Learning from Anup's MozFest Experience

(Image Courtesy: wiki.mozilla.org)

My journey in Mozilla has been quite awesome and interesting till now. I've come to learn a lot of things, met like-minded people, shared ideas with them, gave talks which helped a lot in improving upon my skills as an organizer, leader, speaker, programmer and what not! and I hope it was beneficial to the community as well. This week I also got my name in Mozilla about:credits, and that's just because of continuous support from the local community and guidance of Anup, Ajay and Bhuvnesh.

Anup, our community mentor, got a chance to attend MozFest 2015. Last Saturday, he took an online session on vidyo, where he enlightened us about his learning in MozFest. He told us about various session he attended and his participation in the program.

This post is about my thoughts and learning through Anup's online session about Leaders, Leadership and participation in the community.

Though I've been a Tech SIG Lead in my local community (MozPacers), but I think Leaders are not different from other community members. I believe everyone is a leader, and it is the participation of the community members which acts as a pillar to the community. Not a single person could be a leader and not a single person depicts leadership qualities that take a community too far.

In every community, I believe only participation by different members helps in progressing and accomplishing any task. Anup is very right when he says "Participation is the core of any program". Everyone is a leader in the community and everyone makes decision which certainly affects every other member of the community. It is the power of these decisions collaboratively, which every community member make, that develop the whole community and lead it to the right direction.

Mentors are always there to guide the community members; but the distributed leadership where every member puts up his/her ideas reflects what truly leadership is. It is just about coming-forward and presenting one's views. When this distributed leadership through participation is collaborated, and everyone devotes something, learn from others; the whole group benefits and move forward together. This is what reflects the true meaning of participation and leadership.

In my local community too, I've learned quite a lot from my fellow Mozillians. We've collaborated on various stuff, whether it is Peer-to-Peer learning session, developing on projects for the community or just lending a helping hand in almost any task. It is this binding power (Participation) of team members which I've witnessed, has helped in growing up the community where people learn and are equally motivated to lead.

So, just to summarize my learning from Anup's session:

Leadership is not a single trait that a single person possess, it is the collaborative effort of the whole group, where they participate, learn and grow together.

I joined MozPacers when it was really in it's initial phase. Met Ajay, Anup and Bhuvnesh who told me that a website is to be needed for MozPacers, and that's how we made the initial wireframe in the first meet itself and my contributions started. If you want to know about my journey, then please read: My Journey to being a Mozillian.