Joan Garry - Joan Garry's Guide to Nonprofit Leadership

This kind of power demands that you meet with the leaders of the Coors Boycott Committee — not to empower them, but to ensure their voices are heard — we even invited them to a board meeting.

And this kind of power demands that you see the decision from all sides. We secured a meeting with the most senior people at Coors and garnered commitments from them to do more than just donate money.

And this kind of power demanded that I put myself at a national LGBTQ conference in which several hundred community members could share their distaste with the thought that GLAAD may make this choice. In this setting, you can be sure that I heard them — many of them were yelling at me.

In the end, Coors became a corporate sponsor of GLAAD. Not everyone agreed, but everyone had a voice. All stakeholder groups were heard, and our entire process and strategy was smarter and more effective than any decision I had made on my own. This is what Jim Collins means when he talks about power in the nonprofit sector being diffuse . At its best, it creates a staff that feels valued and heard, a supportive board comfortable in challenging, and a membership that sees a process rich with integrity.

Nonprofit decision‐making at its best.

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So you can see how this can get messy, right — how quickly a staff can become disgruntled? So can your clients. You want them to be engaged in the work, to secure their opinions about decisions and policies, but must you walk a fine line. If you don't, you wind up with angry stakeholders, and you wind up fighting to make decisions that are in the best interest of the entire organization.

How about a board chair that has already made up their mind about the ED annual review process and doesn't ask for input? How valuable does the full board feel? I'm going to go with “not very.” Or, how about an ED who has already made a big decision and asks the senior staff to weigh in? That ED better pray the senior staff comes up with the same decision. Then there is the ED who listens to input and finds themself more indecisive than when they first asked.

Each of these scenarios makes things messier.

Not everyone is Kermit. And no one fits neatly into one of the four superhero profiles. You might identify with someone outside the list. (I hope there are no Darth Vaders among you.)

The key is to recognize attributes that don't serve you well and make adjustments. So, for me, I think I am a “BP/K” — a Black Panther/Kermit combo. (Yes, I am now making fun of every personality profile test to which you've ever been subjected at work or during a retreat.)

I am a fixer. I know this about myself. I love to save the day — that's why I love my work — I have serious Black Panther tendencies. They serve me well in my business but, as a nonprofit leader, not so much. I like to think I have some Kermit going on as well. Like Kermit, I like to think of myself as an orchestra conductor, bringing out the best in my tribe.

So what if you aren't Kermit?

Thomas arrived as the new ED of a pretty small organization — budget size a few hundred thousand. Thomas wears a cape and not just on Halloween. He arrived at his organization to fix it, to save the day. The organization had been in disarray for some time.

Thomas started weekly staff meetings and no one came. Well, some did but most didn't. They were too busy. Thomas was angry and he threatened consequences. The following week, attendance was better, still not great. Attitudes were even worse.

What was he missing?

Thomas made several incorrect assumptions:

If you tell people what to do, they will just do it. Now that worked like a charm for me in Catholic grammar school in the 1960s, but in a nonprofit, your staff needs to feel some sense of ownership of the decisions made. This is what they deserve in lieu of that year‐end bonus that is coming like, NEVER.Your staff needs to feel some sense of ownership of the decisions made.

He assumed they understood — in this case, he assumed they understood the value of a staff meeting. That's not how the previous leader managed (or didn't).

So here are the changes I suggested that he make:

Have a meeting about the meeting. Send an email around; tell folks that this meeting is to talk about how a staff meeting might be valuable to the entire group and to each staffer. Let them figure out the need themselves. And yes, everyone showed up; they built a standing agenda that was more than just reporting out, and staff meetings are now weekly and well attended.

Ask more questions. Cape‐wearers are fixers and they know the answers. Maybe they are arrogant or maybe just very self‐assured. Thomas liked to just tell staff the answers; he directed them closely because he was clear about what needed to be done. I encouraged Thomas to ask staff members what they would do. Have a conversation about strategy. Guide gently if they are off base, and more importantly, listen carefully. You know, it is possible that they are right and you are not (I know — hard to believe).

Dip your toe into the world of the “gray.” To Black Panther, things are black‐and‐white. There are good guys and bad guys. Things need to happen a certain way. You need to try to appreciate the gray. This might mean you have to own the fact that you are not as open‐minded as you need to be. Are you a board chair ready to write off a board member who does nothing? Try having a coffee with said board member. Ask her what success looks like for her, what she needs from the chair to be successful. Don't vote her off the island too quickly. Move from black to gray.

Unlike T'Challa (Black Panther) who is clearly a respected leader of his people, Peter Parker is a three‐dimensional teenager — a nerd, an introvert, and an outsider — a sensitive soul who has experienced tragedy and loss. Spidey, on the other hand, owns his brilliance and is all about victory, but both Peter and Spidey share two key things — (a) the importance of the intersection of knowledge and power and (b) a core value to lead a responsible life.

Kim began her job as a board chair deeply insecure about her ability to do a good job (get in line, Kim). She was now in charge of a sizable board filled with some very high‐powered folks. If you spent an hour with this group and someone asked you who the chair was, she would not be your obvious choice. She was not a great public speaker and was intimidated by the resumes of those folks around the table, none of whom, by the way, were willing to step into the leadership role. But Kim knew the organization needed someone dedicated — someone who loved the organization — and really wanted the staff leader to succeed.

Kim's challenge was not to be overrun by the bombastic folks in the room — to establish leadership. But Kim doesn't wear a cape.

In our coaching sessions, Kim and I spoke about where her power comes from. I learned that she was deeply empathetic and had a profound and personal connection to the mission. I also learned that she was smart as hell.

The following shifts helped Kim quite a bit:

Be the most knowledgeable person in the room. I’m not talking about smarts; I'm talking about the professional aspects of the role of board chair. I begged her to buy Robert's Rules of Order. It is amazing how much respect a board chair can garner when managing a meeting professionally. I also encouraged her to spend time really understanding the nonprofit sector and the complexities and context of the issue the organization was up against.

Play to Your Strengths. Remember Kim's empathy, remember her introvert tendencies? We devised a regular email from the board chair. It opened with a story about the work or something Kim had learned about the broader context of the work, reminding board members why they serve. Then, she was able to call board members to action. She had put the requests into an emotional and intellectual context.