Rural Leadership Transition

Jenny Nixon Author

02/07/2025 Added

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Professor Lindsay Hastings discusses rural leadership transition. Recorded June 2, 2021.

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[00:00:00.000]Well, good morning, everybody. I see lots of faces here today. That's excellent.
[00:00:05.620]I think we're not going to wait on people that are slow in coming. We're going to go ahead and
[00:00:14.020]let me start our recording. Actually, it's already. Okay. And I'd like to introduce to you
[00:00:21.000]Dr. Lindsay Hastings. And Lindsay today is going to talk to us about leadership transfer in rural
[00:00:27.540]communities, knowing that we're coming up with, you know, all of us boomers, and I'm the youngest
[00:00:34.060]of them, and what's going to happen. So I'm really anxious to hear what she's got to think about for
[00:00:41.260]our rural communities as we work on leadership transfer. So take it away, Lindsay. Okay. Well,
[00:00:47.080]thanks, Jenny. I'm really excited to be with you all. And what we'll be doing today is going over
[00:00:51.400]some research results after a, gosh, a four-year-long study that we did.
[00:00:57.520]Looking at leadership transfer in rural communities. So I'll share my screen if that's
[00:01:02.760]okay. Okay. I tried to just put this on. There we go. On PDF. So hopefully it,
[00:01:20.740]we don't run into technical glitches or issues. So hopefully this will work well.
[00:01:26.020]Um, I certainly want to acknowledge my collaborators on this project. Um, Hannah
[00:01:31.420]Sunderman, uh, Matt Hastings, Melissa Lusk, um, and LJ McElravey, um, all at the, at the
[00:01:37.900]University of Nebraska. Um, and Melissa actually is now working for the Nebraska Association of
[00:01:42.860]School Boards. Um, but anyway, yeah, so a great group. And, um, to, to give you a brief snapshot
[00:01:50.000]of what we did, we conducted a mixed method study to identify themes related to rural leadership
[00:01:55.500]transfer. Um, and we did a mixed method study to identify themes related to rural leadership
[00:01:56.000]transfer, uh, using a qualitative method called grounded theory. We'll talk about that in a little
[00:02:00.620]bit. And then, uh, then we developed a model to test quantitatively. So we developed a model of
[00:02:07.220]effective leadership transfer, and we use a method called structural equation modeling,
[00:02:11.100]which we'll talk a little bit more about, uh, later to test it. Um, so I, I don't believe in
[00:02:15.840]long presentations. Um, so I'm going to walk you through the study results in about 15 minutes.
[00:02:21.160]Um, and then I want to leave lots of room for, for Q and a, and you're always welcome
[00:02:25.980]to interrupt me. That doesn't bother me. Um, so if you have a clarifying question along the way,
[00:02:29.860]uh, please feel free to ask. Um, and then we can have a longer, more in-depth discussion at the end.
[00:02:34.860]Okay. So to first start to talk about like why this study matters, um, most of you are likely
[00:02:43.240]familiar with this transfer of wealth phenomenon going on right now in that between now and 2060,
[00:02:49.120]uh, where the U S is predicted to transfer 75 trillion, um, from older generations to younger
[00:02:55.960]generations. Interestingly, however, this isn't just a wealth issue. So currently 55% of management
[00:03:03.020]occupations are currently being held by individuals age 45 and older. So not only will we transfer
[00:03:08.200]75 trillion, but we'll also transfer over half of all of our management occupations.
[00:03:13.160]So the, really the, the current sustainability efforts within rural communities could be
[00:03:20.640]markedly impacted by such transitions, uh, really bringing either vitality or destruction. It could
[00:03:25.940]be. So we, what we're trying to understand better is rural leadership transfers. So as to enable
[00:03:31.860]communities to be more effective, um, in facilitating such leadership transitions.
[00:03:36.420]Okay. So, uh, now you're going to get to peek under the hood, um, on this study. Uh, this,
[00:03:44.740]this is our study design. Uh, we use what's called exploratory sequential mixed methods.
[00:03:50.380]Uh, so what that means is that we started qualitatively. Um, so our first, we were
[00:03:55.920]wanting to identify common factors of successful leadership transfer. Currently, there isn't a lot
[00:04:00.440]of theory, um, out there on rural leadership transfer. So we, we started qualitatively to
[00:04:06.340]be able to, uh, develop some theory, uh, around factors or identify those common factors of
[00:04:11.340]successful leadership transfer. Uh, then we developed a model for testing and then we,
[00:04:17.280]we tested that model using 2015 Nebraska world poll data.
[00:04:25.900]Okay. Uh, so for the qualitative phase, this first part, uh, what we did is we had five
[00:04:30.940]different rural community development organizations, uh, nominate rural communities in Nebraska
[00:04:36.760]who may felt, um, had been very successful at leadership transfer efforts. Uh, three
[00:04:42.200]communities were unanimously nominated. Um, and so within each community we identified,
[00:04:49.180]well, we worked with these community development organizations to identify a local contact.
[00:04:53.880]Um, and that contact was asked.
[00:04:55.880]And so we were able to select a diverse pool, um, of engaged community members who could
[00:04:59.600]speak to leadership transfer. Uh, we then reached out, um, and I sent out a group of
[00:05:04.620]graduate students to interview these community leaders. Um, they were each asked a series
[00:05:10.560]of eight questions and these were, were youth and adults as well. Um, respondents were asked
[00:05:16.740]a series of questions related to their experiences with leadership transfer. And then we analyzed
[00:05:20.940]that data using what we call grounded theory. Um, and then, like I said, the conceptual
[00:05:25.860]emerged. We then tested, uh, using 2015 rural poll data. Okay. Let's go over the qualitative
[00:05:33.540]phase results first. Now don't panic. I'm not going to go through this model in its
[00:05:36.920]entirety. I don't want your eyes to glaze over immediately. Um, this is the model that
[00:05:41.540]emerged from those interviews. And one of my most favorite moments in my professional
[00:05:47.980]career was when I sat down with this group of grad students and we were sitting in the
[00:05:52.760]hallway of the city campus union.
[00:05:55.840]And I said, okay, at the end of the day, what happened if we had to boil it down on what,
[00:06:02.380]what were the common factors that you saw over and over again in these communities,
[00:06:07.480]what happened? And they all shared a very similar story, which was interesting. So when
[00:06:12.920]we boiled it all down, what we felt like we saw was that in each of these communities
[00:06:18.220]that had been unanimously identified by multiple community development organizations as having
[00:06:24.240]engaged in successful leadership,
[00:06:25.820]transfer efforts, in all of those communities, there seemed to be this small group of community
[00:06:31.400]leaders who had a hopeful vision for the future and were willing to be a little gritty in
[00:06:39.300]getting something done, as in they got chewed up pretty hard to try and bring some key development
[00:06:46.380]efforts forward, but ultimately they were successful.
[00:06:49.620]So what we felt like we saw, we saw this small group of community leaders who did something,
[00:06:55.800]who did something in the way of community development.
[00:06:58.060]They helped to pass a sales tax initiative that could be used to hire an economic development
[00:07:02.820]director.
[00:07:03.820]They started a community-wide leadership development program.
[00:07:07.820]They worked with Nebraska Community Foundation to set up a community philanthropic fund.
[00:07:13.200]So this small group of community leaders with a hopeful vision and were willing to get a
[00:07:17.980]little gritty were able to do something in the way of a community development accomplishment.
[00:07:23.780]In so doing, what they were able
[00:07:25.780]to do was to spread this, what we call it a contagion effect, they essentially created
[00:07:31.260]contagious hope.
[00:07:32.820]So by virtue of being able to do something in the way of community development, and honestly
[00:07:36.280]it didn't seem to matter what that was.
[00:07:38.340]So whether it was a community philanthropic fund or a leadership development program or
[00:07:41.780]a sales tax initiative, it really didn't matter, but what we saw was this sort of contagious
[00:07:46.460]hope happening around the community.
[00:07:49.680]And as a result of that, it became the cool thing in town to be involved.
[00:07:55.760]The base of people who were willing to engage in community engagement efforts and community
[00:08:02.200]development efforts, that base widened because there was this contagious hope.
[00:08:07.180]It became the cool thing.
[00:08:08.520]In fact, one of my grad students, actually she was an undergrad at the time, I got such
[00:08:13.660]a kick out of this.
[00:08:14.660]She goes, "I think people get involved, not because they care about getting involved,
[00:08:18.560]but because it's the cool thing in town to do."
[00:08:21.680]So it's more a matter of like, "Well, I'm doing it because my friends are doing it.
[00:08:24.340]It's the cool thing."
[00:08:25.740]So how did these communities engage in successful leadership transfer efforts?
[00:08:32.360]Will they broaden the base of those who are willing to be civically engaged by virtue
[00:08:36.740]of spreading hope, creating a contagion effect of hope by virtue of being willing to get
[00:08:42.180]a little gritty and do something in the way of a community development accomplishment?
[00:08:49.140]So as I mentioned, we then wanted to develop this model that we could test quantitatively.
[00:08:55.720]What we saw was that, again, this small group of hopeful community leaders led to this contagious
[00:09:05.660]hope in the community, and that contagious hope led to a broadened base of civic engagement.
[00:09:10.920]So this became the model that we tested quantitatively using 2015 Nebraska World Poll data.
[00:09:19.320]Okay, so now you really get to peek under the hood and seeing the quantitative results.
[00:09:23.540]Now again, don't panic.
[00:09:24.540]I'm going to walk you through this model.
[00:09:25.700]So I don't want you to look at it and go, "Oh God, what does this mean?"
[00:09:28.300]I'll walk you through it.
[00:09:29.800]Okay, so as I mentioned, this is the model that we were testing.
[00:09:33.640]So you're seeing the same big circles here, right?
[00:09:37.020]This belief in community leadership, predicting hope, and then hope predicting civic engagement.
[00:09:43.540]Okay, so that's what you're still seeing those paths here.
[00:09:47.400]These boxes, these small boxes below are just telling you the items that were pulled from
[00:09:53.260]the Nebraska World Poll that we felt.
[00:09:55.680]We measured each of these big circles, so that's what you're seeing here.
[00:10:01.960]Let's look at these, these are called path coefficients.
[00:10:04.820]Let's look at these path coefficients, because this is the important stuff.
[00:10:09.320]So what this tells us is that, and all these path coefficients were statistically significant.
[00:10:16.460]So what that means is that, for example, for every one unit increase in belief in community
[00:10:22.020]leadership, there was a 0.79 increase in hope.
[00:10:25.660]And then over here, for every one unit increase in hope in community, there was a 0.24 increase
[00:10:33.520]in civic engagement.
[00:10:34.820]These were all statistically significant.
[00:10:37.280]Now the whole model fit the data well.
[00:10:41.560]And just to give you a little background, that's what these statistics are telling you.
[00:10:46.060]These statistics are telling you that this whole model fit the data well.
[00:10:52.060]Now this data is where it gets a little bit interesting too.
[00:10:55.640]This R squared, this 0.62, what this tells you is that 62% of the variability in hope
[00:11:02.360]and community was explained by belief in community leadership.
[00:11:06.360]That figure is pretty huge.
[00:11:07.880]You don't typically get those numbers in social science, so that tells you these two really
[00:11:11.620]have a nice relationship.
[00:11:15.960]This R squared, this 0.06, what this tells you is that 6% of the variability in civic
[00:11:21.500]engagement was explained by hope and community.
[00:11:25.620]So, still significant, but much less so.
[00:11:29.380]Much less variability in civic engagement was explained by hope and community.
[00:11:36.400]And then all of these path coefficients were significant as well.
[00:11:39.120]Just what that means is that these items measured these constructs well.
[00:11:43.860]That's just what that tells you there.
[00:11:45.920]Now, interestingly, in our qualitative phase, when we were doing interviews, a bunch of
[00:11:51.200]people said that they got involved in their community because somebody asked them.
[00:11:55.600]It wasn't necessarily that everyone got involved in their community because of this contagious
[00:11:59.920]hope.
[00:12:00.920]Some people got involved in the community because somebody asked them to be involved.
[00:12:04.600]We felt like we needed to also test a direct impact on belief in community leadership on
[00:12:10.700]civic engagement.
[00:12:11.880]We tested what's called a mediation model.
[00:12:14.660]What that means is that we're testing a direct impact from belief in community leadership
[00:12:18.800]to civic engagement, and we're also testing an indirect impact on civic engagement through
[00:12:25.580]hope.
[00:12:27.320]So we tested both of those things.
[00:12:28.980]Okay, now, here's what is fascinating.
[00:12:32.620]Look at this negative figure.
[00:12:34.020]Look at that negative figure.
[00:12:37.340]That path coefficient is negative and significant.
[00:12:40.540]So interestingly, our path coefficients from belief in community leadership to hope in
[00:12:44.960]community and then hope in community to civic engagement, those figures improved from what
[00:12:50.580]we had here.
[00:12:53.440]So again, what this says is that for every one
[00:12:55.560]unit increase in belief in community leadership, there's 0.81 unit increases in hope in community.
[00:13:02.240]And then for every one unit increase in hope in community, there's 0.57 increase in civic
[00:13:06.600]engagement.
[00:13:07.600]Okay, so our path coefficients actually improved.
[00:13:10.660]Here's this negative path coefficient, which was so unexpected.
[00:13:14.460]So what that means is that the more someone believes in the effectiveness of their community
[00:13:20.380]leadership, the less likely they are to engage in personal responsibility to get involved.
[00:13:25.540]The more mad they are, the more upset they are, the more dissatisfied they are with their
[00:13:29.920]community leaders would be more likely to get involved.
[00:13:33.020]So that was interesting.
[00:13:34.440]So our path coefficients improved this way.
[00:13:37.140]And actually the indirect effect, which you can't see on here, the indirect effect on
[00:13:41.500]belief in community leadership to civic engagement through hope was also significant.
[00:13:49.260]And actually, it's called a nested model comparison, so when we compared this model and compared
[00:13:55.520]this model, this model said it fit the data more effectively than the first one.
[00:14:03.060]So what this tells us is that belief in community leadership impacts civic engagement positively
[00:14:10.120]only when it's mediated through hope.
[00:14:12.480]So this whole notion of a small group of community leaders creating a contagious hope in the
[00:14:18.440]community, that really makes a difference in driving personal responsibility.
[00:14:25.500]To get involved.
[00:14:26.500]Right?
[00:14:27.500]I mean, some of it can be, well, if I just get mad enough at my community leaders, I'll
[00:14:31.260]be willing to get involved.
[00:14:33.060]But this whole notion of small groups of community leaders doing something to develop their community,
[00:14:40.220]and in so doing, creating a vehicle for contagious hope, that really does a lot to enhance and
[00:14:47.180]enlarge the base of people who are willing to get involved.
[00:14:50.600]As my student said, it becomes the cool thing in town to be involved.
[00:14:54.640]Okay, so with that, I would love to open the floor for questions.
[00:15:01.200]What questions can I answer about either this study or even things that you've been thinking
[00:15:05.520]about in rural leadership transfer?
[00:15:07.800]What questions can I answer?
[00:15:10.000]Dr. Hastings, did you control for community, well, if it's rural poll data, I don't know
[00:15:17.800]how they have that question in the rural poll, do they control for population in this model?
[00:15:23.580]Not in this model.
[00:15:24.580]No.
[00:15:25.580]Mm-mm.
[00:15:26.580]You know, in my experience in, you know, being the economic development director in
[00:15:30.920]Loop City population 1,000 was that if you have a paid development professional, they,
[00:15:37.520]you know, a community leader position, then they just expect you, they trust you and expect
[00:15:43.680]you to do stuff.
[00:15:44.680]So they're less likely to show up and like, well, we pay Sean, so we're not going to be,
[00:15:49.020]we're not going to go to meetings or, or, or whatever.
[00:15:52.520]So, so this doesn't work.
[00:15:54.520]It doesn't surprise me at all, based on my experience, you know, I'm just curious if
[00:16:00.160]you were able to segment, you know, by population, like village classes, those under 800 or 900
[00:16:05.920]to 1500, you know, if you control per population on this, this really interesting model, you
[00:16:11.540]know, what that would do.
[00:16:12.540]My, my theory is that, you know, that, that figure of negative point in zero three and
[00:16:19.700]that threshold of communities that can afford a paid professional, like a chamber director
[00:16:24.460]or an economic development director, that's going to stay in that negative range.
[00:16:28.820]As long as, you know, the community is small enough to have a relationship with those leaders,
[00:16:34.000]right?
[00:16:34.420]If you get big enough, like over 10,000, maybe they just don't have a relationship with those
[00:16:39.980]paid professionals.
[00:16:41.120]But when you get under a certain threshold, there's a, there's typically a relationship.
[00:16:46.980]I know that you cannot, you know, we all know the mayor, the economic development director,
[00:16:50.180]and I feel like they're doing a good job.
[00:16:51.800]I don't need to show up for meetings, which is not what we want.
[00:16:54.400]We want, you know, we want them to be engaged, but that's just, you know, my personal experience.
[00:16:59.400]This is really interesting, and that's why I was wondering if there was controlling for population at all.
[00:17:04.440]No, you're asking a good question, and that's certainly something that got brought up in the interviews.
[00:17:08.620]Now, some argued, so for example, in the communities that were able to pass sales tax initiatives
[00:17:15.640]to hire economic development directors or be able to hire staff for this effort,
[00:17:22.600]some argued that.
[00:17:24.340]That was going to be necessary because community development efforts would live and die based
[00:17:32.020]on who was running it, and that so long as those volunteers were willing to get chewed
[00:17:37.500]up doing these community development efforts, well, then they'd be successful.
[00:17:41.680]Well, if somebody moved away or somebody didn't really want to take a knock on their business
[00:17:46.900]trying to push these community development efforts forward, well, then they would die.
[00:17:54.280]Those community development efforts would die.
[00:17:55.840]So that got brought up a couple of different times that in those cases, they needed to
[00:18:00.460]hire someone professionally because otherwise it was completely dependent upon volunteer
[00:18:05.000]efforts.
[00:18:05.580]And some of those efforts were just a little bit too electric for just volunteer efforts
[00:18:11.520]to manage.
[00:18:12.840]Great question, Sean.
[00:18:15.200]What other questions can I answer or at least attempt to answer?
[00:18:24.220]Lindsay, this is Doug.
[00:18:26.880]In your interviews, did you interview some of us old-timers, the old-time baby boomers?
[00:18:34.440]And I'd be interested in hearing their comments about intentional leadership transfers.
[00:18:42.880]Yeah, great question.
[00:18:45.920]Yes, absolutely.
[00:18:47.780]So we had probably the largest amount of diversity in age.
[00:18:54.160]We had from interviewing high school students up to individuals who had been involved in community development efforts for multiple decades.
[00:19:02.080]Certainly a theme that we saw was this notion of intergenerational.
[00:19:11.140]It can't be something where only the young professional group can be involved in or just something that those with the most experience drive forward.
[00:19:24.100]That it was really when it could be a multi-generation and intergenerational effort, that that was a real key.
[00:19:35.500]And actually in some of these communities, these communities were also communities I studied a long, long time ago looking at youth engagement in community development efforts.
[00:19:45.400]And in many of these communities, I mean, certainly Nebraska City being one of them, that youth had been involved.
[00:19:54.040]In community development work for a really long time.
[00:19:57.460]And not just one youth on one board.
[00:20:00.380]But rather, you know, multiple youth.
[00:20:04.380]Well, Doug, I'm thinking specifically Nebraska City.
[00:20:07.300]Isn't there a youth panel that reviews grant applications for part of the community philanthropy fund?
[00:20:16.780]Yes.
[00:20:18.760]The community endowment, 20% of the payout.
[00:20:23.980]Is controlled by the youth.
[00:20:25.820]In other words, they look at those grants and also propose grants to grant back into the community.
[00:20:31.860]However, that's been, we need to revive that, you know.
[00:20:37.780]Like you said earlier, it's so dependent upon the people, the individuals involved.
[00:20:43.800]And they've not been intentional about the transfer of leadership within their group.
[00:20:51.660]And so this is.
[00:20:53.920]This is a real interesting and important topic to me.
[00:20:58.140]As to how to encourage that transfer of leadership at all ages amongst all groups.
[00:21:04.960]Well, and Doug, one of the things that got brought up in all communities was mentorship.
[00:21:09.940]So in this notion of like how do we prepare younger generations of leaders to take over.
[00:21:16.060]Mentorship was one of the three.
[00:21:18.820]Oh, we call them like action interaction strategies.
[00:21:23.860]So the ways in which leadership transfer were facilitated, one of the major themes was mentoring.
[00:21:29.180]And mentoring across generations.
[00:21:32.600]So having older members in the community mentor younger ones.
[00:21:37.900]So what were the other two top indicators of successful transfer?
[00:21:42.900]Yeah, so I was looking at the availability of opportunities and programs.
[00:21:47.520]So things like formal leadership development programs or sending groups.
[00:21:53.800]To go to trainings elsewhere.
[00:21:56.220]Well, and the third one was just, so Doug, to your intentional, intentional engagement.
[00:22:04.400]So intentional asking, intentional invitations.
[00:22:09.700]Those were things that we saw as being really critical action strategies for facilitating leadership transfer.
[00:22:17.480]So mentoring, formal leadership development programs, either in-house or sent elsewhere, and intentional.
[00:22:23.740]So just to clarify, for my own sake, so you're saying, I guess it seems like with that, that hope and community, there could be a lot of variables that of how does that actually transfer to engagement.
[00:22:42.120]So you're saying that within that, like mentorship, formal leadership, like opportunities for growth, and then that intentional asking seemed to correlate.
[00:22:53.680]Well, and Daniel, do you go by Daniel?
[00:22:57.140]Yep.
[00:22:57.820]So in Daniel, I would say some of the other critical efforts in that sort of contagion effect, that contagious spread, so much media coverage, community development efforts.
[00:23:12.640]That was something that impressed me a lot.
[00:23:15.420]The local paper was always involved at meetings, putting out there, you know, advertisements for the whatever.
[00:23:23.620]Give to, you know, give to the town day or whatever.
[00:23:27.420]They were at the heart of making sure that every community development effort was well publicized.
[00:23:34.160]Thanks.
[00:23:39.060]Yeah, great question.
[00:23:40.740]I was curious about your indicators of hope in the community.
[00:23:50.280]Could you give me a feel for what those might be?
[00:23:53.560]Sure.
[00:23:54.080]So, well, specifically the rural poll questions that deal with hope or things like, I think my community is better off today than it was a year ago or 10 years ago.
[00:24:09.220]I'm trying to remember some of the hope questions.
[00:24:11.960]I'll have to pull them up.
[00:24:12.900]But I look at it as like mindset, that it's like how we talk about the community, how we think about the community.
[00:24:23.500]And that was certainly brought up in the interviews as well.
[00:24:26.620]Well, and not even in this study alone.
[00:24:31.220]When I did that study looking at youth engagement and community development efforts, I heard that a lot.
[00:24:36.500]Older members of the community saying, we have got to stop telling our youth to leave.
[00:24:42.660]We've got to stop talking about our community as being a place where it's iffy whether or not a young person or a young family could thrive here.
[00:24:51.500]Like we have to stop talking.
[00:24:53.440]We have to stop talking about it like that.
[00:24:54.260]But we have to talk, hopefully, and in hopeful ways about our community and saying our community is a thriving place to live.
[00:25:03.000]It is a place where young people should come back and there are opportunities here.
[00:25:08.020]And if they're not here, we can make them.
[00:25:09.700]So, yeah, that was something that I heard over and over again.
[00:25:13.000]But certainly indicators of hope are around like this mindset, how someone thinks about their community as being a thriving place.
[00:25:23.380]Moving in a positive direction, I guess I should say that.
[00:25:25.620]Or is moving in a thriving direction.
[00:25:27.560]Did you do any comparison interviews with communities that don't or weren't considered successful?
[00:25:39.900]No, that's a good question, Jamie.
[00:25:42.120]That was not part of the study.
[00:25:43.700]That's certainly something that we want to take a look at.
[00:25:46.420]And actually, Jamie, what I'm, I've been trying to work with Randy Cantrell as well to look at like, okay, can we look at.
[00:25:53.320]Trends in these communities that have done and been engaged in community development efforts for multiple decades, decades. So we're talking like Nebraska City we're talking like Valley County we're talking whole county right places like my cook their places like
[00:26:07.360]Shadron certainly there are there are places around the state that have had community development efforts going on for decades.
[00:26:15.260]And what I'd like to be able to study is to look at, okay, are there trends in rural poll
[00:26:23.260]data so for example those hope questions, those hope questions have been asked for over 10 years.
[00:26:28.960]So, my hope is my intention is to be able to look at like okay is a valley county for example, is there hope data or the hope trajectory hope pathway over 10 years.
[00:26:43.080]Is that significantly different from a county that has similar, a similar demographic profile in the state but
[00:26:53.200]hasn't necessarily been involved in multiple decades worth of community development efforts. So, the, the reason why we didn't include counter examples in this one was because the theory building was really around common themes of successful leadership transfer.
[00:27:09.640]And then what we did was we went back to those community development organizations that we originally went to to say like okay the themes that emerged would you say this matches your experiences in communities that were successful
[00:27:23.140]at leadership transfer versus those that were not like are we are we really finding themes that are unique to communities that have that are successful at leadership transfer versus those with whom you've worked that weren't necessarily successful at that.
[00:27:36.720]So that was the way we tried to really ensure validity of our findings for this study, but I'm hoping to actually look at it even more comprehensively through things like rural poll civic health and indices, trying to match communities
[00:27:53.080]demographically
[00:27:54.580]And then be able to say like, okay, are we seeing significant trends?
[00:27:57.600]Because I mean, I would say, I mean, Mylon, I'm sure you would say something similar.
[00:28:01.640]I mean, I'm thinking to myself, every time I've gone to Ord, and I've gone to Ord, I
[00:28:06.620]don't know, a dozen times in over the course of 10 years, even more, there's definitely
[00:28:14.700]a, you can, there's a palpable difference in how they talk about their community.
[00:28:19.940]And that's been, it's been that way for a long time.
[00:28:22.580]I mean, Mylon, I don't want to speak for you.
[00:28:24.260]You have a lot more experience in community development in these, in these communities.
[00:28:29.300]Yeah, the, or Valley County, the entire leadership culture has changed over a period of approximately
[00:28:39.800]two decades.
[00:28:40.820]And I think that what you derive from the researchers sharing today is support.
[00:28:53.940]Supported by that particular example in that today leaders in Ord have a lot more hope
[00:29:03.540]than they did going back probably even more than 20 years because some of us started working
[00:29:11.120]there during the 80s when the farm crisis was raging.
[00:29:15.020]But there, there is and has been a deliberate transition.
[00:29:23.620]Transition of power from one generation to the next in Ord and it's has staying, staying
[00:29:32.100]influence because it's authentic.
[00:29:35.540]So you have a whole new generation of people engaged there.
[00:29:42.020]There are still key members of an older generation that are still involved, but essentially that
[00:29:53.300]transition has, and is taking place.
[00:29:56.380]And, and I think that's, that's really important and to underscore the point that's been an
[00:30:05.820]intentional engagement strategy on the part of champions who began to advocate for different
[00:30:17.280]directions in Ord, as I say, going back probably 20 to 25 years.
[00:30:22.980]And I think we find similar themes in other communities that have gone through a successful
[00:30:32.480]transition of this type as well.
[00:30:35.480]Doug could probably talk about that in Nebraska City, for example.
[00:30:42.780]We see that in O'Neill over approximately the same period of time.
[00:30:51.120]Andrew can probably talk about
[00:30:52.660]what's happened in Custer County, for example, and he was previously in McCook, where I
[00:30:58.700]think there have been some similar transitions.
[00:31:02.240]So I think the data, qualitatively and quantitatively, keeps supporting the same conclusions, which
[00:31:11.660]to me is important, particularly with respect to what interventions are possible that will
[00:31:20.680]make a difference.
[00:31:22.340]Your point, Lindsay, about asking people to assume new leadership roles is consistent
[00:31:32.360]with old rural poll data that, I don't remember how many years ago this was, but one of the
[00:31:41.560]questions Randy could tell us was something like, have you ever thought of running for
[00:31:46.600]public office?
[00:31:49.100]And a surprisingly large people of young adults said yes.
[00:31:52.020]I think it was a third or so.
[00:31:54.860]I thought it was fairly large.
[00:31:57.140]And then the next question was, well, if you thought about it but haven't done it, why
[00:32:01.560]not?
[00:32:03.020]And the principal response to that was, nobody has ever asked me.
[00:32:08.860]And we see similar results, Deb could talk about this, with Craig Schroeder's survey
[00:32:19.920]of secondary students.
[00:32:21.700]Consistently, 70 plus percent of middle school and high school students in Craig's survey
[00:32:30.220]research say they would like to be involved in making their community a better place to
[00:32:38.380]live.
[00:32:39.380]And then when you say, well, to what extent has any adult ever asked you that question
[00:32:46.460]to get involved?
[00:32:48.200]And the answers run in the range of 15 to 17%.
[00:32:51.380]So, we have a high level of intention or interest at least in being a part of community development
[00:33:02.020]efforts on the part of students who are growing up in their hometowns, but no adults ever
[00:33:08.780]think to ask them.
[00:33:12.100]And that reality is reinforced by a lot of our experiences across many people who are
[00:33:20.600]on this call.
[00:33:21.060]I know we had an experience several years ago talking to some students from a small
[00:33:28.940]town in the middle part of the state about community involvement, and one of their teachers
[00:33:34.740]was listening in to the questions we were asking these kids, and they all expressed
[00:33:42.360]high level of interest in getting involved.
[00:33:45.740]And then afterwards, in a little debriefing, the teacher said,
[00:33:50.740]"Well, how do you get them involved anyway?"
[00:33:54.980]And our answer was, "Well, you could ask them."
[00:33:58.140]And it was kind of like, "Oh, never dawned on us to do that."
[00:34:04.400]So I think there are some relatively simple and straightforward interventions that are
[00:34:09.320]possible and that do make a significant difference, and the puzzling thing to me is, given all
[00:34:18.420]the evidence of what these
[00:34:20.420]kinds of interventions are, how come adults don't use them more commonly?
[00:34:26.800]And my only answer to that is they're stuck in their old ways, and it just doesn't dawn
[00:34:34.940]on them to look around to the younger generations, especially high school age students, and say,
[00:34:43.220]"What would you do?"
[00:34:46.000]I really think one of the keys has to be at the administrative level.
[00:34:50.100]Depending on who the superintendent of schools is that manages everything that your students
[00:34:56.040]are allowed to do or asked to do or encouraged to do, depends entirely on what their teachers
[00:35:02.940]say they have time to do.
[00:35:05.080]And I can remember a lot of years where we would ask about youth involvement in whether
[00:35:10.940]it would be something as prescriptive as a leadership program or have someone sit on
[00:35:18.420]the events.
[00:35:19.780]And for the local festival, that sort of thing.
[00:35:22.960]The Seward model for the 4th of July celebration where they've got the youth group and they
[00:35:27.660]move on up.
[00:35:29.920]For a long time, the teachers really had the attitude is we have them for a very short
[00:35:36.360]period of time.
[00:35:37.640]We have to do these specific things and we are not about to let them go to do what you
[00:35:44.660]think is important to our community on the time I have to teach them the three R's.
[00:35:49.460]So that philosophy from a superintendent level to down to a principal, down to the actual
[00:35:56.620]classroom stuff is really important or I don't think they don't have the opportunity to even
[00:36:04.480]learn what those opportunities might be, the chances to do it.
[00:36:08.500]Deb, you are so right.
[00:36:11.460]A couple of different things we saw were that when local school districts allowed for students
[00:36:19.140]to fulfill some of their graduation requirements by virtue of being engaged in the community,
[00:36:24.580]so for example, social studies, their civic education unit, they could fulfill some of those
[00:36:34.900]responsibilities by virtue of being involved on the local chamber board, for example, or giving
[00:36:41.060]them time away from class in order to do that, that it became an expectation of the class that you'd
[00:36:48.820]be engaged. That was a huge proponent for getting youth to be able to
[00:36:57.140]have sustained engagement, community development efforts, and the other things that I saw were
[00:37:01.840]like community service requirements for graduation, having those fulfilled by virtue of
[00:37:09.520]attending lunch, meaning so they would give up lunch at school to be able to attend
[00:37:18.500]meetings within the community and they would get all their community service hours
[00:37:22.160]taken care of by virtue of that. But you're exactly right. In order for youth to be engaged,
[00:37:29.700]some of the common themes that we saw were that they were able to incorporate it into
[00:37:35.720]high school students' day at school. But what I did find was that when
[00:37:42.460]when the youth engagement happened completely outside of the school day, there just was
[00:37:48.180]not a time because these students were at school by 630 in the morning to do weight
[00:37:55.140]lifting or whatever. They had games at night, homework after that. There just were not enough
[00:38:01.480]hours in the day. So the more that it can be incorporated into their school day, the
[00:38:06.520]better for sure. So, but Deb, you bring up a great point. And Deb, I want to acknowledge
[00:38:10.280]your comment earlier around publicity issues, small town newspapers consolidating
[00:38:17.860]and going away. Jeremy, and my line is, is it Lipschultz at UNO? Lipschultz. Lipschultz
[00:38:27.580]at UNO. He runs their social media lab. And he and I are in conversations around how can
[00:38:35.640]we go about mining social media data that relates to community perception. So like,
[00:38:42.400]for example, some communities have a hashtag, right? Like Ainsworth, Ainsworth it. And so
[00:38:47.540]when anyone posts about, you know, positive feelings toward the community that incorporate
[00:38:53.760]that hashtag, you know, is there a way that we can study community perception by virtue of
[00:38:58.740]social media postings? Because you're exactly right. Some towns don't have a local media
[00:39:06.500]presence anymore. They have to rely on community members to perpetuate that, that hope, that
[00:39:12.220]sentiment via social media.
[00:39:17.220]So I thought you brought up a great point.
[00:39:21.300]Lindsay, there's one other point that I think might be important. So we see some
[00:39:33.580]trending and perhaps greater trending of people from urban settings who are looking to relocate
[00:39:41.180]to rural settings. And there may be others on the call
[00:39:46.900]today who were a part of this, but again, Randy Cantrell and a number of folks several
[00:39:54.020]years ago did some focus groups in western Nebraska interviewing people who had relocated
[00:40:03.540]to a rural community from a larger community.
[00:40:08.540]And one finding that I thought was really seminal was the principal reason
[00:40:16.580]that people said that they moved to this place was because they had connections there.
[00:40:21.780]And then they also, as part of that interview protocol, were asking people whether they
[00:40:30.820]intended to stay or not, and what the factors were that would influence their decision to stay
[00:40:39.620]or leave. And they had the same answer: connections. So the people who
[00:40:46.260]felt like they had been welcomed and were engulfed in the community in positive ways
[00:40:57.140]fairly quickly felt like they had strong enough connections to stay. And the people who weren't
[00:41:04.980]welcomed and engaged in that kind of way felt like, well, what's the point?
[00:41:11.860]There's no reason for me to stay here because I really
[00:41:15.940]don't feel like I'm a part of this place. Yeah.
[00:41:18.660]Well, so, Mylon, that's fascinating. We did a study a number of years ago, well,
[00:41:25.140]I guess not a number, maybe three or four years ago now, where we looked at migration intentions
[00:41:30.500]of college student leaders. We had done a previous study looking at this specific group of college
[00:41:36.820]student leaders to examine their generativity levels in comparison to their peers. And what
[00:41:42.100]we found was that these college student leaders who had spent their time mentoring in college,
[00:41:45.620]they had higher generativity, which sounds like a made-up word, but it refers to the care and
[00:41:49.780]concern one has for establishing and guiding the next generation. And so after we discovered that
[00:41:54.820]these students indeed have higher generativity, I then had a grad student who wanted to study
[00:42:00.180]their migration intentions upon graduation, like what were the factors that determined
[00:42:04.740]whether or not they stayed or went somewhere. And Mylon, what was fascinating about that study
[00:42:10.420]was that the number one factor by a long shot, by a factor of like two or three,
[00:42:15.300]was the opportunity to make a difference. That these college student leaders who are
[00:42:20.020]more generative than their peers, they would stay or go based on their perception of an
[00:42:26.500]opportunity to make a difference. And I was sharing this, I think with, I came up with
[00:42:32.580]some extension personnel, or I can't remember when I was talking about this, but to me,
[00:42:36.580]this is where rural Nebraska can win the hand. Because in my opinion, small towns in Nebraska
[00:42:44.980]have, I think, the greatest card to play in this, like, hey, you can get involved immediately.
[00:42:51.400]You don't have to just become a cog in the wheel at a major company in a town where nobody knows
[00:42:59.060]you or in a city where nobody knows you. But here you can have a means of supporting your family,
[00:43:08.480]but also you can get involved immediately in community leadership. You can serve in
[00:43:14.660]multiple roles in community leadership. And that's something that you can do immediately
[00:43:19.320]upon arrival. This isn't something that will take decades in order to accomplish. So anyway,
[00:43:25.160]so it's fascinating when you're talking about the connections really determine whether or not
[00:43:28.940]someone had intentions to stay. Because that was something interesting that we found about
[00:43:33.980]the number one factor in determining whether or not a college leader
[00:43:38.080]upon graduation would stay or go was the opportunity to make a difference.
[00:43:44.340]Yeah, I think that has been reinforced, Lindsay, over and over again. And Andrew may want to
[00:43:49.940]comment, but the RFI internship program, now called Rural Fellows, I think demonstrates
[00:43:58.160]how quickly a young person can make a difference in a community that isn't even their own.
[00:44:07.700]Right. Typically, you know, these are young people who go to a community,
[00:44:14.020]that they typically have not known before, spend a summer there working on a project
[00:44:23.060]or two, and according to the adult mentors of these young people, the communities benefit
[00:44:31.700]immeasurably because of the contributions they make.
[00:44:36.660]So how much easier it would be if they knew the community and Nebraska Community Foundation's
[00:44:43.700]hometown interns program, which started this year, may demonstrate that again in terms
[00:44:52.420]of young people who are going back home and making a similar contribution.
[00:45:00.660]Yeah.
[00:45:01.460]Well, Andrew, I mean, you're a product of that.
[00:45:03.380]You did service ship and then moved to McCook and then up into Broken Bow and you're from
[00:45:10.100]West Point.
[00:45:10.660]So anyway, I mean, you should.
[00:45:13.380]Sure, you're a great example of exactly what we're talking about.
[00:45:16.260]Sure, I can speak to it.
[00:45:19.860]Yeah, so the actual long story there, too, is that I'm actually not even from the state
[00:45:26.820]of Nebraska.
[00:45:27.620]Born and raised in Los Angeles, moved to northeast Nebraska, West Point's home.
[00:45:32.900]That's where my family is.
[00:45:34.020]But I had all these intentions of going into corporate America and doing that whole thing
[00:45:40.900]in the animal science industry.
[00:45:43.060]And then I pivoted, did the rural service ship, landed me in McCook, where I met a lot
[00:45:50.020]of you wonderful people, and have been in economic development five years now.
[00:45:55.620]And it's all based around, like, where can we make the most difference?
[00:46:02.740]Really, that's truly what it is.
[00:46:03.940]And I was fortunate enough to go through that program that Lindsay was talking about while
[00:46:07.540]I was at the university, but the service ship was the demystifying
[00:46:12.740]what community leadership is.
[00:46:14.740]So I know we throw it around here on this call, and we know exactly what that means.
[00:46:18.060]It means being on boards and being in the chamber, and it means government leadership
[00:46:23.200]and serving on committees.
[00:46:25.700]That makes sense to us, but it's lingo that we get to use because we're a part of it.
[00:46:30.700]But as a college student, even as a high school student, I mean, you mentioned city government,
[00:46:35.840]city council, and you think that people walk around with gavels making decisions that you
[00:46:41.340]really don't understand.
[00:46:42.420]But the service ship is what was actually the, oh, I can do this.
[00:46:47.980]It's tough, but it's not hard.
[00:46:51.860]And that sort of pulled back the curtain from, oh, really, anybody can do this.
[00:46:59.380]You just have to care enough to figure it out.
[00:47:01.500]And so that's what eventually launched me into the career that I'm in today.
[00:47:05.820]And Mylon, to your point, I've been involved in the service ship for a number of years.
[00:47:10.640]And now there's a bunch of...
[00:47:12.100]There's a bunch of little disciples, too, I think, about Lee and Gamet.
[00:47:15.360]Amber Ross is down the road.
[00:47:16.880]Other service ship interns that have entered the industry of community and economic development.
[00:47:22.740]So hopefully that hit on what you were hoping to.
[00:47:25.140]Yeah.
[00:47:26.000]Yeah, indeed.
[00:47:27.560]Thank you.
[00:47:28.280]I wanted to ask about, and maybe it's not something necessarily, Dr. Hastings, that
[00:47:38.700]you can answer as much as just for the group.
[00:47:41.780]You know, it seems like that core group of community leaders that have that hopeful
[00:47:46.920]vision of the future and that creating that contagious hope kind of depends on that group
[00:47:55.700]being hopeful in the first place.
[00:47:57.580]And I know we all see a lot of people in leadership positions who aren't very hopeful.
[00:48:06.120]They're more negative.
[00:48:07.220]And so I guess, you know,
[00:48:11.460]in building our initiatives and the things that we want to get done in the community,
[00:48:17.020]it seems like there's sometimes a tension of involving certain people or boards for
[00:48:23.380]the formal positions that they hold versus maybe people who haven't been as involved,
[00:48:30.900]who are maybe more informal leaders, but who have the energy, who have the positive vision.
[00:48:35.200]And so just about, you know, can we build steering committees and
[00:48:41.140]initiatives around that sort of that hopeful vision as an essential criteria
[00:48:48.180]for somebody being involved? And if somebody has the title of a city council member,
[00:48:55.440]but they don't have a hopeful vision, it's not like we'll exclude them, but we won't try to build
[00:49:00.880]the effort around it. And so any thoughts on that, of that quality of who do you ask,
[00:49:10.820]who do you build that, to build that small group? That's, it just seems like,
[00:49:18.500]yeah, that's an essential first step on that hopeful vision. Daniel, I really, I think you're
[00:49:26.980]onto something around this notion of hopeful vision being at least a soft criterion for these
[00:49:33.440]steering committees. Well, and Andrew, I love that line. It's tough, but it's not hard. I
[00:49:40.500]love that because certainly stories that we heard was getting these community development initiatives
[00:49:45.160]through and accomplished, it required getting chewed up a little. I mean, you know, I can think
[00:49:54.260]of an older generation community leader in Valley County who called every landowner in the
[00:50:02.080]county to try and encourage passing a sales tax initiative. I mean, you can imagine how positively
[00:50:10.180]those phone calls went. Not very. I mean, so point being this person got chewed up a lot. But again,
[00:50:18.760]I think for these community leaders, it was that sort of hopeful vision and willing to be a little
[00:50:25.100]gritty to get something done was critical. So anyway, is it hard to make phone calls? No. But
[00:50:33.600]is it hard to get chewed on a little on those phone calls? Yeah. So anyway, I love that line. Andrew,
[00:50:39.860]you got to trademark it. It's tough, but it's not hard. And so I think that hopeful vision
[00:50:43.560]and caring about that hopeful vision enough to be willing to get a little gritty is important.
[00:50:49.920]So I think you're onto something, Daniel. Absolutely.
[00:50:52.880]So, Lindsay, one other thought. I know that
[00:51:00.780]even a small core of people who work hard at this can make a tremendous difference. But
[00:51:09.540]there also are examples of individuals who take the risk and end up making a significant
[00:51:17.180]difference. One of my favorite stories is I got to know several years ago through a program
[00:51:24.740]with Pioneer Hybrid, and Doug will remember these days. I got to know an entrepreneurial
[00:51:32.460]farmer, business owner, and horse raiser in St. Paris, Ohio.
[00:51:39.220]Eddie Luce, he's no longer with us, but he was just really involved in everything, but he got
[00:51:46.580]really tired about the negative talk at the coffee shop every day. So he committed to going to the
[00:51:55.080]coffee shop daily for six months to change the tone and content of the conversation.
[00:52:02.620]So he would sit down with these naysayers, listen to their gripes for a
[00:52:08.900]while, and then insert something positive into the conversation.
[00:52:13.460]And in six months, this is Eddie's own testimony, but I believed him, in six months,
[00:52:23.800]the conversation changed over that period of time to where more people around the table were saying
[00:52:32.260]positive things than negative things about their own community. And, you know,
[00:52:38.580]that was a significant commitment, but borrowing again from Andrew, it was tough, but not hard.
[00:52:48.080]This is not a significantly complicated thing to do. It just took the patience and persistence to
[00:53:00.160]do it. Yeah. Well, and in fact, Daniel, I was thinking about this quote from Margaret Mead. I
[00:53:08.260]was pulling this up. She was a cultural anthropologist and one of her more famous
[00:53:13.260]quotes that has really resonated with me in the wake of this study. She said,
[00:53:18.100]never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed,
[00:53:22.780]it's the only thing that ever has. So anyway, that struck me that in all these communities,
[00:53:29.000]it really just was a small group of people who got things started. And sometimes it was
[00:53:34.980]big community development efforts and sometimes they were little.
[00:53:38.460]But point being, in all those cases, they were able to do something that allowed the spread of
[00:53:44.840]community hope. So this is something too, I'm also trying to think with my extension friends
[00:53:49.980]in the room, you know, I'm also trying to think through as well. I don't know that there's any
[00:53:53.940]one silver bullet initiative that is the way in which this community hope gets spread. I mean,
[00:54:01.080]each community decided for themselves what they needed and a small group helped to make it
[00:54:07.620]happen. And in so doing, it then became the cool thing to think about their community
[00:54:14.620]as being a thriving place. So anyway, I know we're coming to the end of our time here, Jenny.
[00:54:21.220]Are there, yeah, I want to turn it back over to you if you have final announcements and whatnot.
[00:54:26.100]Thank you so much for the opportunity to be with you all. I've enjoyed this very much.
[00:54:29.040]Yes, thank you very much. This has been excellent. I do have,
[00:54:37.300]this session in two weeks. Megan Patent-Nygren is coming to us from
[00:54:42.460]the LTAP office, and I'll have to look that up quickly here and give you a little summary of
[00:54:49.140]what she's, she is an amazing person, and she has been doing graduate coursework during her
[00:54:55.580]regular work, and one of the courses that she worked with was about housing, and so we're
[00:55:01.900]going to talk about maybe some housing models that might, might work in real small communities,
[00:55:06.980]and so I, I challenged her to bring that to us, because she was real excited about it, so
[00:55:12.020]we'll have Megan in two weeks. I really do appreciate all of you guys's time,
[00:55:17.640]and thank you, Lindsay, for taking the time out to explain that fascinating research, and I mean,
[00:55:23.000]it just sounds like there's like a world of research left to do, and it's so good that we have
[00:55:27.820]such great data with the, the roll poll that, you know, researchers like you can draw from,
[00:55:33.180]that's awesome, and that we're all putting into that.
[00:55:36.660]That is great.
[00:55:37.480]Absolutely.
[00:55:38.420]Thank you all.
[00:55:39.240]Take good care.
[00:55:42.000]We'll see you in a couple weeks.
[00:55:43.340]Thanks.
[00:55:45.300]Thank you so much for joining us.

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Rural Leadership Transition

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