Agricultural Leadership, Education, and Communication, Department of
Department of Agricultural Leadership, Education, and Communication: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research
First Advisor
Lindsay J. Hastings
Committee Members
L. J. McElravy, Mary E. Emery, Wayne A. Babchuk
Date of this Version
8-2025
Document Type
Dissertation
Citation
A dissertation presented to the faculty of the Graduate College at the University of Nebraska in partial fulfillment of requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy
Major: Human Sciences (Leadership Studies)
Under the supervision of Professor Lindsay J. Hastings
Lincoln, Nebraska, August 2025
Abstract
Rural communities across Nebraska face a myriad of complex challenges that cannot be solved by individual, heroic leaders. As such, collective leadership has begun to emerge in these communities as actors coalesce around local issues. However, little is known about collective leadership practice and development in rural contexts, resulting in a theory-to-practice gap. To that end, this qualitative sequential multimethod study sought to explore how rural community leaders and community development educators perceive, describe, and make meaning of collective leadership practices in rural Nebraska. Three phases comprise this study.
Phase I, the QUAL phase, was guided by the question, How do rural community leaders in Nebraska experience collective leadership in their communities? This phase leveraged transcendental phenomenology to deeply explore how rural community leaders experience collective leadership in their communities through conducting one-on-one interviews. Three overarching themes and eight subthemes were discovered in the Phase I data: (a) structures, practices, and behaviors of collective leadership (subthemes: importance of communication; community engagement, input, and dialogue; context-specific mindsets and approaches); (b) facilitators and supports of collective leadership (subthemes: relationships and partnerships, leveraging external expertise and resources, the power of invitation); and (c) barriers and tensions in collective leadership (subthemes: leader burnout, navigating resistance to change).
Phase II, the qual phase, was guided by the question, What insights, reactions, and perspectives do RPN educators have regarding how community leaders experience collective leadership? This phase presented the Phase I findings to Rural Prosperity Nebraska (RPN) educators and invited their perspectives and reactions in a focus group setting, using a thematic analysis approach for data analysis. Three themes emerged from the Phase II data: (a) collective leadership as a deep cultural (not just structural) shift; (b) organic emergence of collective leadership); and (c) community coaching, mentoring, and peer learning mechanisms.
Phase III involved synthesizing the Phase I and Phase II findings and depicting the integrated findings in a visual joint display, and was guided by the question, How do the Phase II (qual) findings connect to the Phase I (QUAL) findings? The synthesis and joint display offered in this phase helps to demonstrate the ways in which the findings of Phase I and Phase II connect to and crystallize each other.
This study contributes to collective leadership scholarship by deepening empirical understanding of how collective leadership is experienced and perceived by rural community leaders in Nebraska. Further, this study advances community development scholarship by offering a practice-informed exploration of what is required to deepen capacity for ongoing collective leadership work in rural Nebraska. The integrated findings of this study may be of interest to leadership scholars, rural community leaders, and community developers.
Advisor: Lindsay J. Hastings
Comments
Copyright 2025, Haden Myles Botkin. Used by permission