specialized knowledge required for a particular job or task. Examples of soft skills include communication, empathy, teamwork, adaptability, problem-solving, leadership, time management, and conflict resolution.
Toxic leadership	Toxic leadership refers to a style of leadership characterized by negative and harmful behaviors that have a detrimental impact on individuals, teams, and organizations. It involves leaders who abuse their authority, manipulate and exploit their subordinates, and create toxic work environments.

Frequently Asked Questions

Accessibility

Translations

Will the Leadership Development Plan be available in more languages? What are the targeted languages for prioritization? When will the translations be made available?

The Leadership Development Working Group (LDWG) decided to use the limited time remaining from our one-year term to research, draft, and develop a detailed Leadership Development Plan (LDP) containing a diverse selection of resources and tools. The process of developing this plan has been an enormous learning experience, aligning the perspectives and experiences of individuals representing at least 15 languages and various cultural contexts. We understand the importance of making the plan accessible to speakers of other languages. Unfortunately, we did not have sufficient time to create accurate and culturally sensitive translations in other languages besides English at this time.

The LDP is just the beginning of a collaborative movement effort to address leadership development challenges. Our goal is to make the materials more accessible to a wider range of readers and audiences, but we cannot do this alone. We actively encourage Wikimedia communities to begin engaging with the LDP and translate it into additional languages to ensure inclusivity and broad adoption. Involving community members with diverse linguistic backgrounds will enrich the content and provide valuable insights and perspectives.

Visual materials

Are there plans to include visuals or content in other formats besides text?
We are aware that not all of the intended users of this plan can navigate Meta-wiki. In addition, we are also considering each reader’s capacity to digest large chunks of information. Creating visual materials such as videos or illustrations is feedback we received. We agree that it can help improve accessibility and are exploring the possibilities with the Community Development team. We also highly encourage community members to take the lead in creating visual materials that are relevant to their contexts.

Audience

Will the Leadership Development Plan be segmented into sections that can accommodate different types of audiences?
We have attempted to categorize and classify several forms of leadership that currently exist in the WIkimedia movement in the “Understanding Leadership Roles & Skills” section of the Leadership Development Plan. These can be seen as the preliminary audiences of the plan. However, we are aware that this is not an exhaustive list of audiences across our global volunteer-driven movement. Figuring out how to do audience segmentation of the LDP will require some deliberation within the working group. We welcome your input at any time. We have also created a new section on the Leadership Development Plan page called “Community Implementation & Translations” where we hope community groups will add examples of how they used the LDP and translated or improved versions of the LDP.

Implementation

How will the Leadership Development Plan be made locally relevant, given that the Wikimedia movement is made up of volunteers from different regions with diverse cultural backgrounds?

The Leadership Development Working Group is made up of fifteen community members from different regions and diverse socio-cultural and linguistic backgrounds. Our shared experiences and expertise from within their communities, affiliates and user groups have been reflected in the plan. Moreover, several of the leader roles and skills categorized in the plan are patterned after existing examples of leaders from different regions.

It is our hope that as the plan is translated in the upcoming months and community members begin engaging with the resources in their contexts. In this way, we will be able to collectively modify, amend and improve the plan and its resources to be more inclusive.

Where can one find community stories of how the Leadership Development Plan has benefited groups and individuals?

We have added a new section to the LDP Meta-wiki page titled “Community Implementation & Translations.” This section is for community members to share translated versions of the LDP and examples of how communities are applying the resources.

Several members of the LDWG also are developing their own community-specific plans for translating and localizing the LDP. These examples would also be added to this new section.

The long-term sustainability and impact of the LDP and leadership development generally will depend on grassroots, community-led initiatives to localize, test, and improve resources and tools suggested in the LDP, and create their own!

Future Updation

In what ways does the Leadership Development Plan attempt to impact the community directly? Will it include training for implementation?
Now that we are reaching the end of our 1-year term, we have decided to move forward with the implementation of the LDP in a more decentralized, localized manner. We hope you, community members across the Wikimedia movement, will join us in developing leadership development initiatives - small and large, in the different spaces and roles we occupy. Community Development will also continue stewarding the LDP and supporting community groups in applying the concepts and tools from the LDP.

Will the Leadership Development Plan be available for future amendments and updations? What will this process look like and how can community members participate in it?
The Leadership Development Working Group will wrap-up its work by September 2023 – part of which includes coming up with a process for future updates and amendments to the LDP. We will post any new information to the Leadership Development Plan Meta-wiki page.