News & Resources

Centering People, Power, and Vision Through Shared Leadership
May 21, 2025 | |

There’s no one path to lasting change, but one thing is certain: the more voices and perspectives that are included, the more creative, impactful, and sustainable the solutions.

Shared leadership is built on the belief that everyone—residents, youth, community leaders—contributes valuable insight, lived experience, and power needed to drive real, lasting change. It may look different in practice from block to block, but at its core, it’s rooted in the same values: collaboration, trust, and collective action.

Across the Groundwork Network, shared leadership shows up in all kinds of ways. Sometimes, it looks like youth leading environmental projects, neighbors collecting and analyzing data collaboratively to co-create solutions, or residents designing and advocating for climate action plans for their neighborhoods. In each community, shared leadership takes a different shape, but these moments—big or small—build the foundation for real, lasting change.

To better understand the heart of shared leadership, we turned to our national team to ask how shared leadership shows up in their work. Their reflections offer a window into how it’s practiced, why it works, and what makes it such a meaningful way to lead.

Shared leadership can seem time-consuming at first—why involve more people when one person could make a quick decision? But in practice, it creates efficiency and impact over the long term. When a core team is committed to the process, shared leadership saves time, builds genuine buy-in, strengthens relationships, and supports personal and professional growth. The Groundwork Somerville team consistently models shared decision-making—balancing consensus with trust in each other’s expertise—and demonstrates how collaboration leads to stronger outcomes for their team and community.

– Meg Morgan, Senior Manager of Urban Forestry Programs

Groundwork Somerville
Shared leadership works when local youth are trusted as participants, experts, and leaders. Across the Groundwork Network, we see this when youth are engaged at every stage of a project—from planning to design to execution—and their voices shape the outcomes. Sharing leadership with youth ensures that changes to the built environment reflect the needs and visions of those who will use and inherit them.

– James Foster, Senior Manager of Youth programs

Groundwork San Diego
Shared leadership means creating space for others to lead, contribute, and shape the direction of our collective work. It’s not about always being at the front; sometimes it’s about stepping back and allowing others to lead. At Groundwork, I see this in action when community members take ownership of projects, when youth voices drive planning, and when our team makes decisions together, rooted in trust and a shared commitment to the same goal.

-Dr. Bruce Strouble, Senior Manager of Community Preparedness Projects

Groundwork Milwaukee
Shared Leadership to me looks like truly valuing and prioritizing everyone’s perspective. It might take more time, coordination, and compromise, but in the long run, it will lead to better outcomes for the whole community.

– Jalisa Gilmore, Senior Manager of Health and Land Use Programs

Shared leadership is as varied as the communities where it’s practiced—and that’s what makes it work! It meets people where they are, makes space for growth, and welcomes different ways of knowing and leading. When we lead together, we create something bigger than any individual effort could achieve. We build trust, lift others up, and honor every voice, perspective, and experience. In doing so, we pave the way for a future that’s healthier, more resilient, and rooted in care, connection, and community.