Nonprofit Leadership, Innovation, and Change

Positional & Relational Leadership

People will follow you as a leader a lot farther based on your relationship with them, than they will based on your position to them.

Positional leadership only goes so far.

Positional leaders don’t have the ability to lead people to go the extra mile and to go outside of their comfort zones.

Why? Because people will only follow you so far based on position and pay.

Think about it, wouldn’t you follow someone a lot farther based on the relationship you had with that person, than the position and power they exert over you. If your best friend asked you do to something, you’re a lot more likely to do it for your friend than you are to do it for your boss.

It's what you do outside of the office that counts

Often times what we do as leaders outside of the office is just as important as what we do in the office.

Important and productive things we do outside of the office are activities such as developing relationships and taking time to grow from reflection.

Developing relationships are often heard to do inside of the office. Human resource laws make it difficult for most people to truly express themselves, and it holds many people back from building authentic relationships.

The bottom line is that relationships are strong when people spend time with each other both inside and outside of the office. Think about the three people you consider to have the best relationships with in your office. I would be willing to bet you often spend time outside of the office with them going to events, BBQs, watching the Sunday football games, or attending your kids sporting events together.

When staff people are outside of the office they can be a little more free flowing and have fun, crack jokes, and make fun with each other in ways that help them bond.

The best ways to foster this interaction is to take everyone to dinner, go on a team building retreat, or go on a volunteer service project (which is naturally my favorite).

Taking time to reflect on experiences is an extremely important activity, not just for the entire team, but for the leader. John Maxwell has stated many times that, “Reflection turns experience into insight.”

I’ve heard several stories of Albert Einstein always sleeping with a notepad and pen on his nightstand so he was prepared to write down ideas and thoughts when we woke up. Einstein knew that his mind was continuing to think and process ideas, even while he was sleeping and he wanted to always be ready for them when he woke up in the middle of the night.

Thinking and reflecting allows you to learn from your mistakes so that you can avoid them in the future. It helps you improve your performance in the future so you might actually experience some new problems that you didn’t have before.

One of my favorite activities that I do every week is to go to Starbucks (thanks Jason for the gift card) with nothing but my journal, a legal pad of paper and a pen. And for anywhere from 1 hour to 3 hours I will just sit, think, sip on my coffee, write and think some more.

I go with no agenda or specific topics to think and write about. All I do is sit and think and write about whatever is on my mind.

Learning and growing outside of the office is one of my favorite things to do. It’s what energizes me and gives me fresh ideas.

So remember, sometimes it's what you do outside of the office that counts!

Leaders are glad to serve the needs of others

Leaders are glad to serve the needs of others. Often they are too glad to serve the needs of others.

Most people in the nonprofit sector have a service mindset. They are at their organization to serve their cause and serve the people benefiting from the cause.

Because of this, nonprofit leaders are always eager to serve their people. They know that when they serve their employees, they are serving the people who normally serve their clients.

This is both good and bad.

Good for the following reasons:

• The leader has a service mindset and is ready to do what is needed to serve his people. Even if it means spending time and money.
• Not only do they focus on meeting the needs of their people, but they are glad to do it. They serve their people with joy and excitement.
• The leader is willing to do things outside of his comfort zone and strength zone. He will go to great lengths to serve and help, even if it makes him feel uncomfortable.

Bad for the following reasons:

• The leader wants to serve too many people, and will not focus on serving the highly productive people who will get the most results from the leader’s service.
• He tries to serve people in areas that he is not strong, and in areas that he is weak. It's ok for a leader to do this a little bit, but must not make it a habit because he becomes unproductive and is efficient in his work.
• He becomes burnt out and his performance suffers as a result.

My thinking is that we should always do what we can to serve the people we lead. However, it’s our responsibility to focus that time of service in the areas of our strength and on the most productive people in our organization.

Forgiving Leaders: Saint Patrick & Nelson Mandela

I recently read a simple but profound article by the folks at Giant Impact entitled, Leadership Lessons from the Life of Saint Patrick.

The one thing that really stood out to me from the article was how forgiving Saint Patrick was.

Saint Patrick was captured as a teenager and used in forced labor for six years as a slave. After six years he mustered up the courage to escape from his captors and headed for his homeland. Once in his homeland he began his religious training in preparation for a return trip to Ireland; this time not as a slave, but as a missionary.

What strikes me as significant about Saint Patrick was his forgiveness for his captors. The story is told that he not just forgave his captors publicly for kidnapping him, but Saint Patrick also paid them the ransom price for being a runaway slave.

This forgiveness reminds me of the amazing Nelson Mandela who lead the transition in South Africa to multi-racial democracy. After being imprisoned for 27 years, Mr. Mandela worked for reconciliation and negotiation, when he easily could have not.

When you're a leader people are going to do things that hurt you. In your eye, they are terrible things that will affect and change you forever. But as the leader and the person who is in charge, it's up to you to forgive that other person and do what is right.

Special thanks to Jason Womack

Last month I was privileged to coordinate a very special event for about 35 of my nonprofit colleagues here in the Central Valley area.

Writer and speaker Jason Womack spent a day with us to share his best insights on time management and productivity. The most amazing part is that Jason volunteered his time to do this.

What a great example of someone using his gifts and talents to serve those of us who are working hard to serve others in need. It goes to prove that you don’t always have to be doing “hands on” volunteer work to truly make a difference.

Here are my two leadership take away’s from the day:

• The better you get, the better you get – Jason elaborated a little more saying that the people who are getting better are usually the best already. An illustration used was that the people who made it to his seminar were skilled enough to block out a day to spend learning more about their workplace performance. Many people wanted to attend the workshop, but weren’t skilled enough to make the time that they needed to find more time.

• People will teach what they need to learn the most – This was Jason’s response when a participant asked, “Do you have a natural giftedness for being organized and productive?” I think we often teach what we need to learn the most because we have had to spend such a significant amount of time learning and mastering it.

If you’re interested in learning more about Jason’s amazing Mastering Workplace Performance content, he has monthly conference call coaching that starts on Tuesday, March 10th. More information can be found here, www.ojaiinstitute.com

Thanks Jason!