Levels of Leadership

I find it helpful to think of leadership in a population affected by a conflict in terms of a pyramid. An analytical perspective such as the one suggested here will always rely to some degree on broad generalizations that provide a set of lenses for focusing on a particular concern, or for considering and related a set of concepts. In this instance, we are using lenses to capture the overview of how an entire affected population in a setting of internal armed conflict is represented by leaders and other actors, as well as the roles they play in dealing with the situation. The pyramid permits us to lay out that leadership base in three major categories: top level, middle range, and the grassroots.

We can use the pyramid as a way of describing the numbers within a population in simplified terms. The pinnacle, or top-level leadership, represents the fewest people, in some cases perhaps only a handful of actors. The grassroots base of the pyramid encompasses the largest number of people, those who represent the population at large…