Next Level Board Leadership: What does it take? I was recently contacted by a local organization to explore supporting them with an executive transition. The leader had given the board more than 9 months notice of retirement and the board was ready to get going on the hiring process. As I chatted with the board leaders, it became clear there were other challenges that the board was avoiding because they wanted to focus on something that was less contentious and forward-looking. I have a few standard questions that I ask to gauge the health of the organization, the health of the board and the relationship between the board chair and executive director. How large is the board? Are there term limits? How would you describe the relationship between the board chair and executive director? How often do they meet? What have the revenue/expense trends been over the last 3 years? How large of a reserve does the organization have? When was the last strategic planning process? The answers to these questions determine how healthy an organization is and I strongly believe this: Your organization is only as healthy as your board and that STARTS with the relationship between your Board Chair and Executive Director. Joan Garry has written many great blog posts related to board health and this post on board chair-executive director relationship came to mind as I sat through this meeting. The answers to the above questions were the following: 1. How large is the board? Are there term limits? We have a handful of board members but we are recruiting more. We don’t have term limits. WARNING: Without a robust process for board recruitment and transition, the organization is at risk of a governance crisis with the board shrinking and stalling out. 2. How would you describe the relationship between the board chair and executive director? How often do they meet? Well, we really respect the executive director, they do a great job. The board chair doesn’t have regular meetings with the executive director. If they need the chair, they call her. WARNING: As I stated above, the most important relationship in a nonprofit is that of the chief executive and board chair. They share leadership of the organization. If there isn’t regular communication, the organization is at risk of going adrift. 3. What have the revenue/expense trends been over the last 3 years? Well, we have a very large reserve so the board has approved a deficit budget the last few years but we have told the executive director they really need to develop a balanced budget for the next year. WARNING: There are times when it is strategic to approve a deficit budget. In this situation, there was no strategic investment being funded, it was just an unwillingness of the executive director to cut expenses, or increase revenue to compensate for programs that were not fully funded. This was coupled with an unwillingness of the board to fulfill their fiduciary obligation of being stewards of the organization assets and require a balanced budget. As we all know from our own personal financial stewardship… this strategy doesn’t end well. 4. What have the revenue/expense trends been over the last 3 years? Related to the answer to the previous question,…we still have a pretty decent reserve but if we continue our deficit budgets as we have, we won’t have any reserves in three years. WARNING: I think the concern about this is pretty clear. 5. When was the last strategic planning process? Hmmm, let’s see.. I can’t recall the last time we did strategy development. We have an operational plan every year that explains the calendar of activities for all the programs. WARNING: The board is on auto-pilot. One of the primary functions of a nonprofit board is to establish the organizational identity (mission, vision, purpose) and the strategic direction in response to the community needs it is supporting. After this very enlightening conversation, I suggested the board might consider focusing on a few other things before conducting a search for a new executive director. They were not interested in focusing on anything but hiring a new executive director. I wished them well in the transition. If you are interested in how to build a high impact board, please consider attending the upcoming training on Next Level Board Leadership on October 25, 2023. For more information on nonprofit governance, check out one of these blog posts: What Sombrero are You Wearing? Every great nonprofit begins with a great board What’s Governance Got to Do With It?
The Leadership in Leaving…. In the month of January, I hosted a 3-part webinar series on succession planning and leadership transition for nonprofit organizations. This quote from the Building Movement Project puts in perspective why being intentional about leadership transition is critical for the greater community. “The decision to leave a long-term job is not simply a personal or private choice. For social sector leaders, it also is an act of leadership…How and when a leader exits reverberates throughout the organization and often reaches deep into the community and the field.” In the first 20 years of my career, I held five different executive director positions and none of the organizations had a formal succession plan. One organization hired a new executive director before my departure, so I was able to train my successor for two weeks. Another organization hired an interim executive director that was familiar with the organization. The other organizations leaned on current staff and board members to keep the organization going during the transition process. None of these scenarios set the organizations on a course for a smooth transition. As I continued in my career, I served as a board member for two different organizations that transitioned long-term leaders. As a consultant, I facilitated the search and transition process for an organization led by a founder. In addition, Vista Global partnered with another national consulting firm to write an eBook, Proactively Plan for the Inevitable: A Guide to Leadership Transition and Succession. Through all these experiences, I learned a lot about what contributes to successful leadership transitions. Six tips to build a strong organization that can thrive through leadership transition: Assess the organization’s readiness: Do you have a current strategic plan? Are you doing annual evaluations of the executive director and staff? Are you investing in staff development? Are your financial systems up to date and are there financial reserves? Do you have an emergency succession plan? Creating stability in the organization’s infrastructure is essential to navigate transitions successfully. Assess your personal readiness to leave: What level of excitement do you have for your work? Are you more interested in initiatives other than running the organization? Are tensions increasing with the board? Can you conceive a career move? These all may be signs it is time to depart. Determine what type of transition you are preparing for: Is this transition following a founder, or maintaining sustained success, or an underperforming organization or a turnaround? All require different focuses by the board. Build the leadership capacity within the organization: Organizations that have staff with professional development plans, strengthening their skills and competencies have greater success in navigating transition. How much are you investing in staff development financially and through mentorship and development planning? Provide ample time for the process and a roadmap: Transitions always take more time than you think. In addition, the board (as volunteers) has to manage many different aspects of the transition. The more time you can allow, the smoother the process will be for the incoming leader, outgoing leader, staff and board. Develop a strong board chair-incoming leader relationship: A strong board is a critical component to a successful transition. An incoming leader will rely on the board to understand their role and expectations in the first 90 days of tenure. Establishing a strong relationship between the board chair and incoming leader accelerates the incoming leader’s ability to come up to speed quickly to move the organization forward. Transitions of long-term leaders can include additional aspects of disruption related to the organizational identity and practices associated with the outgoing leader. Coaching for the outgoing leader, incoming leader and or board chair can offer important support to navigate the transition between what was and what will be. As an executive director, it can be a lonely place, particularly if you are contemplating departure. I know, I have been there. If you need a compassionate ear or a few tools to get going, I am here from you. The greatest gift you can give yourself, your organization and your mission is to strengthen your organization before leaving.
3 Ways that Defining your Talents Will Help Build your Personal Brand I recently hosted a “sneak peek” webcast on the topic of personal values and strengths. This offered participants a window into the Vista Leadership Institute programs and the journey of crafting your next chapter. We start with the broad question of “Who am I?” and “Where are my natural talents?” The CliftonStrengths assessment measures your natural talents from 34 themes and you arrive at the list of your “Top 5”. Continue reading “3 Ways that Defining your Talents Will Help Build your Personal Brand”
Designing Your Life is a Team Sport Having played team sports since I was 9 years old, I have built the mindset that to be successful, I can’t do it alone. Although I have built this mindset, I often see with coaching and consulting clients that many people want to do it all on their own. Whether it is because they haven’t built trust with their colleagues or they feel pressure to bear the responsibility, they are driving with no co-pilot. If you haven’t heard this African proverb yet, it speaks to the important lesson that I learned at age 9: As we designed the Vista Leadership Institute Mastermind Program, we built the team into the program DNA. Why? Because life design is a team sport. Designing Your Life proposes that this concept of team-building is a profound and necessary part of any creative act. “Designers believe in radical collaboration because true genius is a collaborative process. We design our lives in collaboration and connection with others, because WE is always stronger than I- it is as simple as that. When you design your life, you are engaging in an act of co-creation.” — Bill Burnett & Dave Evans The Vista Leadership Mastermind Program embraces this “true genius” idea and begins with the formation of your design team. Throughout the 7-month program, you will work in pairs and triads, offering and receiving insight. Your team will help push you, asking “what if?” as you create your action plan for the next chapter of life. You will also have three individual coaching calls with me throughout the program to create an even stronger accountability framework to move along your life’s journey. Because when things get tough, you need someone to have your back, to help you get up when you get knocked down, AND to do flip flops and cheer you on when you hit it out of the park! So if you are at a crossroads, asking yourself “what do I want to do next?” and you don’t know where to start… Join the Vista Leadership Mastermind team. We are saving a spot for you so we can co-create your game plan to hit the next 5 years out of the park! Early bird discount deadline is September 15th. Payment plans are available! (Email for details) Your Mastermind Program Starts Now! Apply Today!
How do we actually “Be the Change We Want to See”? If you have been following my blog over the last few years, you may recall that I wrote a blog series on a course I was taking on Conversational Intelligence (C-IQ) for coaches regarding the impact that neuroscience has on the quality of conversations. The blog series can be found at the bottom of the post titled, Courageous Conversations: The Future is Now. Skills that I learned in the course were: Being Open to Influence, Priming for Trust, Asking Questions for Which We Have No Answers, Listen to Connect, Conversational Agility and Double-Clicking. Over the last two years I have been using these skills with coaching and consulting clients to close gaps between intention and impact and to elevate awareness of the power of conversation to transform the world. This year, I decided to certify as a C-IQ coach. The certification program was an additional six months of course work and a capstone project to demonstrate how I embody conversational intelligence. During the first few months, it was very challenging to grasp what “embodying C-IQ” really meant. The dictionary.com definition is “to give concrete form to; express, personify, or exemplify in concrete form.” To embody conversational intelligence, we were asked to explore our level of competence along the four stages of competence. The highest level of competence is “unconscious competence”, which is the level at which we are in flow, when things come so easily that you don’t even think about what you are doing. It becomes second nature. In C-IQ certification, as coaches we were challenged to go deeper with our learning, adding new conversational essentials, to stretch ourselves to move through the four stages of competence. New conversational essentials presented were: Making the Invisible Visible, Deconstructing Conversations and Co-Regulating our Conversations — up-regulating oxytocin and down-regulating cortisol. Oxytocin and cortisol are the neurotransmitters triggered when we have either positive or negative conversations. As I mentioned, I was really struggling with the notion of embodying and then one day, I realized I was TRYING too hard. I wasn’t getting to the flow because I was too much in my head, not in my heart. When I “loosened up the grip” on learning and leaned back, I started to notice that I was now using these skills not only in my work but in all aspects of my life. I can see how many of the conversational essentials I learned in 2017 have now become second nature. I am deconstructing conversations with family and friends. I am raising visibility of conversational patterns that are unproductive in all aspects of my life. I am starting to build the unconscious competence…embodying conversational intelligence. Conversational Intelligence essentials have helped guide me in all aspects of my life, to be the change I want to see in the world. Are you experiencing challenging conversations in any area of your life and don’t know how to shift from the patterns that keep you stuck? Are you THINKING about it too much? To get a sneak peek of how C-IQ can help you transform your conversations, we are offering a free 30-minute webcast and live chat on Conversational Intelligence next week, August 21 @ 12:30pm CDT. We will offer it again in September, if you can’t make it live. Join us to begin the journey of transforming your conversations!
Transforming Paradigms for 21st Century Leadership The world is changing more rapidly, in more contexts, than ever before. Technology seems redundant or obsolete just as soon as we understand how to use it. Restaurants open and close, trends change – so often to our surprise, and who knows what television show we should be watching on what streaming service and when? There are viral challenges, new social media platforms, photo apps to age us and others to turn us into rabbits. As trends and new apps come and go, we are welcoming more of the world into our smartphone and encountering more diversity, more ideas, more complexity in our workplace. This requires a change in leadership that rejects many paradigms that warn us “but that’s how it’s always done!” Leadership strategist Dov Baron writes, “For many in ‘old school’ leadership positions who are unfamiliar with allowing people to really see them, this can, of course, be scary and may even seem threatening.” Some of it might seem daunting, but so much of it is exciting when viewed through the lens of social impact and resources for a more just and sustainable world. But how do we transition from the “old school” to a 21st-century leadership model? Baron can summarize it succinctly: “In a word—by learning.” Continue reading “Transforming Paradigms for 21st Century Leadership”
