Everyone Leads
Building Leadership from the Community Up
Book Edition Details
Summary
Leadership isn't confined to titles or corner offices—it's a dynamic force waiting to be unleashed in unexpected quarters. "Everybody Leads" challenges the traditional narrative, arguing that leadership is a collective journey accessible to all, from the boardroom to the break room. This invigorating guide, supported by Public Allies, illustrates how leadership thrives through collaboration, cultural connectivity, and community empowerment. It outlines five transformative values that ignite social change, urging every hidden leader to rise and craft a more equitable world. Here, the true leaders are those who embrace accountability, harness diversity, and unite for a shared purpose. A must-read for anyone ready to redefine what it means to lead.
Introduction
Maria had always believed that leadership was reserved for those with corner offices and impressive titles. As a single mother working two jobs in East Palo Alto, she felt invisible in her community's conversations about change. But when her teenage son was nearly caught in gang violence, something shifted. She began attending neighborhood meetings, not as someone seeking help, but as someone ready to contribute. Within months, Maria was organizing peace marches, connecting families, and discovering leadership qualities she never knew she possessed. Her transformation wasn't unique—it reflected a profound truth that challenges our conventional understanding of who gets to lead. This exploration emerges from decades of work developing leaders in communities across America, revealing that our most pressing challenges require a fundamental shift in how we think about leadership itself. Rather than waiting for heroes to emerge from traditional power structures, we must recognize that every community already contains the leadership capacity it needs. The stories and insights shared here demonstrate how ordinary people become extraordinary change agents when we create the right conditions for their gifts to flourish. Through practical frameworks and real-world examples, readers will discover how to identify potential leaders in unexpected places, build inclusive communities that harness diverse talents, and create sustainable change from the ground up. This journey offers not just hope, but a proven pathway for transforming both ourselves and our communities.
From Personal Struggles to Community Purpose
Paul Schmitz never imagined himself as a future leader. Growing up as the youngest of six children in a conservative Catholic family, he felt perpetually overshadowed by his accomplished siblings. Academic struggles, emotional sensitivity, and a rebellious streak marked his early years. By high school, alcohol and drugs had become his escape from depression and low self-esteem. What began as weekend experimentation escalated into dealing, creating a dangerous spiral that threatened to destroy his future entirely. The turning point came when Paul hit rock bottom at sixteen. Facing angry dealers, mounting debts, and escalating conflicts at home, he made a desperate choice that would save his life. He approached a priest after Mass, confessing his addiction and pleading for help. This moment of vulnerability led him to treatment, where he encountered something transformative—a diverse community of people struggling with similar challenges. For the first time, Paul was surrounded by individuals from different races, backgrounds, and circumstances, all working together toward recovery. In treatment and twelve-step meetings, Paul discovered the power of shared vulnerability and mutual support. His sponsor Wayne, a cattle buyer with wisdom and warmth, taught him that everyone has both strengths and shortcomings. This revelation shattered Paul's previous assumptions about superiority and inferiority. He learned that his own struggles with addiction didn't disqualify him from helping others—instead, they became the foundation for authentic connection and service. Paul's journey from addiction to founding Public Allies Milwaukee demonstrates how personal transformation can become the catalyst for community change. His struggles with depression, addiction, and feelings of inadequacy didn't disqualify him from leadership—they prepared him for it. The same vulnerability that once felt like weakness became his greatest strength, enabling him to recognize potential in others that more traditional leaders might overlook.
Building Inclusive Communities Through Diverse Voices
When Bizunesh Talbot-Scott applied to Public Allies at eighteen, she was a single mother with a two-year-old son, studying at Milwaukee Area Technical College. She described herself as "a smart girl who had no idea of my potential." Through the program, she discovered not only her own capabilities but also the transformative power of learning alongside peers from vastly different backgrounds. Her cohort included recent college graduates, high school dropouts, activists, and individuals who had faced incarceration—all united by their passion for community change. The diversity wasn't merely demographic; it represented a rich tapestry of lived experiences, perspectives, and survival strategies. Bizunesh learned from a married mother of two, a recent Ivy League graduate, and a thirty-year-old gay activist, each bringing unique insights to their shared work. This exposure to different worldviews challenged her assumptions and expanded her understanding of what was possible. The program's intentional focus on bringing together people who might never otherwise interact created a laboratory for inclusive leadership development. Susan Edwards arrived at Public Allies as a recent college graduate from Milwaukee's lily-white suburbs, contemplating law school and uncertain about her direction. When asked at her graduation what older activists needed to learn, Susan's response was immediate and profound: "For your generation, diversity is an ideal, something to believe in. At Public Allies, we learned it is an action—it is something you do." Her transformation came through being forced into uncomfortable conversations about difference within her diverse cohort, learning to navigate real tensions while working toward common goals. The power of diverse voices lies not in their differences alone, but in their ability to challenge assumptions, spark innovation, and create solutions that work for everyone. When organizations intentionally cultivate inclusive environments, they unlock potential that homogeneous groups simply cannot access, transforming both individual lives and collective outcomes through the hard work of authentic collaboration across difference.
Asset-Based Leadership and Collaborative Action
Steve Ramos grew up in Washington Heights, was kicked out of two high schools, and completed his GED at seventeen. When he joined Public Allies, he served at Fresh Youth Initiatives, where he encountered a community that others might see through a lens of deficits—high poverty, limited resources, struggling schools. But Steve and his colleagues chose to see something different. They saw young people with time, creativity, connections, and willingness to work hard. They saw a community with untapped assets waiting to be mobilized. When the local food pantry was closing, Steve didn't wait for outside help or funding. He rallied local youth to take ownership of the Helping Hands Food Bank, and together they collected and distributed over 550,000 pounds of food for neighborhood families. These young people, many from low-income households themselves, became the solution rather than the problem. They transformed from being seen as "at-risk" to being recognized as "at-promise," demonstrating that communities have the capacity to care for themselves when their assets are recognized and connected. When Pittsburgh's Public Allies team approached the Kingsley Association about working in the Larimer neighborhood, they spent three months walking door-to-door, surveying over two hundred residents about their community's assets and potential. They built relationships first, asking good questions that focused on strengths and solutions rather than complaints. Their survey results led to a neighborhood summit where seventy-five residents gathered to discuss community assets and develop a shared vision, growing monthly meetings from twenty to eighty participants. This asset-based approach reveals a fundamental truth about sustainable community change: the most effective solutions emerge from within communities themselves. When we shift from asking "What's wrong here?" to "What's strong here?", we discover resources and capabilities that traditional deficit-focused approaches completely miss, creating pathways to transformation that honor community wisdom and build lasting capacity for self-determination.
Accountability and Continuous Learning in Practice
Giselle John was aging out of the foster care system in August 1999, facing the very real prospect of homelessness, when she discovered Public Allies New York. The program became her bridge between institutional care and independent adulthood, but more importantly, it taught her that her painful experiences could become sources of strength and service. Placed at Youth Communication, she worked to empower other foster youth by helping them find their voices and share their stories through media and advocacy. Rather than being defined by her circumstances, Giselle learned to transform her lived experience into expertise. She discovered that the young people she served didn't need her pity—they needed her understanding, her example, and her belief in their potential. Through continuous reflection, feedback, and learning, she developed the skills to turn personal pain into professional purpose. Her work expanded from local impact to national influence as she joined the Annie E. Casey Foundation, providing technical assistance to reform foster care systems across multiple states. Leif Elsmo's journey from his first year as a Public Allies member in Milwaukee's Mid-Town neighborhood to his role as executive director at the University of Chicago Medical Center illustrates how accountability transforms institutions. Working alongside Michelle Obama and other alumni, Leif helped transform the medical center from an ivory tower institution into a genuine community partner. They built accountability structures including regular community summits where over two hundred residents receive progress reports and provide feedback on the Urban Health Initiative's ambitious goal to make thirty-four South Side neighborhoods among the healthiest communities in America by 2025. The most profound learning happens when we remain accountable to those we serve, allowing their experiences and feedback to continuously shape our understanding and approach. This creates leaders who don't just work for communities, but remain rooted in them, ensuring that growth in influence never comes at the expense of authentic connection and the integrity that comes from walking your talk.
Summary
These stories reveal that leadership is not a rare gift bestowed upon a chosen few, but a capacity that exists within every community, waiting to be recognized and nurtured. From Paul's journey through addiction to advocacy, to Bizunesh's transformation from teen mother to discovering her potential, to Steve's mobilization of youth assets, to Giselle's evolution from foster care to national influence, we see that the most powerful change agents often emerge from the margins of society. Their struggles become their qualifications, their differences become their strengths, and their communities become their classrooms. The path forward requires us to fundamentally shift how we think about potential and possibility. Instead of looking for leaders only in traditional places, we must recognize that every person carries unique gifts shaped by their experiences. Instead of approaching communities as collections of problems to be solved, we must see them as repositories of assets to be connected and mobilized. Instead of creating programs that do things to people, we must build movements that work with people as partners and co-creators. This transformation begins with each of us taking responsibility for the change we wish to see, stepping up despite our imperfections, and creating spaces where others can do the same. It requires the courage to have difficult conversations about power and privilege, the wisdom to see assets where others see deficits, and the commitment to remain accountable to those we serve. When we embrace these principles, we discover that leadership is not about having all the answers—it's about asking better questions, building authentic relationships, and trusting in the collective wisdom and strength that emerges when diverse people work together toward common goals.
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