February 2007: od180 eNews #13
Leadership
Dear Friends:
This month I offer a reflection on leadership. In the first section, I look at what it requires. That is followed by a section on what leadership offers. As always, I welcome your thoughts on the subject–as well as your questions.
Write to me anytime at davidnorgard@od180.com.
Peace,
David
What Leadership Requires
In their excellent book, Leaders Who Make a Difference–Essential Strategies for Meeting the Nonprofit Challenge (1999), Burt Nanus and Stephen Dobbs name four basic qualities necessary as the most important by far for successful leadership: being honest, forward looking, inspiring, and competent. While other traits certainly add to a leader’s effectiveness, these, they argue (and I agree), are all essential.
Being Honest
“Unless leaders are trusted and believed, they will not be followed or supported,” Nanus and Dobbs state succinctly. I have witnessed situations where the leaders were not trusted and support did gradually and inexorably deteriorate. The organizations stagnated and donations, volunteer service, and public reputation all deteriorated as concern over the integrity of administration increased. In the nonprofit context, where success and effectiveness ultimately depend upon the good will of others, trustworthiness is absolutely essential.
Being Forward Looking
People who invest their time or money in nonprofits are, categorically, interested in altering the status quo. Whatever the particular concern of a given organization, the fundamental motivator for followers of nonprofit leaders–whether as staff, volunteers, or donors–is the prospect of making a positive difference. Thus it follows logically that leaders need to be forward looking. My own experience again confirms the necessity of this element. Every troubled organization I have served has been stalled in part because of a loss of hope and diminution of the horizon upon which leaders based their plans.
Being Inspiring
“Competent leaders attract volunteers and contributors, and they attract other leaders to their cause,” state Nanus and Dobbs. In the life of the mission-driven organization, raising up leaders never really happens any other way. People see an example that is compelling and they want to become the model they see.
Being Competent
It is a story that is often repeated in the nonprofit realm: People who are competent in delivering the service to which the agency is dedicated are elevated to positions in which entirely different skill sets are required for success. Leadership in the nonprofit realm does have its own core competencies–building the organization and strengthening relationships with others being the essential ones. Others–no matter how directly related to the program of the organization–cannot effectively be substituted for them.
What Leadership Offers: A Personal Reflection
Motivating and mentoring… among those I have accorded my personal honorific of “great leader,” all of them could be characterized as functioning mainly as motivators and mentors. An Episcopal bishop I know has been an extraordinary teacher for many through his writing and speaking. Yet it was the privilege of serving on his staff and thereby receiving the gift of his personal attentiveness that inspired me to accomplishments I would not have imagined otherwise. A board president of an agency I served affected me in a similar way. During trying times at the agency, we would often meet privately between board meetings. In those conversations, her remarks and questions served to renew my courage to act and to sort out the issues on my own, taking into account wisdom gleaned from others. Both of them moved me, each in his/her own way–to see, to act, and to motivate others to act.
In my first professional leadership position out of school, I excelled at telling others how to do tasks more efficiently. Since then, though, I have learned that listening first–not speaking first–is the far greater sign of effective leadership. By listening first and then asking questions and offering support, others have the space to arrive at their own solutions. Being a catalyst for creativity and well-spring of encouragement–that is what the leaders who helped me to grow the most offered… when I was of a mind to receive it.
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