Principles & Practices for Volunteer Leadership at Mozilla

The principles and practices below were created and agreed upon by the input group, a diverse group of staff and volunteers who are most closely connected to the primary contribution areas (listed above). We believe that these principles and practices should be part of all structures and processes around volunteer leadership across Mozilla.

This is part of the Mission Driven Mozillians strategy project.

The original post with discussion links is available here.

   Principle = the foundational belief
   Practice = how it should be applied

Principle 1. Leadership should require renewal

Practices:

• There should be set terms for all leadership roles
• There should be regular renewal checkpoints (by community &/or staff)

Principle 2. Leadership should be distributed

Practices:

• The number of leadership roles someone can hold at a single time should be limited
• New leadership opportunities and pathways should be decided and consulted on by the community involved in that area
• Criteria for the role requirements should be validated by the impacted group
• We should create clear definitions for roles and avoid the generic term “leader”
• Leadership responsibility should be held by groups where possible

Principle 3. Leadership should be accountable

Practices:

• All leaders should have clarity in their roles
• All leaders should agree to a standard by which they can be held
• Staff & community should have a way to hold leaders accountable
• Mozilla should enforce the Community Participation Guidelines consistently and strictly
• All leaders should be validated by the community members who are directly working in the same area
• All leaders should be aware that they represent the organization
• All leaders should follow a shared framework for decision making
• All leaders should be active and stay active for the duration of their term

Principles 4. Leadership should be diverse & inclusive

Practices:

• Leaders should strive to include diverse voices and groups
• Mozilla should enforce the Community Participation Guidelines consistently and strictly
• Roles should be transparent and visible so that people know what opportunities are available to them and the expectations of them
• Leadership pathways should explicitly consider inclusion dimensions (i.e. time, language, bandwidth, cultural norms)

Principle 5. Leadership should be consistent

Practices:

• Leadership roles are valued the same across the org/areas (recognition, access to resources, opportunities etc. )
• All leaders should have clarity in their roles and expectations
• All leaders should have a shared foundational knowledge base & skills (i.e. Community Participation Guidelines)
• Follow a shared framework for decision making
• We should create clear definitions for roles and avoid the generic term “leader”
• Tools should be consistent and coherent where possible

Principle 6. Leadership should include Community Experts and Technical Experts

Where community experts have expertise around community building and organizing, and technical experts have expertise in a specific functional area.

Practices:

• Mozilla should value and recognize them equally
• Both should be considered “leaders”
• Both should have a minimum capability in the other skill set (community management skills & technical skill)
• All community expert leaders should be aligned across all Mission-Driven Mozillians Functional Areas
• Technical Experts and Community Experts should balance each other and work together