ORGANIZATION AND LEADERSHIP 67 



upon the county agent; if a community program cannot 

 be carried through unless the county agent must always 

 take the lead; if a community meeting cannot be success- 

 fully held unless the county agent is present ; then one may 

 well question whether or not progress is being made. The 

 county agent's ideal should be to work himself out of a 

 job, that is, to discover so much local ability and to develop 

 it so fully that in time no outside help will be needed and 

 that the community will be able to take care of its own 

 problems. 



Many of the qualities of leadership, or which make for 

 leadership and organizing ability, may be dormant in in- 

 dividuals in the community. They may be both undiscov- 

 ered by the potential leader himself and by his neighbors 

 as well. This is true of many localities of which it is 

 sometimes said "this community is dead; it has no local 

 leadership. " What is really meant is that no leadership 

 is apparent ; that nothing is being done ; when, as a matter 

 of fact, potential leadership is probably there but not func- 

 tioning. Under such circumstances, the greatest contribu- 

 tion that can be made by outside agencies, like the county 

 agent, is to supply the leaven in such a way as to help 

 and encourage this leadership and organization. Once find 

 the man, convince him that he can do what ought to be 

 done, and help him to do it, and the problem is half solved. 



Why are some communities progressive and others back- 

 ward? Why does one community get the reputation of 

 "doing things " and another that it is "dead"? Usually 

 because of lack of leadership. The spirit of a community is 

 its life. This spirit is dependent upon the individuals which 

 make it up and more particularly upon its leadership. 

 Broadly speaking, a community's will to do measures what 

 it can do, within reasonable limits. An individual can do 

 what he wants to do, if he wants to do it bad enough to 



