Are you an evangelist, or a leader?

There's a big problem in technical communities, I think it's a symptom of most people not really understanding what a community manager does.  The trendy hybrid is the community manager/developer evangelist.  There might be a couple of great ones, but I think something always suffers.  I think they are unicorns. 

The problem is that they are totally different skill sets.  The best evangelists are extroverts who love being on the road, in a room full of people.  They are hugely popular within the community and drive a lot of traffic and discussion.  The best community managers are introverts.  For all the connections we make in the world, we do the vast majority of it in writing.  if we travel too much we get great face time with a few hundred people, but the thousands online suffer for our absence. 

Evangelists also need to be really passionate and opinionated.  Community managers have to be passionate about the whole of the ecosystem, but can't be opinionated about the details.  If we take a side in a debate, the community can fracture.  Sometimes budgets mean you have to choose one or the other, but hiring managers need to understand the compromise they are really making with a decision like this.