Nonprofit Leadership - Courage to Lead Quartely E-News

Spring 2010

Courage to Lead

nurturing nonprofit leaders

In This Issue

Thoughts from Ken

Colette Hadley - Developing Yourself Into a Nonprofit Leader

What Nonprofit Leaders are Saying about CTL

New 2010-11 Courage to Lead Cohort Announced

Quick Links

Courage to Lead Website

Learn more about:

Center for Courage & Renewal

Parker J. Palmer

Our Sponsors

Thank you to the Santa Barbara Foundation for their generosity in providing scholarship funds to make the Courage to Lead program financially accessible for Santa Barbara County nonprofit executive leaders.

Courage to Lead Alumni

Cindy Burton
PathPoint

Leigh Curran
Virginia Avenue Project

Nancy Edmundson
Unitarian Society of Santa Barbara

Beverly Engel
Author

Esther Feldman
Community Conservancy International

Colette Hadley
Scholarship Foundation of Santa Barbara

Judy Hawkins
Nonprofit Support Center

Maria W. Long
Consultant

Julie Lopp
InternShop

Ernesto Paredes
EasyLift

Cecilia Rodriguez
CALM

Niki Sandoval
Santa Ynez Band of Chumash Indians

Jarrod Schwartz
Just Communities

Monica Spear
Girls Inc. of Santa Barbara

Janet L. Stanley
Free Spirit

Melinda Staveley
Cottage Rehabilitation Hospital

Sigrid Wright
Community Environmental Council

Jonathan Zeichner
A Place Called Home

Greetings!

Welcome to our Spring 2010 Courage to Lead e-newsletter. We hope you will read it, respond to things written here, and forward it on to nonprofit and foundation leaders who might be interested in learning more about our leadership and renewal program.

In addition to several columns exploring aspects of nonprofit leadership, Courage to Lead is excited to announce (below) the names of the participants in our newly formed 2010-2011 cohort of nonprofit executive leaders. They are a talented group of leaders committed to making the world a better place, and we are thrilled to welcome them.

Thank you for your support of our program!

Ken Saxon

Thoughts from Ken

Can You Hear Me Now?

Listening - is there a more undervalued skill in leadership?

I've been on lots of ED/CEO search committees, and in thinking back, listening has never been on the criteria list for top attributes we were seeking.

We look for "visionary leaders" and "great communicators" and leaders who are excellent at "execution" and "fundraising." It's as though we are looking for Superman or Superwoman - someone who can do it all on their own.

In my experience, that's not the way successful leadership works. A nonprofit leader has to successfully attract others to the cause - staff, board members, donors, partners - and keep them motivated and inspired. However, that can't happen without deep listening.

Let me start with a simple example. A few years ago, a highly respected nonprofit in Santa Barbara invited my wife and me to visit and get to know them. For 30 minutes, the Executive Director and a board member toured us around their site, told us what they did, and at the end of the meeting they asked us to support their work.

Did they ask us one question about ourselves? Did they learn anything about our philanthropic priorities, at least so that they could present their offerings in a way that helped us achieve our goals? Not at all. We left the meeting shaking our heads.

I've had the same experience as a nonprofit board member. Some ED's don't really want anything from their board members other than giving and raising money. Otherwise, they simply want approval for their decisions - no questions asked (especially not hard ones!). And sadly I have also seen board leaders who don't listen to staff, acting as though the board decides on its own and the staff simply executes.

The best nonprofit leaders I've seen surround themselves with great people - professional and volunteer - and they take the time to learn what motivates them. And then they find ways for those people to engage in a personally fulfilling way in the work of the organization.

The best fundraisers I've met over the years are those who have a sincere interest in people. They learn the personal stories of donors, as well as their dreams for the impact their money will have for real people. And they help their donors see how their own dreams for impact have been realized through their contributions of money.

Fundamental to this view of leadership are listening and showing sincere interest in others, their life journey, and what they feel passionately about. This kind of sincere interest is something that's hard to fake. People can generally tell whether it's their agenda that's on your mind, or your own.

And how about listening to the people who benefit from the services our organizations provide? I had a chance this month to hear Greg Mortenson (the author of Three Cups of Tea) speak. He told story after story of well-intentioned Westerners (including himself) and their NGO's who ended up causing more harm than good in Pakistan and Afghanistan. They came in with their own solutions, and didn't listen to the local people.

Mortenson spoke powerfully of the importance of humility in leadership, and the success that comes from empowering the locals to decide what they need and then letting them lead the way. Through sincere listening, he has built trusting relationships that have surmounted enormous obstacles, and he's achieved things many thought were impossible. Even the U.S. military is studying his success in these war-torn regions.

Listening and presence are some of the key practices that we actively work to cultivate in the Courage to Lead program. Why? Because Superman is a myth. We can't succeed as a nonprofit leader on our own, and we can't just talk at people and expect them to follow our mission.

As nonprofit leaders, we need others - to do the work, to engage in deep debate about mission, to serve as ambassadors, to provide the funds, and to help us and our organizations improve. How do we attract and keep the best around us? Listening is powerful place to start.

Leaders' Corner

Hadley Headshot

Developing Yourself into a Nonprofit Leader
by Colette Hadley, Executive Director, Scholarship Foundation of Santa Barbara

Like many nonprofit Executive Directors, I spend a lot of time managing programs and people, and working in concert with Board members and donors to raise as much money as possible in pursuit of our mission. In order to stay current on nonprofit issues, business management theories, and economic trends, I also try to plow through a large number of newspapers, journals, websites, and books. In between, I attend countless meetings and receptions for business and nonprofit associations, vital networks for keeping me in the communications loop. I think all of these items are necessary to achieve a high level of proficiency in our profession.

Yet, as I thought about it, I realized that I was missing some things. I have put in a lot of time to become a nonprofit manager, but how was I developing my leadership and visioning skills? How much time was I investing in my professional development? How can my fellow Executive Directors and I sustain excellence and creativity in the nonprofit sector?

Participating in the Courage to Lead program has been an excellent way to explore these questions, and to examine my personal approach to leadership. I am very passionate about my work, a common thread for nonprofit staff members. Yet this wonderful passion can sometimes blind us to some very basic needs, and also get in the way of deep listening and visioning. We don't often take the time to renew our spirit. Through the lens of the Courage to Lead program, I am gaining a deeper understanding of my natural intuition, and how my experiences and thoughts can combine with increased self-awareness to invite even more "meaning" into my career and life.

At the same time, I was also looking for more ways to analyze and solve a variety of management problems. The best approach for me was to meet with an Executive Coach. My coach helped me understand my instincts and strengths as they relate to the workplace, how my management style affects those around me, and how to use a few concrete techniques to improve communication and efficiency. Coupling my experiences in the Courage to Lead program with the direct application instruments from my coach has allowed me to deepen my learning process.

Now, I have days when I feel that I am really using my leadership skills, and not just managing an agency. The hardest part for me is implementing what I am learning, and I must admit that I am still struggling to find balance in my life. But the tools are in my hands. And as the Chinese philosopher Lao Tzu famously said: "A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step."

What Nonprofit Leaders are saying about CTL

When we began building the Courage to Lead program for nonprofit executive leaders, we embraced evaluation as part of our program design. We not only wanted to measure the impact of the program on its participants, but we wanted to be able to share what we were learning with others.

Well, the early returns are in. For our first cohort which met from November 2008 through November 2009, we hired an outside evaluator to survey participants before and after the year-long series. Our goal was to learn why people chose to participate, and what skills, changed behaviors and awarenesses, if any, that they took away from engaging in this program.

On the quantitative side, participants most frequently articulated the following changes that they attributed directly to their participation in Courage to Lead:

An increase in self-care understanding and practice
An increase in their ability to trust themselves
An increased engagement in reflection about professional practice
An increased willingness to reach out to colleagues and friends for help with work-related issues
An increase in time spent nurturing professional and personal relationships
An increase in the perceived quality of listening skills

According to the evaluator:

"Participation in this Courage to Lead series has served these nonprofit leaders by increasing their sense of capacity for their work and decreasing their perception of the challenges as being too much. The "Courage to Lead" in this regard then becomes the courage to see or become better connected with the power and efficacy of their own passion and integrity as leaders."

As one participant wrote in their survey, "CTL is a very unique opportunity that touches the human spirit at a very basic level, so I was both deepened as a person and given the tools I need to become a more effective leader."

One other theme the evaluator reported that participants wrote about extensively was a deepening sense of collegial community. As one participant wrote, "through my interactions with colleagues in Courage to Lead, I have seen how valuable collegial relationships can be."

Ken Saxon
Courage to Lead
105 E. De La Guerra Street, Ste. 8
Santa Barbara, CA 93101
phone -- (805) 884-9223
fax -- (805) 426-4691
email -- ksaxon@silcom.com
website -- www.couragetoleadnp.org