Questionable Leadership can Happen Anywhere

While most people can’t identify the best zoos in the world, because of work done on late-night television shows, many people could identify the legendary figure, Jack Hannah.  He brought animals onto shows like The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson or Jay Leno or Jimmy Fallon---plus others. And if you paid attention, you knew that Jack was from the Columbus Zoo. And in fact, the Columbus Zoo, located in Ohio, is one of the great zoos within the United States.

That’s why it was so surprising that recently the Association of Zoos and Aquariums (AZA) announced the Columbus Zoo was losing its accreditation. The AZA — it’s like having the “Good Housekeeping” seal of approval — makes sure zoos meet certain basic standards. And the organization just announced that after 40+ years of being accredited, the Columbus Zoo won’t be going forward. The reasons why include getting and sending animals to non-association members, causing issues with breeding and treatment of animals, and poor fiscal management.

The Columbus Zoo is set up as a nonprofit with a local board. These fiduciaries, from what it appears, followed a disturbing national trend I wrote about in one of my recent blogs, where boards see themselves as “supporting actors” to a CEO rather than being the CEO’s boss. And I commented then and refresh now, that’s crazy. Because of this new trend philosophy, the Columbus Zoo failed in governance and finance.

There are multiple new leaders coming on board at the Columbus Zoo. They had nothing to do with the problems that preceded them. And the people (leaders, in a loose way) who actually did the wrongdoings and made the bad decisions are long gone. The constant for the community and the Zoo itself is the members of the community who serve as volunteer leaders on the board.  That’s why they’re fiduciaries. They are the constant to make sure best practices from a governance and organizational operational perspective are always kept at the highest possible levels.

This is an enormous organization, world renowned, that allowed some basic best practice principles be ignored. Leadership failure can happen anywhere. It’s not just at small nonprofits where there are two or three people and someone gets a big head. Or takes too much responsibility. Or doesn’t listen. Or simply does something stupid.  It can, and does, happen at the largest and most prestigious organizations in the United States. And no matter big or small, each time it happens, it is a crying shame because it hurts the reputation of that organization, the community as a whole, and all nonprofits, everywhere.