Leadership and Network Weaving

by Elmer S. Soriano

It's not what you know, but who you know.

That's an old saying, but it takes on fresh validation from field of Social Network Analysis. The concept of betweeness centrality explains how a few nodes can be extremely influential when they are the gateway to other networks that would otherwise be poorly connected.

For example, the Wise City concept discusses how universities can exercise place-based leadership by deploying the massive intellectual resources to solve social problems of their host cities or countries.

The Bridging Leadership program in the Philippines creates links between devolved municipalities and the national Department of Health. The Communications for Communicators Schools forges multiple connections between the Johns Hopkins University, Asian Institute of Management, and various field-based practitioners to deploy health promotion campaigns.

Plastrick and Taylor (2006) offer these definitions to help network leaders navigate through  the various functions of network leadership.  

Organizer	Establishes purpose and value propositions of the network. Establishes first links to nodes for the network. Attracts initial resources for the network.
Funder	Provides initial resources for organizing the network, supporting development of connections, alignment, production, and coordination for the network. May play role of initial organizer of network.
Weaver	Works to increase connections among nodes, both the number of links and the bandwidth quality of links. Also may focus on growing the network by connecting to new nodes.
Facilitator	Helps network members to establish collective value proposition and negotiate collective actions plans for production.
Coordinator	Helps nodes to undertake collective action for production, by ensuring flow of necessary information and other resources, development and implementation of agreements among nodes.
Coach	Advises organizers, weavers, facilitators, and coordinators about how best to perform their roles in building networks.
Steward	Informally helps to build the network, but as a member of the network, not as a formal position-role within the network.

Holley developed a Network Weaver Checklist which gives one a quick overview of the function of a network weaver.


Sources:
Plastrick and Taylor (2006) NET GAINS: A Handbook for Network Builders Seeking Social Change http://www.racialequitytools.org/resourcefiles/plastrick.pdf

"GoldenGate01". Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons - http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:GoldenGate01.JPG#mediaviewer/File:GoldenGate01.JPG