Articles / Leadership, Organizing and Action: Marshall Ganz Framework
Development, Training & CoachingMaster Marshall Ganz's Leadership, Organizing and Action framework including Public Narrative, Story of Self Us Now, and community organizing principles.
Written by Laura Bouttell • Mon 5th January 2026
Marshall Ganz's Leadership, Organizing and Action framework represents one of the most influential approaches to community organizing and social movement leadership, developed through decades of practical experience with the United Farm Workers and civil rights movement before being codified into systematic methodology at Harvard Kennedy School—emphasizing that leadership fundamentally involves "accepting responsibility for enabling others to achieve shared purpose in the face of uncertainty" through five core practices: Public Narrative (articulating compelling stories), Building Relationships (creating networks of commitment), Structuring Leadership Teams (developing distributed capacity), Strategizing (turning resources into power), and Action (learning through doing). Unlike traditional leadership models emphasizing individual heroic leaders directing followers, Ganz's framework centres on relational organizing that mobilizes people through values-based narratives, develops leadership broadly rather than concentrating it hierarchically, and achieves power through strategic collective action rather than positional authority.
This approach proved its effectiveness in Barack Obama's groundbreaking 2008 presidential campaign, where Ganz designed the grassroots organizing model and training programme that mobilized millions of volunteers, and continues influencing social movements, civic organizations, political campaigns, and increasingly business leaders recognizing that traditional command-and-control approaches prove inadequate for navigating contemporary complexity requiring motivated commitment rather than grudging compliance. For leaders in any sector—nonprofit organizers building movements, political campaign managers mobilizing supporters, corporate executives driving transformation, educators engaging communities, or professionals seeking to lead change without formal authority—Ganz's framework illuminates how leadership operates through relationships, narratives, and collective action rather than merely hierarchical position.
This comprehensive guide explores Ganz's Leadership, Organizing and Action framework systematically: examining its theoretical foundations in community organizing tradition and social movement theory, detailing the five core practices with practical implementation guidance, understanding the Public Narrative framework (Story of Self, Story of Us, Story of Now) as central organizing tool, analysing how the approach applies across contexts from grassroots movements to organizational change, and providing guidance for developing capabilities in narrative leadership, relationship building, and strategic organizing.
Understanding Ganz's framework requires appreciating its roots in American community organizing tradition and Ganz's personal trajectory from civil rights activist to academic synthesizing practice-based knowledge into transmissible methodology. Marshall Ganz first encountered organizing in 1964 as civil rights movement volunteer in Mississippi, experiencing firsthand how marginalized people could gain power through collective action, strategic campaigning, and moral narrative challenging injustice. This formative experience led to 16 years working with Cesar Chavez and the United Farm Workers, where Ganz participated in campaigns that transformed California agricultural labour relations through innovative organizing tactics, strategic boycotts, and compelling narrative framing farm workers' struggles in moral and religious terms resonating with broader American public.
After leaving the UFW, Ganz worked as trainer and organizer for political campaigns, unions, and nonprofit organizations before returning to Harvard where he earned his sociology PhD in 2000 at age 56. His doctoral research examined why the United Farm Workers succeeded against powerful opposition whilst other organizing efforts failed, identifying organizational, strategic, and leadership factors distinguishing effective from ineffective movements. This research became Why David Sometimes Wins: Leadership, Organization and Strategy in the California Farm Worker Movement (2009), earning the American Political Science Association's Michael J. Harrington Book Award and establishing Ganz as leading scholar-practitioner of community organizing.
As Senior Lecturer in Leadership, Organizing, and Civil Society at Harvard Kennedy School, Ganz developed and teaches the Leadership, Organizing and Action curriculum, initially as semester course for Kennedy School students and subsequently as executive education programme accessible to practitioners globally. He also founded and coaches the Leading Change Network, connecting organizers, researchers, and educators worldwide. His newest book, People, Power, Change: Organizing for Democratic Renewal (2024), synthesizes his life's work into comprehensive framework for democratic organizing in contemporary contexts.
Ganz's work extends traditions developed by Saul Alinsky and subsequent community organizing practitioners emphasising that marginalised communities gain power through organized people rather than money or formal authority. Alinsky's
1960s and 1970s organizing in Chicago and subsequent Industrial Areas Foundation work established principles Ganz builds upon: organizing people around their interests and values rather than ideology, developing indigenous leadership rather than relying on charismatic external leaders, using direct action tactics creating pressure for change, and building permanent organizations rather than temporary coalitions dissolving after single campaigns.
However, Ganz extends this tradition importantly. Whilst Alinsky emphasized interests and power, Ganz foregrounds values and narrative—how people's deepest values provide motivational foundation for action, how storytelling creates emotional connection and meaning that interest-based appeals alone cannot generate. Whilst traditional organizing often concentrated leadership in skilled organizers, Ganz's approach develops distributed leadership systematically through structured teams and training. Whilst Alinsky's organizing focused primarily on neighbourhood and community contexts, Ganz's framework proves adaptable to electoral politics, advocacy campaigns, organizational change, and social movements operating at multiple scales.
Ganz's framework identifies five interconnected practices constituting effective organizing leadership: Public Narrative, Building Relationships, Structuring Leadership Teams, Strategizing, and Action. These practices don't operate sequentially but cyclically and simultaneously—narrative attracts people into relationships, relationships enable team formation, teams develop strategy, strategy guides action, action generates stories feeding new narratives and relationships. Mastery involves developing capabilities across all five practices whilst understanding their interdependencies.
Public Narrative represents Ganz's most widely known contribution—a storytelling framework enabling leaders to articulate compelling calls to action through three nested stories: Story of Self (communicating values that called you to leadership), Story of Us (expressing shared values uniting the community or movement), and Story of Now (articulating urgent challenge to those values demanding action). This framework recognises that effective leadership involves more than rational argument; it requires emotional connection, values alignment, and urgency creation that only narrative achieves.
Story of Self answers "Why am I called to lead?"—sharing pivotal moments, challenges faced, choices made that reveal the values motivating your leadership. Effective Stories of Self prove specific (describing particular moments rather than generalities), vulnerable (revealing authentic challenges and choices, not just successes), and values-focused (making explicit what you learned about what matters rather than merely recounting events). Obama's 2004 Democratic Convention speech exemplified powerful Story of Self—sharing his family's story, his community organizing experiences, and choices leading to public service, revealing values of opportunity, dignity, and service without explicitly naming them.
Story of Us answers "Why are we called to collective action?"—expressing shared values, common experiences, and collective identity uniting people into "us." Effective Stories of Us invoke shared values (freedom, justice, dignity, community), reference shared experiences creating common bond (historical struggles, current challenges, cultural touchstones), and articulate collective identity distinct from but not necessarily opposed to "them." Martin Luther King Jr.'s speeches exemplified this—invoking American founding values, referencing shared experiences of injustice, articulating moral identity encompassing both Black Americans and white allies committed to justice.
Story of Now answers "Why must we act now?"—articulating urgent challenge to shared values, identifying specific action, and creating hope through expressing confidence that collective action can address the challenge. Effective Stories of Now specify the threat or opportunity, make clear what concrete action is possible, and balance urgency (why now) with hope (why action matters and can succeed). Environmental movements illustrate this—climate crisis threatens shared values of protecting children's futures, specific actions like policy advocacy or lifestyle changes are possible, and collective action can make difference despite challenge's enormity.
Public Narrative proves powerful because it operates emotionally and cognitively—stories engage hearts alongside minds, create identification through shared values and experiences, and motivate action through combining urgency with hope and agency. The framework provides structure making storytelling systematically teachable rather than merely intuitive gift some possess.
Organizing leadership fundamentally involves building relationships—the networks of commitment enabling collective action. Ganz distinguishes organizing relationships from transactional interactions or casual friendships. Organizing relationships involve mutual commitment to shared purpose, reciprocal accountability for follow-through, emotional engagement beyond instrumental cooperation, and intentional development over time through structured one-on-one conversations.
The "one-on-one" represents core organizing practice—structured conversations where organizers and potential leaders explore interests, values, experiences, and commitments. Effective one-on-ones follow loose structure: establishing connection through genuine curiosity, surfacing values through exploring what matters to the person, identifying interests and concerns, assessing leadership potential and willingness to act, extending specific invitation to take action or leadership role, and following up consistently to build trust and accountability.
Building relationships at scale requires systematic approach—organizing campaigns might conduct thousands of one-on-ones identifying potential leaders and building commitment network. This relational organizing contrasts with mobilizing (broadcasting messages to masses hoping for response) or advertising (purchasing attention). Whilst mobilizing and advertising have roles, relationship-building creates deeper commitment, develops leadership capacity, and generates organizational resilience that transactional approaches cannot match.
Effective organizing requires developing leadership broadly rather than concentrating it hierarchically—distributed leadership increases organizational capacity, develops people's leadership capabilities, creates resilience when individuals leave, and embodies democratic values motivating many organizing efforts. Ganz emphasises structured leadership teams as mechanism for distributing leadership systematically rather than hoping it emerges organically.
Leadership teams exhibit specific characteristics: clear purpose and goals uniting members, defined roles with corresponding accountabilities rather than amorphous shared responsibility, regular meetings maintaining momentum and accountability, coaching relationships supporting member development, and structured processes for decision-making, problem-solving, and learning from action. The Obama campaign's neighbourhood team structure exemplified this—teams of 6-12 volunteers with clear roles (team leader, data coordinator, volunteer coordinator, event organizer), weekly meetings, coaching from field organizers, and collective responsibility for neighbourhood voter contact goals.
Team structure enables "leadership development as organizing strategy"—rather than merely recruiting volunteers to execute organizer-designed plans, structured teams develop members' leadership capabilities through doing real work with coaching support. This approach builds organizational capacity whilst fulfilling organizing's developmental purpose of enabling people to exercise collective power over their lives.
Strategy involves turning resources into power to achieve purpose—identifying pathways from current reality to desired change given available resources and opposition forces. Ganz teaches strategy as learnable craft rather than mystical gift, involving systematic analysis and creative problem-solving.
Effective organizing strategy begins with outcome clarity (specific, measurable change sought), constituency analysis (who benefits from change, who opposes it, who's persuadable), power analysis (what resources does each side control, what sources of power can be mobilized), and pathway identification (sequence of tactical actions building toward goal). The framework emphasises that strategy must account for movement resources (people, relationships, narrative power, moral authority) rather than assuming institutional resources (money, formal authority) marginalized groups typically lack.
Strategic campaigns employ escalating tactics creating pressure for change: beginning with education and relationship-building, escalating to direct action if necessary, and always combining pressure tactics with constructive proposals. Successful UFW campaigns exemplified this—beginning with worker organizing and union formation, escalating to strikes creating economic pressure, supplementing with consumer boycotts expanding conflict beyond immediate workplace, and coupling pressure with specific proposals for labour contracts.
Organizing leadership involves learning through action rather than endless planning—the motto "action is the oxygen of organizing" captures that movements develop through doing, not just thinking or discussing. Action generates several critical functions: testing strategy through real-world feedback, developing members' skills and confidence through experience, building commitment through shared effort, creating momentum and visibility, and generating stories feeding future narrative.
Ganz emphasises structured action cycles: planning specific action with clear goals, executing with coaching support, conducting "debrief" immediately after evaluating what happened and why, identifying lessons for future action, celebrating wins and learning from setbacks, and quickly moving to next action maintaining momentum. This action-learning cycle creates organisational knowledge accumulating over time as teams develop practical expertise about what works in their specific contexts.
The action emphasis contrasts with purely analytical or educational approaches. Whilst analysis and education matter, organizing recognises that people develop commitment and capability primarily through doing rather than just learning about. The Obama campaign's early neighbourhood canvassing exemplified this—new volunteers received brief training then immediately began knocking doors with experienced partners, debriefing after each shift, rapidly developing practical skills through coached action rather than extensive classroom preparation.
Whilst Ganz's framework originates in community organizing and social movements, its principles increasingly inform leadership across contexts including organizational change, business transformation, and professional settings. The framework proves valuable wherever leadership involves mobilizing voluntary commitment rather than merely commanding compliance through hierarchical authority.
Business transformation efforts increasingly adopt organizing principles recognising that traditional change management (leader-driven, top-down, communication-focused) often fails whilst movement-building approaches (distributed leadership, values-based narrative, relationship networks) create sustainable change. Executives leading major transformations can apply Ganz's practices: crafting Public Narrative explaining why change matters personally (Story of Self), connecting to organizational values and shared purpose (Story of Us), and articulating urgent need for action (Story of Now); building relationships through structured one-on-ones with key stakeholders surfacing concerns and building commitment; creating distributed leadership through transformation teams with clear roles and coaching; developing strategy turning organizational resources (people, relationships, narratives) into power for change; and maintaining momentum through action cycles with rapid feedback.
The organizing approach particularly suits contexts where leaders lack complete authority, change requires voluntary adoption beyond mere compliance, and transformation success depends on engaging people's values and energy rather than just technical implementation. Digital transformations, cultural change initiatives, and strategic repositioning efforts benefit from organizing approaches creating movement energy around change rather than merely managing project plans.
Professionals frequently face leadership challenges without corresponding hierarchical authority—project managers coordinating cross-functional teams, individual contributors influencing colleagues, consultants advising clients, or advocates promoting initiatives. Organizing principles prove particularly valuable for these influence-without-authority contexts.
Public Narrative enables professionals to articulate why they care about initiatives, connect to colleagues' values, and create urgency for action. Relationship-building through intentional one-on-ones creates commitment networks bypassing formal hierarchy. Leadership team structures enable distributed effort where single individuals lack capacity or authority. Strategic thinking identifies influence pathways available given limited formal power. Action cycles create momentum through small wins building toward larger goals.
Marshall Ganz's Leadership, Organizing and Action framework is a systematic approach to community organizing and social movement leadership developed through decades of practical experience and subsequently taught at Harvard Kennedy School. The framework defines leadership as "accepting responsibility for enabling others to achieve shared purpose in the face of uncertainty" and identifies five core practices: (1) Public Narrative—articulating compelling stories of Self, Us, and Now that connect values to action, (2) Building Relationships—creating networks of commitment through intentional one-on-one conversations, (3) Structuring Leadership Teams—developing distributed leadership capacity through teams with clear roles and coaching, (4) Strategizing—turning resources into power through systematic analysis and tactical sequencing, and (5) Action—learning through doing with structured debrief cycles. The framework emphasizes relational organizing that mobilizes people through values-based narratives, develops leadership broadly, and achieves power through strategic collective action rather than hierarchical authority, proving effective in contexts from grassroots movements to organizational change.
Public Narrative is Marshall Ganz's storytelling framework enabling leaders to articulate compelling calls to action through three nested stories: Story of Self (communicating values that called you to leadership), Story of Us (expressing shared values uniting the community), and Story of Now (articulating urgent challenge demanding immediate action). Story of Self shares pivotal personal moments revealing values motivating your leadership—specific, vulnerable, and values-focused rather than merely recounting achievements. Story of Us invokes shared values, references common experiences, and articulates collective identity creating "we" from diverse individuals. Story of Now specifies urgent challenge to shared values, identifies concrete action possible, and balances urgency with hope expressing confidence that collective action can succeed. Public Narrative proves powerful because stories engage emotionally alongside cognitively, create identification through shared values, and motivate action through combining urgency, hope, and agency. The framework makes storytelling systematically teachable rather than intuitive gift, enabling broader leadership development.
Marshall Ganz is Rita E. Hauser Senior Lecturer in Leadership, Organizing, and Civil Society at Harvard Kennedy School, recognized as leading scholar-practitioner of community organizing and social movement leadership. Ganz entered organizing through 1964 civil rights movement work in Mississippi, then spent 16 years with Cesar Chavez and the United Farm Workers developing innovative organizing strategies that transformed California agricultural labour relations. After organizing work with campaigns, unions, and nonprofits, Ganz returned to Harvard for sociology PhD (completed 2000) examining why some organizing efforts succeed whilst others fail. His book Why David Sometimes Wins (2009) earned the American Political Science Association's Harrington Award. Ganz designed the grassroots organizing model and training for Barack Obama's successful 2008 presidential campaign. He developed and teaches the Leadership, Organizing and Action programme at Harvard whilst coaching the global Leading Change Network. His newest book, People, Power, Change: Organizing for Democratic Renewal (2024), synthesizes his life's work into comprehensive democratic organizing framework.
Story of Self communicates the values that called you to leadership by sharing pivotal personal moments, challenges faced, and choices made that reveal what matters to you and why you act. Effective Stories of Self prove specific (describing particular moments with concrete details rather than generalities), vulnerable (revealing authentic challenges and choices including moments of doubt or difficulty, not just successes), and values-focused (making explicit what you learned about what matters through experience rather than merely recounting events chronologically). The story should be brief (typically 1-3 minutes), emotionally authentic (revealing genuine feeling without melodrama), and values-clear (enabling listeners to understand your motivations). For example, Obama's 2004 Convention speech shared his grandfather's WWII service, mother's community development work, and his own community organizing experiences—specific moments revealing values of opportunity, service, and dignity. Story of Self creates emotional connection and credibility through vulnerability whilst establishing values foundation for subsequent Story of Us and Story of Now.
Relational organizing involves building networks of commitment through intentional relationship development, typically using structured "one-on-one" conversations exploring interests, values, experiences, and leadership potential. This contrasts with mobilizing (broadcasting messages hoping for response) or transactional interactions (one-time exchanges without ongoing commitment). Relational organizing creates deeper commitment because people act based on relationships and shared values more than abstract appeals. The one-on-one conversation represents core practice—30-60 minute structured discussions establishing connection, surfacing values, identifying interests and concerns, assessing leadership capacity, extending specific invitations to action or leadership roles, and following up consistently. Building relationships at scale requires systematic approach with organizers conducting dozens or hundreds of one-on-ones identifying potential leaders. Organizing relationships involve mutual commitment to shared purpose, reciprocal accountability, emotional engagement, and intentional development over time. This relationship infrastructure enables sustained collective action whilst developing members' leadership capabilities through meaningful participation rather than merely following directions.
Ganz's approach emphasises distributed leadership developing capacities broadly rather than concentrating leadership hierarchically, relational organizing building commitment networks rather than commanding compliance through authority, values-based narrative creating emotional connection alongside rational argument, strategy turning movement resources (people, relationships, moral authority) into power rather than assuming institutional resources, and learning through action cycles rather than endless planning. This contrasts with traditional heroic leadership models emphasizing individual leaders directing followers, command-and-control approaches relying on hierarchical authority, purely rational communication emphasizing facts and logic, and extensive analysis preceding action. Ganz's framework proves particularly valuable for contexts involving voluntary commitment (social movements, organizational change, professional influence), limited formal authority, values-driven purposes, and needs for sustainable capacity rather than dependence on charismatic individuals. The approach recognizes that contemporary challenges require motivated engagement rather than grudging compliance, that expertise distributes across roles rather than concentrating hierarchically, and that sustainable change requires developing leadership capacity broadly throughout organizations and communities.
Marshall Ganz's organizing methods are taught through Harvard Kennedy School's Leadership, Organizing and Action: Leading Change programme—a 15-week online executive education course exploring the five core practices through interactive learning, practical application, and coaching. The programme is also offered as semester course for Kennedy School students. The global Leading Change Network, which Ganz co-founded, provides training, coaching, and resources connecting organizers, researchers, and educators worldwide. Ganz's books including Why David Sometimes Wins (2009) and People, Power, Change (2024) provide written documentation of the framework. Numerous organizations adapted and teach Ganz-inspired approaches including narrative training programmes, community organizing institutes, and campaign training organizations. Free resources including videos, articles, and toolkits are available through the Leading Change Network website, Harvard Kennedy School, and various organizing support organizations. Many labour unions, advocacy organizations, and political campaigns incorporate Ganz's methods into their training programmes, providing learning opportunities for participants in organizing efforts whilst developing practical skills.
Marshall Ganz's Leadership, Organizing and Action framework offers profound reconceptualization of leadership not as individual heroism but as accepting responsibility for enabling others to achieve shared purpose through relationship-building, narrative articulation, distributed capacity development, strategic thinking, and action cycles generating learning. This approach proves increasingly relevant as traditional command-and-control leadership proves inadequate for contemporary challenges requiring voluntary commitment, distributed expertise, rapid adaptation, and sustained engagement that hierarchical authority alone cannot generate.
The framework's power derives from systematic integration of practices too often treated separately—recognizing that narrative without relationships produces inspiring speeches without organized action, relationships without strategy create diffuse energy without focused impact, strategy without action produces plans gathering dust, and action without reflection generates activity without learning. The five practices operate cyclically and interdependently, creating organizing capacity that builds over time through experience rather than depending entirely on charismatic leaders or favourable circumstances.
For leaders across contexts—community organizers building movements, political campaign managers mobilizing supporters, business executives driving transformation, nonprofit leaders engaging communities, educators developing civic capacity, or professionals seeking to lead without formal authority—Ganz's framework provides practical methodology for generating power through organized people rather than relying solely on money or hierarchical position. The approach proves particularly valuable for those seeking to create sustainable change rather than temporary mobilization, to develop leadership capacity throughout organizations rather than concentrating it at the top, and to engage people's deepest values and commitments rather than merely seeking transactional compliance.
The framework's grassroots origins in civil rights and farm worker movements remind us that leadership principles enabling marginalized communities to challenge powerful interests prove equally applicable to organizational and professional contexts where formal authority proves insufficient for navigating complexity, building commitment, and achieving ambitious purposes. By studying and applying Ganz's systematic approach to Public Narrative, relationship-building, leadership team structuring, strategizing, and action-learning, leaders across sectors can develop capabilities for mobilizing collective action toward shared purposes—the essence of leadership in democratic and collaborative contexts.
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