Paper Title
Local Community Leadership and Empowerment For Rural Community Strengths

Abstract
This paper aimed to examine influences of leadership qualities towards degree of strengths in the social, economic and political dimensions, of the selected communities in Lopburi Province, Chaiyaphum Province, Nakorn Srithammaraj and Phitsanulok Province, those of which represented the 4 regions of Thailand. Utilizing the quantitative approach, the collected samples included the leaders of different communities including village heads and leaders of community organizations. The path analysis was employed in order to establish a structural equation model for an identification of relationship among the leadership factors. The findings revealed direct influence of behaviors of leaders involving the communities’ activities, abilities of leaders and leadership qualities on the rural communities’ degree of strengths. Indirect influencing leadership factors included abilities of leaders and leadership qualities, with the latter being reported the most influential. Index Terms- Empowerment, Factors, Leader, Rural Community