As the facilitator of this merger (and a former executive director with experience in behavioral health), the most compelling outcome was the creation of a seamless service delivery system to address the needs of clients in a more holistic way. By unifying services to address substance abuse addictions, mental illness, homelessness, and to provide job training and primary health services, this merger will help to ensure that client needs do not slip through the cracks of a fragmented delivery system.

In the mainstream dialogue about nonprofit mergers, the focus is often on efficiency and cost-savings, but ultimately these alliances must make sense from a mission perspective: How can services be integrated and provided in a more effective manner? What will payers – in this case the City and County Department of Public Health – find attractive for contracting?

The landscape of services in San Francisco is fragmented, with many separate organizations providing numerous different services addressing specific client needs.  However, in most cases, they are not comprehensive, integrated services. The merger of Haight Ashbury Free Clinics and Walden House creates a more seamless approach, such that clients do not have to go in search of services from multiple entities to get the care they need.

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?

Brown’s camp accused the League of siding with a “liberal” agenda, while McCaskill and other Democrats also cried foul, calling the ads “not helpful.” But beneath the predictable campaign damage control lies the fact that those on both sides of the political aisle were so utterly shocked that an organization like the League of Women Voters would take such a direct approach.

Accustomed to the League’s more comforting strategies of publishing voter guides and politely issuing position statements, even some League members themselves were taken aback when the organization finally raised its voice to be heard over the noise in the modern political arena.

It was this break in character, in fact, that made the ads so powerful.

I’ve experienced this myself, on a personal level. With a quiet demeanor and a tendency to listen and analyze information in group settings rather than express every idea that comes into my head, it’s a rarity when I speak up, drive home a point, or voice frustration or dissent. But when I do, you can bet I have the ears of the group. And I also understand that with that power comes the responsibility to use it wisely, lest I lose it.

The League of Women Voters’ recent decision to step outside of its own comfort zone, and to risk its image in the minds of others who prefer its more passive persona, is one that I was glad to see it make – not only because it seemed to confirm that the organization does have power at its disposal, but because as League advocacy committee chairwoman Judy Duffy said to the Times, it honors the activism of its founding mothers, who “were not shrinking violets.” At the same time, I hope that it continues to wield this power judiciously, in a way that strengthens its identity, rallies its constituents, and advances its mission.

In what ways might your organization – or you as a professional – consider judiciously stepping outside your box to take a stand, flex your power, or make your voice heard?

I cringe every time I read about a celebrity joining the board of an organization.  Board members are trustees and each board member is equally accountable for insuring that the organization is properly governed. These roles include:

• Determining the Organization’s Mission and Purpose
• Selecting the Executive
• Supporting the Executive and Reviewing His or Her Performance
• Ensuring Effective Organizational Planning
• Ensuring Adequate Resources
• Manage Resources Effectively
• Determine and Monitor the Organization’s Programs and Services

I doubt if most celebrities realize that if the organizations fails to pay its payroll taxes the individual board members are legally liable or if the organization is in debt and has to close, the board is the body to blame.  If an organization wants to engage a celebrity they should consider asking them to be on an honorary board or co-chair of an advisory body to the board.

Yet in recent weeks we have seen two more major affiliates of well-known national nonprofits leave the fold. Planned Parenthood Golden Gate, in Northern California, is now Golden Gate Community Health, and KCET, the PBS affiliate in Los Angeles, recently announced its intention to leave the PBS family in January 2011.

Each of these situations is unique and involves a combination of differing perspectives, financial tensions and interpersonal conflicts, but I wonder if economic pressures are increasingly going to drive large affiliates of national organizations to leave behind their household brand name in favor of independence.

KCET will lose access to crucial PBS programs such as Sesame Street, while the two health organizations named above will continue to offer the same service but without the benefit of instant name recognition.

Given the demands of participation in a national organization (financial, programmatic, quality review, brand usage and the like) we may see additional large affiliates deciding they can do better on their own.

In the short run that may be true, but it remains to be seen whether they can replace the instant name recognition and credibility of their former national partners with local support. And of course there is always the possibility – indeed the likelihood – that the national organization will establish a new franchise in the same area, providing a high profile competitor who will build on the previous organization’s name recognition, now abandoned.

Stay tuned.

That may be what clients want to hire us for. But it doesn’t really work out that way. Just as a psychotherapist does not “fix” the unhappy patient, the consultant does not “fix” the dysfunctional nonprofit.

Excuse the therapy analogy but I have been married to a therapist for 32 years and we often see parallels in our work.

In each profession, the process of making things better is complex.

First we need to form a trusting relationship with our client by accepting them where they are and being non-judgmental.

Second, we have to get to know their world, their problems and triumphs, their values and history. Only then can we move forward together to solve problems. The client has perhaps worked deeply and for a long time in one organization, which is one context and one reality. The consultant works in a more limited way in many different contexts and realities.

For this reason the consultant may have insights into the problems the client faces that have just never occurred to the client before because this is the only context in which they have experienced this particular problem.

By sharing the learning journey, the consultant helps the client to fix their own problem, along the way building a new skill set that they can put to good use in the future. In a really good engagement the consultant also learns something new, so that the learning journey is truly shared.

Be realistic, not overly optimistic. Optimists have a harder time coping with setbacks. Realists expect them. Nonprofit leaders have to be ready to guide the organization through anything.

Build strong social supports. People need to lean on one another in hard times. Nonprofit success depends on the support and mutual goodwill of colleagues.

Have faith in God or in yourself. You have to believe in something, either external or internal to yourself. Self-confidence is essential to leaders, it inspires others to believe.

Be creative and cultivate the ability to improvise on the spot. Life is unpredictable.  Seldom does anything in a nonprofit follow an expected trajectory.

Focus on the larger picture, don’t get lost in the weeds. For leaders, the details are not as important as the vision of where you are going and why. Find someone else who can take care of the small picture and dream big.

Help others to focus on the needs of others, Model and spread altruism. Nonprofit leaders need to demonstrate care for their employees. Offer them the best salaries and benefits, and the most congenial workplace, you can afford.

Practice gratitude. Remember how lucky you are, and thank others for their help.  An organization is a collection of individuals acting in concert. While the leader gets all the glory (or blame) s/he should continually recognize those who make success possible.

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.

Each panelist highlighted different aspects of the five trends impacting the social sector and what their organizations are doing in response to, or in some cases, as part of the trends.

For example, Matt Halperin said the Omidyar Network is sector-agnostic when it comes to their investments, for them, sector-blurring has become sector indifference.

Dee Dee Nguyen of Marin Community Foundation talked about the changing demographics of California and the challenge of engaging younger donors in giving circles.

Peter Friess of the Tech Museum of Innovation showed a footage of kids being videotaped, so that the childrens’ explanations can be used in place of signage explaining the museum’s exhibits, to make the visitor experience more meaningful for other children.

It was a lively discussion with lots of people hanging around after for more.  Special thanks to Judi Powell and Dion Ward of NCG and Janet Camarena of Foundation Center for helping make this event a success!

With our PONO partner, the Hawaii Community Foundation, this fall we will launch the Hawaii Emerging Leaders Program (HELP), which will adapt our proven leadership curriculum for non-CEO leaders in nonprofits in Hawaii. These are program directors, CFOs, development directors and other senior leaders who usually report to the executive director, and who may one day be executive directors themselves.

Looking towards the nonprofit sector’s next generation of emerging leaders, be sure to check out one of Rosetta Thurman’s latest blog posts, “11 Reasons Why New College Grads Should Pursue Nonprofit Careers” and Brent Copen’s recent post about the May 2010 HBR article “The Leaders We Need Now” at  our NonprofitNext blog.