Recruiting Your Alter Ego

After recently viewing the 60 minutes episode focused on Greg Mortenson, founder of the Central Asian Institute and author of Three Cups of Tea –which if fabricated, I must admit I was fouled by- I was concerned by how another story of poor management, or perhaps straight out lying, by a nonprofit leader would impact people’s perception of the sector. I remember having read earlier this semester that a small percentage of Americans rated their trust in nonprofits as high and negative reports can do nothing but harm to that, already small, number.

Then, while hunting for “blog inspiration” which seemed as though it would never come, I came across a blog post about Mortenson. Originally, I planned to read it quickly as an escape from my other responsibilities but it turned out to be quite applicable to our conversation about leadership this week. In it the author describes four reasons that nonprofit leaders must be dedicated to the organization, mission, and results, they are;

· The ethical imperative to do the right thing and fulfill the social contract

· The pragmatic necessity of developing a broad social base of support

· The functional requirement to shift attention to achieving clear results

· The strategic demand to stay in compliance with the mission

The author also includes one of my favorite statements regarding evaluations and measuring effectiveness, a significant accomplishment considering the amount of reading we have done on the subject. It reads as below;

“Effective leaders settle for consistent and pragmatic measures, acknowledging that even if all indicators are flawed, putting measures in place provides a stepping-stone toward greatness. Social sector evaluation expert Jed Emerson agrees with this approach and suggests that in the absence of metrics that can “prove” effectiveness, responsible nonprofits can at least find ways to demonstrate progress and minimally—but consistently—document their work.”

In closing, the author pinpoints one of the key lessons to be learned from the portrayal of Mortenson as disorganized in the media, she explains,

“Any nonprofit leader—no matter how passionate—who knows that they’re disorganized (like Nicholas Kristof suggests of Mr. Mortenson) is responsible and morally obligated to recruit an alter ego who is equally passionate and well versed in effective management. The sector cannot afford anything less from its leaders.”

This is my takeaway from this week…know your strengths and WEAKNESSES, recognize that others can not only fill the void where you are weak but elevate your organization and its mission to a new, higher level. So, as the author states, go ahead and recruit your alter ego – a few other great people as well!!

Leadership and Power

While reading chapter 7 in Forces for Good, I couldn't help but relate this reading to the business my friend and I ran (we owned an all-star cheerleading team). In the planning stages we had to come to an understanding as to what role we would each play in running this team. A major issue that we had to agree on was who the "head coach" would be. It was clear that if this team was going to be successful one of us would have to be allowed to have the final say. Since I was really busy with other things, I decided it would be a good idea to give him this title. Because of our differences, we were able to work very well together. We were able to come up with solutions to issues we had to face with much more ease than if we were doing it on our own. Obviously, this is on a much smaller scale, but I think it relates very well to what this chapter discussed.

Being able to bounce ideas off of another person proves to be very beneficial in terms of effectiveness. It is stressed in this chapter that collaboration and shared leadership are major factors in running a successful nonprofit. Although it can sometimes slow the decision-making process down, I agree with the authors in thinking that sharing power will most certainly contribute to the success of an organization. Does anyone see a downside to sharing leadership? Is it possible for two people to be on the same level in terms of sharing power and authority?

Nonprofit People Burnt Out: No Way!?

While reading this week's , specifically the Bridgespan Report, I started asking some questions. Those questions were:

Wow, should I be glad that the nonprofit sector is experiencing a tremendous amount of turnover and job growth in the next couple of years (i.e. jobs jobs jobs)?

Or should I worry about the nature of the work that is turning so many people away from the nonprofit sector?

The more I think about it, the more I think that effective leaders are able to retain social capital or talented managers. This has led me to challenge my own assumption in relation to certain "questionable" salaries, that we as a class have worried about this semester. How can nonprofits expect to hang on to talent without compensating them appropriately. However, I still think, as Rebecca showed in an earlier post about the ED of the ASPCA, that $5oo,000 is a bit excessive.

But I guess the larger issue that concerns me is whether the standardization of the amount that nonprofits can spend on overhead, specifically management, can have repercussions upon "new" managers coming into the field, i.e. us. As managers, are we going to be expected to work more for less money because of constricting nonprofit overhead standards?

Clearly, I did not enter the nonprofit field to become rich, but I sometimes wonder what awaits me in terms of "a living" when I get out of school?

Philanthropy Criteria

I have decided to get a little bit away from our reading for this week and discuss some more about our Philanthropy project this semester. Although I thought all of the presentations were done very well, it really has come down to one major issue with me. In the end, we have decided not to give organizations that are successful and abides by all of the Charity Navigator components. Let me be clear that I have absolutely no problem with the direction we have taken, but do you believe others that wish to donate money have the same ideas that we do?

Donations are a major source of revenue for nonprofit agencies. Successful organizations routinely receive donations I would think. So if that is the case, how come we chose not to donate to some of the more successful organizations for our project? STAT and the Suicide Prevention & Crisis Center are also successful, but their financials tell us that they need this money. So, we're almost choosing to penalize an organization who has strong financial figures and in turn "doesn't need" our money.

Once again, I fully agree with the path we have chosen, so I am just playing devil's advocate. I also completely understand that donating $2,500-$3,000 doesn't do a thing for some of the more financially sound organizations, so we are making the right choice. However, this is one again a challenge and a fine line for nonprofits. If you are doing so well, does that mean you no longer need money donated? What are some of the strategies these organizations should take to continue to be successful, but also continue to advocate for more donations?

Leader(s)

In last semester's Organizational Behavior class, we discussed the benefits and the dangers of charismatic leadership. Several of us wrote papers on leaders who used their charisma to commit embezzlement of their organizations. These cases were extreme examples, but a charismatic leader can certainly be a detriment to an organization in other ways. In chapter 7 of Forces for Good, Crutchfield and Grant write that, "too many nonprofits are known by their charismatic, visionary founders who have a hard time sharing leadership and who use their organizations to promote their grandiose visions rather than build institutions that will outlast them" (156). This type of leader is oftentimes essential for the early success of an organization, as people need to be convinced of new ideas. However, an organization's leadership must also have a broad understanding of the issues surrounding the organization's mission and be able and willing to adapt to reach the target population. I do think that shared leadership is an important way to prevent Founder's Syndrome. Organizations that have several people providing input and making decisions will have a more well-rounded approach than ones with one strong leader.

I was surprised to read, however, that many of the organizations that Crutchfield and Grant studied did not have a prominent leadership figure "at the helm." When I think of traditional leadership of nonprofit organizations, I picture a group of people with different expertise making decisions, with one person speaking for and promoting the organization. It is interesting that these most successful organizations do not have this prominent person at the top.

What do you think? Do successful organizations you work with have a prominent and/or charismatic leader? Can a less-well-known group of leaders promote the organization just as well?

Is shared leadership all about benefit?

In this week’s reading, “Forces for good”, Crutchfield and Grant talked about leadership sharing. While they talked about all the benefits that an organization can gain this kind of practice, I couldn’t help wonder, would shared leadership lower a nonprofit organization’s efficiency in making decisions? Is shared leadership all about benefits?
Of course, when it comes to big decisions, and when there are different opinions from the leaders, it is better for the organization to hold board meetings and go through a voting process to make the decision more considerate. However, when it comes to small projects and leaders have different opinions about the decision, should the organization go through the voting process as well while any decision can work? These options are provided after careful consideration of the project developers, and they just simply need the leaders to pick one. Is it worthwhile to call in for a board meeting, and wait for a long time until every board member have the time to meet and vote everytime there are disputes about certain projects among leaders?
The waiting and meeting will not only cost a lot of time and money, but may also cause the organization to miss the best time for the operation of those projects, resulting lower efficiency of the nonprofit organization.
Therefore, before an organization adopts shared leadership, it should think carefully.