As a student of leadership theory for the past two decades, I’ve noticed (it would be hard to miss it) a undertone of patronizing advice from business leaders towards the their non-profit brethren. The tone of the advice could best be summarized as “aren’t you cute trying to accomplish things in such a backwards way” and at worst could be phrased as “We know how run things and you don’t”. At the core of the issue is a belief that the tough-minded, bottom-line approach of business leaders could bring improvement to non-profit leadership. Interestingly, the greatest authorities on business leadership, Peter Drucker, didn’t see it this way. He saw non-profit leadership as perhaps a more complex from of leadership that calls on a greater variety of leadership skills. Non-profit leaders for their part, reject much of this advice based a couple of factors:
1. Working without the advantage of money to motivate, non-profit leaders must have a more collaborative leadership style.
2. Non-profit leaders see themselves as caretakers of community assets and not as proprietary owners.
3. Motivating volunteers and donors is different than hiring Harvard MBA’s and giving them a large bonus.
4. Business leaders haven’t set a great example.
From my perspective there is no such thing as business leadership and non-profit leadership, only good leadership and bad leadership. Bad leadership is often such because it’s a one-size fits all approach; while good leadership calls for rock-solid values, but different approaches and different styles depending on the circumstance.
Yet I think there are couple of key points that non-profit leaders need to take heed of the advice of business leadership principles:
1. We must be fanatically committed to excellence. Too often non-profits have a casual approach to quality control, cleanliness, staff reviews, creativity, and financial management. It seems as though the opinion is that charitable work is so noble that it doesn’t need to stand up to scrutiny. On the contrary, If your work is as important, noble and necessary as you believe it to be you MUST bring your very best efforts to the task. The silent fear of every non-profit leader is “if I hold a high standard I might not be able to motivate my volunteers and staff that is working for less.” This kind of thinking is counter to all we know about people and it borders on cowardice. People want to be part of something great. Hold a high standard and you’ll soon find that you’re surrounded by a higher quality of volunteer and staff. At the Rescue Mission we have incredibly high standards and as such we have quickly gathered one of finest teams in the country, as is illustrated by our being a Best Workplace for the past three years. In addition, our volunteers are stepping up in greater numbers and accepting more responsibility.
2. We must have a plan. Business leaders see a lack of strategic planning among many non-profits and it’s hard to argue with their observations. Too often charities have only one goal, to survive. When all you’re seeking to do is survive, you’re almost sure to be close to death at all times. When you seek to move forward, expand, improve, and adapt you take on the signs of life that donors, volunteers and staff look for in a charitable cause and a place to invest their life.
3. We must use best practices. Every non-profit thinks they are they exception to the rule when it applies to governance, financial responsiblity, and common-sense policies and procedures. These arguments sound like this: “We’re just a small group that doesn’t apply”, “we’ve not done it that way”, “We’re casual here”, “We don’t have the staff to do that”, and on it goes. With excuses like that, you’re almost certain to be doomed to the death spiral of failure. There is such a thing as a basic standard of practice that brings transparency, efficiency, accountability an more. It does apply to you.
4. We must measure the performance of our staff and ourselves. Here again, many leaders in the world of 501c3 start to loose their nerve. Far too many have no review process and think that to have one would be a shift to ‘corporate thinking’ that would certainly doom the organization. Without an honest system of year review you cannot advance your cause. The people are the carriers of the cause! At the Rescue Mission we are looking for new and better ways to reward good performance, to highlight those who are doing unusually great work in helping to serve the homeless and hurting of our community. You will get what you reward. If you reward pay for attendance, people will come to work. If you measure and reward creativity, you’ll get creativity. If you measure and reward excellence, you’ll become an excellent non-profit.
What do you think? Is there a divide between business and non-profit leaders? Do business leaders know best? Are non-profit leaders cowards? Can we learn anything from each other?
Let me hear your thoughts?
David Curry
