Role Summary The Head of Leadership Development is responsible for the conceptual leadership, design,

implementation, and growth of TCLP’s Leadership Development Department across two core tracks:

● Student Leadership Development (ages 13–18)

● Youth & Community Leadership Development (ages 18 )

This role carries organisation-wide responsibility for building leadership as community ownership,

not as individual advancement. The position exists to ensure that TCLP’s libraries are run with, by,

and for the community, and that leadership development remains deeply rooted in politics that are against class exploitation, and caste oppression and foster feminist, democratic, and justice-oriented pedagogy.

The Head of Leadership Development stewards a long-term leadership pipeline—from student leaders to youth leaders, community organisers, librarians, TCLP Leadership Council members and library-movement activists—ensuring coherence across age groups, roles, and political purpose.

This role is about deepening, systematising, and sustaining leadership work that already exists within TCLP.

Purpose of the Role

● To transfer ownership of libraries to the community through structured, sustained leadership development.

● To develop leaders who think critically, act collectively, and organise communities around the

Right to Read and broader democratic rights.

● To ensure that leadership development at TCLP is pedagogically rigorous, politically grounded, and operationally integrated with librarianship and organising.

● To strengthen systems that allow leadership development to be scalable, accountable, and sustainable without dilution of values.

Departmental Scope The Leadership Development Department includes two interlinked leadership formations:

● Student Leaders (13–18) and Community Organiser Trainees, ie interns (paid, short-term)

● Youth Leaders and Community Organisers (18–25)

The Head of Leadership Development holds overall responsibility for coherence, quality, mentorship structures, curriculum alignment, evaluation, and progression pathways across both groups.

Key Responsibilities

- Strategic Leadership & Vision

● Articulate and steward a shared vision of leadership across student and adult tracks,

grounded in:

○ Community ownership

○ Opposition to class exploitation

○ Anti-caste and anti-discrimination politics

○ Constitutional values

○ Libraries as democratic institutions

● Translate TCLP’s philosophical commitments (justice, love, trust, solidarity, community ownership) into concrete leadership practices.

● Ensure leadership development remains central to TCLP’s organisational strategy, not a parallel or add-on program.

● Do this work in close collaboration with librarians, organisers, and senior leadership,





recognising leadership development as shared work.

- Student Leadership Development (Ages 13–18)

● Provide overall leadership for the Student Leadership Program across all TCLP branches.

Oversee one Librarian in each branch who is responsible for the SL Program.

● Advice Librarians responsible for SL on :

○ Recruitment and nomination processes

○ Open training and formal training structures

○ Induction ceremonies and annual cycles

● Ensure student leadership curriculum remains:

○ Age-appropriate

○ Experiential and dialogical

○ Integrated with daily library work (circulation, read-alouds, mobilisation, digital library,

data, technology).

● Support librarians in their role as mentors and co-educators, not supervisors.

● Ensure parental engagement, consent, and trust-building remain integral to the program.

● Safeguard student leaders’ learning, dignity, safety, and political development.

Final responsibility for child safety, safeguarding, and institutional risk remains with the organisation as a whole; the Head of Leadership Development works in partnership with librarians and senior leadership on these matters.

- Youth & Community Leadership Development (Ages 18 )

● Provide strategic oversight for TCLP’s Youth Leadership and Community Organising track,

including externally funded projects (e.g., Azim Premji Foundation).

● Work closely with Project Leads, Curriculum Coordinator, and Community Organisers to:

○ Design and deliver training-of-trainers (ToT) modules

○ Ensure coherence across quarterly trainings, weekly reading circles, and social action campaigns

● Ensure youth leadership development remains rooted in:

○ Issue-based organising

○ Praxis (action–reflection–action)

○ Reading, dialogue, and critical inquiry

● Support the progression of youth leaders into:

○ Community organisers

○ Librarians

○ Library movement activists

● Engage with funder-linked leadership programs in ways that protect TCLP’s political clarity, pedagogical autonomy, and long-term vision.

- Curriculum, Pedagogy & Praxis

● Hold responsibility for pedagogical integrity of leadership development across ages.

● Ensure consistent application of:

○ Critical pedagogy

○ Dialogical methods

○ Experiential learning

○ Socio-constructivist approaches

● Oversee the Curriculum Coordinator in their work to:





○ Develop, refine, and document leadership curricula

○ Create training manuals and internal resources for long-term sustainability

● Ensure that everyday library practices (welcoming, circulation, cataloguing, read-alouds,

mobilisation) are explicitly connected to:

○ Power

○ Access

○ Knowledge

○ Justice

● Embed action–reflection–action cycles across all leadership activities.

- Organisational Integration & Democratic Governance

● Ensure leadership development is deeply integrated with:

○ Branch Libraries

○ Local area communities

○ Fundraising and Finance Department through overseeing reporting

○ Digital library (Duniya Sabki)

○ Safety and child-protection systems

○ Mobilisation and advocacy beyond the local area when appropriate for issues affecting the local community

● Support democratic participation of member leaders in:

○ Leadership Council

○ Committees and organisational decision-making in TCLP

This role supports democratic processes but does not replace or contradict collective decision-making structures such as the Leadership Council, Trustees, or Steering Committee.

- Mentorship, Team Development & Care

● Mentor Project Leads, Community Organisers, librarians, and senior youth leaders.

● Build a culture of care, accountability, and collective responsibility within the department.

● Support leaders through:

○ Skill building in aspects of leadership

○ Sharpening political analysis particularly in class, caste and gender analysis,

○ Providing opportunities to take initiative, exercise leadership and experience the power of building the organisation

○ Teaching reflection and developing

○ Conflict resolution, Burnout prevention

● Ensure leadership development does not replicate hierarchies it seeks to dismantle.

- Documentation, Evaluation & Reporting

● Oversee systems for:

○ Tracking participation and progression

○ Qualitative documentation of learning and transformation

○ Reflective evaluation

○ Metrics as required by funders and as needed for internal evaluation by TCLP

● Contribute to internal reports, funder reports, and organisational learning documents.

● Ensure documentation reflects TCLP’s values and language, not just compliance requirements.

● Emphasis is placed on learning-oriented documentation that supports reflection, course correction, and institutional memory.

Position Ethos The Head of Leadership Development is a custodian of TCLP’s future—responsible for ensuring that leadership remains collective, rooted, and accountable to the communities whose right to read and think TCLP exists to uphold.

Pay: From ₹37,000.00 per month

Work Location: In person

📌 Leadership Development Lead (Delhi)
🏢 The Community Library Project
📍 Delhi