Lao Village Chiefs and Thai Village Headmen are public officials with responsibilities ranging from poverty reduction and economic development to maintaining peace and order. Over the last decade, we have posed a series of questions to them to explore their ideas about leading. This paper presents results from questions asking about success, motivation, challenges, leading, why others are or aren’t drawn to the position, and mistakes made or observed. These results then are merged with other interviews asking the same questions, other studies, and the literature on leading to ask: how could Chiefs and Headmen shift their thinking in response to rapid social, cultural and institutional changes? We propose six areas: their role as initiators, perceptions of villagers, building social capital, interchangeability of roles, economic development, and what is learned from mistakes. We contend the work done here is relevant beyond Laos and Thailand to many places where local-level officials at the bottom of hierarchies work to fulfill responsibilities important to their communities.
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