Leadership requires more than the confidence to stand up and offer to lead. In fact, there are three skill areas that must be built or honed for someone to truly claim the mantle of leadership.

1. Self-Awareness.

You must have an understanding and appreciation of who you are as a person, and how you manage yourself. This includes:
•   Knowing skills, limits, strengths, and competencies through realistic self-appraisal
•   Developing control, self-regulation, and an ability to “live in the response, not the stimulus,”
•   Understanding time vs. energy management
•   Maintaining a deep commitment to personal and professional growth
•   Having the ability to monitor and regulate self-efficacy

2. Understanding of Others.

Another key element of leadership requires your ability to connect and influence others.  These skills include your:
•    Capacity for deep listening
•    Development of personal voice and an ability to influence others
•    Aptitude to affirm, connect with, and correct others
•    Ability to have difficult conversations
•    High level of cultural competency
•    Ability to forge and deepen interpersonal relationships
•    Improvisational skills

3. Organizational Impact.

Leaders need to understand how to create and direct an organization beyond standard operations.  These skills include:
•    Understanding how organizations work
•    Creating organizational engagement and alignment
•    Building and directing teams
•    Thinking strategically

Given these key elements above, leadership development programs require a combination of:

Self-reflection: participants must be given an opportunity to see themselves as others see them in order to build their strengths and minimize any weaknesses in their self-presentation, communication style, or other behaviors.

Peer learning and networking:  sessions must include time for participants to connect as peers through both structured activities and exercises and through open discussion.

Hard skill development: participants must learn something new and useful during each session, such as how to manage a troublesome staff member, develop a personal performance plan, or more effectively run a board meeting.

Through research and practice, we have found that there are 5 essential program elements to build multi-dimensional leaders in a setting that builds hard skills, creates a strong peer network, and allows for self-reflection and personal growth.

The 5 essential elements of a leadership development program are:

1. Community. Both seasoned organizational leaders and emerging leaders achieve transformative learning when part of a community of peers.  The shared experience of self-examination and skill development creates a sense of shared identity for moving forward together and a mutually supportive community to draw on once the formal program ends.

2. Context. The individuals in the program must be able to leave behind for the moment their organizational context in order to explore issues, solutions, and new skills that will help them to address their work challenges. In this way they will return to their organizational home ready to practice what they have learned.  The workplace then becomes a real-life learning laboratory where new skills and confidence can be applied.

3. Clinic. Each time the learning community gathers “the clinic” provides a vital connection between practice and learning.  Based upon case study methodology borrowed from the social science/educational/  disciplines, individuals have the opportunity to present a current issue or problem they find challenging.  The community becomes a problem solving resource that sheds light on the underlying issues and provides an opportunity for problem-solving engagement for all participants.

4.  Coaching. Strong leadership programs include assessment tools as well as qualitative feedback to build self-knowledge.  Incorporating individual executive coaching allows each participant to translate data and feedback into actions to address weaknesses and reinforce strengths.

5. Curriculum. The curriculum must choose from among the wide array of topics and sub-topics related to leadership and management.  Topics must inform and build upon each other while integrating solid, proven nonprofit management and leadership practices.  The curriculum must also be applicable and understandable from a range of diverse perspectives and delivered in a manner that connects with adult learners.

We have used this holistic approach towards leadership development programs and learning communities from Honolulu Hawai’i to Fargo North Dakota. What elements do you think are most critical to a leadership development program?

My colleague David La Piana and I have both observed the dynamic of parallel process within the sector. This Nonprofit Paradox has been defined as, “what an organization seeks to solve or resolve in society, they recreate as a problem internally”. We see this as not only an issue among staff, but unfortunately in the way we in the sector can treat candidates for positions with our organizations.

I have had the pleasure to teach in the nonprofit graduate program at the University of San Francisco. You meet some great dedicated professionals in the field. I am fortunate enough that some of them keep in touch, or drop me a note about where they are and what they are doing.

Recently, a former student of mine shared her experiences of searching for a job in the field.  We all know that it is tough market, that more nonprofits are laying people off than hiring, and that there are some very talented, committed people looking for work.  That can make organizations a little cocky- sitting in the power position of having the option of choosing the cream of the cream.

Since December of 2010 this young woman has applied to over 50 jobs and has had over 30 interviews, either over the phone or in-person.

She shared with me the following experiences:

• One interviewer fell asleep in our interview.
• Another was so rude that I got home and called their HR director to complain and retract my app. Their director of programs later called me to try and convince me to go back in because the rude interviewer/potential supervisor only liked me out of their candidates.
• An org turned me down via email and in the next paragraph asked me to volunteer my time with the department that wouldn’t even interview me.
• Feedback from another was that I need to cut my hair (it’s long, but groomed and just fine).

She went on to list the number of organizations that simply canceled the position, put hiring on hold, did not make a decision or simply never responded to her.

We have to do better. We have to treat candidates with respect that they deserve.  There is vulnerability to those who are seeking work and opening themselves up to the possibilities, as well as the probabilities of not getting the job.

I will let my former student speak for herself:

Simply, if they can’t send a basic email to inform candidates of their search progress or that they aren’t advancing to the next round, they should revise their operations and staffing capacity in recruiting. They are giving their organization a bad reputation and limiting future partnerships. And I know that I’m not the only person with a list like this.

So, if you’re looking for a job and not having luck, understand that companies don’t have it together right now. Keep at it and don’t be too critical of yourself.

Tell us what you think.  Do you have any advice to add?

In the case, a long-slumbering board hires an entrepreneurial executive director to revitalize their museum. He brings in a small cohort of new board members who are local business leaders. Fundraising increases, and the business board members are highly involved, then they become too involved. They make executive decisions behind the director’s back, move the museum’s banking to the board chair’s bank, buy office equipment from another board member’s company, and tie the museum’s signature event to their businesses.

You can imagine the end of this story. Both the executive director and the board chair submit resignations in frustration and the organization is on the brink of collapse.

When I use this case I ask students, or workshop participants, to first determine what actually happened. Step by step, I want them to understand how the decisions unfolded and the relationships unraveled?

Then I ask them to apportion blame among the various parties – there is plenty to go around. Finally I ask them what could be done now. This usually leads to a lively discussion.

Cases are a powerful learning aid, a realization which brought me the following insight: could a nonprofit experiencing significant internal conflict or lack of clarity benefit from writing its own case?

The idea would be to gather organizational leaders from board and staff and give them a structured writing exercise where they describe the road that has gotten them to their current situation. What key decisions, external circumstances, and relationships were most significant? Maybe do it in small group format so that they can later compare and contrast different versions of the story.

This would lead to an airing of different viewpoints and ultimately, with luck and good facilitation, to a shared understanding of the present situation. With agreement on the “what happened” question, I would ask them to address the causes of their current situation, and then what can be done about it now?

This process follows the model of my big picture view of strategy. It asks: where are we, how did we get here, and what do we do about it?

Why are nonprofit organizations so often plagued by the very ills they aim to cure?  Read the article online, or download a PDF, and let us know what you think.

It is not surprising that some of the most lucid advocates for better talent management have come from the for-profit sector.  During a presentation at the recent Independent Sector 2009 Annual Conference in Detroit, Christine Rhee, Manager, American Express Philanthropy, implored nonprofit managers to do a better job ensuring that their employees feel valued in their positions and receive the feedback they need to continuously improve. Also at the IS conference, Michael Watson, Senior Vice President of HR at Girl Scouts of the USA (formerly of IBM, GE, and Time Warner) spoke of the importance of managers playing an active role in the development of their employees – even if it means moving on to jobs at other organizations.

The need for better communication about performance has been attributed to Gen Y ever since we all started trying to learn what makes them tick and how this would impact the 21st Century workplace. Whether influenced by the “helicopter parent” phenomenon, or simply the constant connection offered by the online communications environment, Gen Y workers crave continual appraisal that tells them both when they’re getting it right and where they need to improve.

So why is this seemingly so hard for nonprofits to provide? Is there a widespread assumption that commitment to “the cause” should serve as adequate motivation?  Or has the sector failed to invest the thought – and resources – necessary to develop performance management systems that facilitate meaningful feedback?

Those of us who may be reluctant to “indulge” Gen Ys and their need for feedback should consider the investment that much of the (admittedly better capitalized) for-profit sector makes in performance management. . The desire for meaningful feedback  is not exclusive to next generation workers. We all need and deserve clear expectations, stretch goals, recognition for a job well done, and constructive feedback to help us grow. And if that makes for a more personal, humane, and caring workplace – as well as improved capacity to meet our missions –  well then isn’t that what the sector should be aspiring to?