Leading by Design

I've been following some of the running commentary in a couple of Facebook groups that cater to nonprofit leaders, both veteran and emerging. I'm glad to know there are active and supportive fora where folks can vent their frustrations and celebrate their accomplishments. We all need a safe space in which to do just that. The venting focuses almost exclusively on workplace issues -- you can probably guess them -- lousy pay, crushing hours, troubles with subordinates, trouble with board members, ethical dilemmas, general frustration with the pervasive notion of scarcity to which many nonprofits cling. While the members of the Facebook groups represent a teeny fraction of the actual nonprofit workforce, I believe their challenges are widespread and probably growing as the number of nonprofits continues to expand. These challenges aren't new, although increased external scrutiny and competition have made them more pressing, more in-your-face, and no longer avoidable.  T...

A RECENT CONVERSATION ABOUT WHO WAS RESPONSIBLE for ongoing member communications at a nonprofit got me thinking about how boards can, often quite unintentionally, waste their CEO's talent and, in turn, the talent of bright, committed staff.  Boards can waste their own talent, too, but that's the subject for the next post.  In this conversation, some board members argued that it was the role of the board to review and approve every word the organization relayed to its membership.  Others differentiated between "strategic" communications -- issue briefs, advocacy alerts, statements on future organizational directions, for example -- and "informational" communications, such as event promotion, volunteer or donor recognition, and activity recaps.  Clearly, the substance of the communication seemed to be one (if not the ) determining factor in when the board would involve itself in message development and approval.  However, we didn't get to that unde...

THE AMERICAN ASSOCIATION OF MUSEUMS' 2009 Emerging Museum Professionals survey gives us a sense of how the museum field is meeting the needs of its future leaders. The survey rates the importance of nine professional development resources to this group and its related satisfaction with access to each of them. The resulting "gap" between importance and satisfaction thus becomes the point of the story. The biggest gap is the ability of young professionals to access leadership opportunities within their own institutions. It's a gap that has grown significantly from the time the last survey was done just two years ago. Back in 2007, 55% of survey respondents ranked finding leadership within one's institution as very/somewhat important. That stands at 73% today. But as far as these folks are concerned, they simply aren't being given the opportunities to challenge their leadership abilities. Why is that, especially when most museums are understaffed (and becom...