Episode 88: Leadership Challenges of the Day and What to Do About Them

Welcome to another edition of "Around with Randall", your weekly podcast making your nonprofit more effective for your community. And here is your host, the CEO and Founder of Hallett Philanthropy, Randall Hallett.

I can't thank you enough for joining me, Randall, on this edition of "Around with Randall". Today's conversation, discussion, podcast was developed out of a question that I thought was fairly interesting from a hospital CEO that I was talking with in the last week. And the question was more of a conversation. We're talking about leadership challenges and what we were talking about was what are the greatest leadership challenges that we're facing, and I'm not talking about just in healthcare, I'm talking about in general. But probably most appropriately in the nonprofit world. And that got me to think and so I started jotting some things down and it, I got to six and that's what I want to talk about today. What are the greatest challenges that we're dealing with, and frankly, what can we do with them?

So let's start right at the top. There's great challenge in the world in general, whether it's inflationary pressures that are placing enormous financial challenges into not only, you know, the nonprofit world, but just all businesses. We certainly are still dealing, coming out of a pandemic. We have the great resignation or great reshuffling, however you want to look at it. We have economic issues when it comes to supply lines and supply, opportunities being held up. There's all of these things going on and that doesn't even take into account that the the horrific issues in Ukraine and what Russia has done, or various other economic political, whatever.

Leadership has never been more important. So, what are the leadership challenges we want to talk about today? The first one is, and i'll kind of list the six, then I'll kind of break them down. The first is how do you create effectiveness for employees and for the organization? Number two, how are you an inspiration? Number three is how do you train, develop employees? Number four is how do you actually lead people towards a common goal? Number five is how do you deal with, but I think the real word, I want to use is guide change? And number six is how do you manage stakeholders, others that have influence or are part of your world? So effectiveness, inspiration, development, leading, guiding, and managing. All important things we're gonna have to talk about for the next 12 to 14 minutes.

So the first is honing effectiveness. How do you get people to be more effective, to get your organization to be more effective? So that's dealing with things like time, priority, strategic planning, decision-making, things of that nature. The first thing is realizing that effectiveness is putting together a team. And recently I've become more and more appreciative of DISC training and DISC knowledge, which really is a behavioral communication testing. There's a lot of them out there, from Myers Briggs, others. I like DISC because what DISC does is talk about the way in which people act and communicate in their normal state, and then how they adjust when things get tense, pressure, in their adaptive state.

Had the conversation with this particular CEO on this very conversation that there was a communication between philanthropy and someone else in the organization who wasn't in philanthropy, another leader. And the other leader, you know, was like I'm all, I'm under water with all of these different things I have to worry about, and they want me to worry about philanthropy. I don't have time for this. And it created this interesting conversation about effectiveness and about DISC because the rub or the challenge in the relationship at that moment was that the receiver of the information, the non-fundraiser leader didn't understand the value of philanthropy. And the organization needs it. And the CEO says, I have a responsibility to help them understand what we need to do to make this more effective. At the same time there's also a realization that there was a frustration that something wasn't being done related to fundraising activities or or necessary support, and that led to communication that was maybe a little bit off-kilter. And in the meantime the CEO is trying to balance this idea of teamwork.

This is all about prioritization. What's everybody doing? It's all about that idea of of decision making. What do I do with my time when it's such a limited factor and priorities that are being placed upon me and in heightened moments the communication got off? It knocked the effectiveness off, and we talked about how DISC can help sometimes help us understand that the way someone reacts to us. Most of the time has very little to do with us as it does what they're going through, and that what we think of as normal communication and behavior changes when that stress rises. And if we know what to look for in that effectiveness, we can downplay how we react back to them as the way they reacted to us. It's more about understanding. Having more understanding of the way people communicate. And so honing effectiveness as a leader, tactical pieces, is about reminding people that first and foremost how you communicate is important and number two, how you receive it is even more important, and that you need to put into context just not that conversation but the bigger picture and at the end it's the team that's going to get the work done. And so you can't take things personally, and you have to be very clear, and you have to be willing to apologize and say gosh we just did not meet on this effectively and let's go back and talk about how we can be better together. So, effectiveness.

The second is inspiration. How do we inspire and motivate people, and this is becoming more and more important, particularly in the great re-shuffling, and also when you start adding that we're seeing more and more Millennials and certainly coming Generation Z. Identifying they're wanting to work and be engaged with people and organizations that reflect their behaviors or believe that, or or their belief system. So this inspiring is really important. The first thing is that you have to have a sense of being genuine, honest. And if you can't do that, that's challenge. The whole thing's lost. Who are you? Do you listen? I think sometimes motivating and inspiring is more about listening than it is action. I think we think about inspiration in heroic, in heroic perspectives. You know they run in and save the person during a fire. That's inspirational. I can do something great but really the greatest inspiration may come from everyday occurrences. I want to inspire my children. That doesn't come, I hope through heroic action, but everyday work in building that relationship. Examples of working hard, going in early, staying late, being honest, going the extra mile, doing what you say, living to the standards that you talk about. Inspiration is more about that daily work than it is those moments that are just, you know, come around only every once in a while. Being genuine. Being communicative. Listening and embodying something bigger than yourself is inspirational.

Three is about developing or or building employees. We used to be in an environment, particularly in nonprofit work, that I think if you put enough money out on the table you could go get the talent you want. But that day is over. What nonprofits are affecting to go through, to find talent whether that's a front line in terms of CFOs and finance people or mental health providers to fundraising, which is sometimes thought as more back-end because it's not at the forefront of most people's thoughts, to CEOs, we're gonna have to develop more talent. So you're gonna have to help build this idea of coaching and mentoring and giving people a growth path. If you identify someone who's young and inexperienced but has a great deal of of growth opportunity, and they're passionate and they're articulate, you'd better invest in them, and what they can be in the future. And you need to do so now. This employment issue, the great resignation, great reshuffling, isn't going to stop. And I'm beginning to see challenges in the nonprofit space where people are leaving nonprofit for the for-profit world because they're going through the same employment market. And what they're realizing is they can make a lot more money in the for-profit space and it's worth all the problems. Just trade off. So if you're not investing in your people you're not bringing them along in ways that they can have experiences at a young age or young part of their career so they can see what the future looks like, if you're not giving them and investing in them in formal education or informal education, or travel, or to like conferences, if you're not giving them and asking them what do they want and how can we help you get there, you will lose them because there are options. And we have to be more open to thinking this is more at the senior level, that maybe the people from the outside aren't necessarily better than the people we have inside that can be promoted. I think we're going to come into a timeframe over the next couple of years where actually promoting somebody from within is a much stronger move for your organization. And for the things that need to be done than just trying to go out and find it on the outside, it'd probably be more economical. It's probably going to be quicker and it actually may get you better talent.

Fourth is this idea of leading, which probably partners somewhat with inspiration but in, to me, leading is also not only inspiring but it's also supporting. do you do team building activities to get to know each other on a personal level? Do you, as a leader, know your team, know their spouses, significant others, their children, their challenges? Do you help them along the way? Do you talk about developing as a team? Do you do things that give the team a chance to grow personally and professionally together? Do you help instill a thought of pride in the group in the team, in the organization? Do you facilitate collaboration? And this one's tough because we've got more and more people that aren't coming back to an office, there are ways of being collaborative without being in the same room. I'm having to learn this in my business, and I knew this from previous consulting even before the pandemic because we used a virtual communication, you know the idea of the ubiquitous Zoom meetings. Although we didn't use Zoom before the pandemic and and Covid, there are ways of doing it. This is especially true when you are taking over a new team.

Leading is about inspiring as we've talked about. But it's also about getting the most out of the group that the sum of the parts is so much more when you add them all together than if you just added them up in isolation. It becomes exponential when you build a team that collaborates effectively together. And we mentioned some of those tactical things you can do in terms of team-building activities, and getting them off- site and including them in communication, breaking down barriers, getting to know who they are as people.

The fifth is this idea of change. It's just not enduring, it's guiding it. There are things that we can do as a successful leader to ready ourselves, our organization, our teams, the people we are responsible for to be ready for change. First and foremost, to talk about it, to just have a conversation. Because people are afraid of change. I've got a good friend who's come into the organization and they need to do some work on this idea of teamwork, and on this idea of inspiration, and really about developing a better environment to lead to success down the road. And he's running into this obstacle, this resistance to change, and he's just doing a brilliant job of it because what he does is he talks a little bit about it and he says what do you think about that and people talk about it and then he can take the next half, a little step, and says what do you think about that? And that's then two, three weeks later. And then another week. He's not trying to change too much at once. He's doing it incrementally. The other thing is that he's finding allies in this change to come along with him, so it's not always his word that's pushing the change. There are others now a part of the conversation saying yeah, this sounds great, we need to do this, so that the last remaining recalcitrance so to speak aren't the only ones left. They're the only ones left at a certain point. They feel isolated so it's this, it's the ability to go at the right speed, not trying to do too much at once in that change. Being open to the concept of change, and then finding partners and allies that are willing to go with that change with you so you're not alone, and doing it in small steps so you can ask, what do you think? How's it going? So you can get a feedback loop of what that is, what that entails, and what's what everyone's going through that's guiding change, not just accepting it. And we do too much accepting in leadership on change, not just trying to get us, drive us, help us navigate it, lead it, lead that group through that change.

The last is this idea of stakeholders and how to work with them. I did a podcast, you can go back and find it, on managing up. So how do you? That's a stakeholder, your boss, supervisor, but certainly in nonprofit world we have board members, foundation board members, community board members, governance board members. We're not spending enough time communicating with those stakeholders, and I haven't even brought up the donors or the people that utilize the services of a nonprofit. I'm doing a feasibility study. It's very interesting in that it's a nonprofit and so there is a nonprofit mission that incorporates, which many do, the idea of helping and serving those that are the underserved, the not heard, the not seen, those that need it the most. And then the feasibility said I started to add the question do you know what the mission is of the organization? Many didn't. When I tell them, well, part of it is this need directive to help others beyond just the service, but to go that extra mile because that's in the mission of the organization. My question is does the community know this? And the answer has been 100 percent no. So sometimes managing stakeholders is managing your donors to know what you actually do, and that takes time. It's not just as easy as just, well, we'll just say it once.

So you've got your board, who's trying to figure out what's going on. And how you communicate if at all possible getting back together is critical right now coming out of the pandemic. Getting to the point of being okay with each other and in room and working through the challenges. Also, you you've got to listen and help them better understand if you're a larger organization. What goes on on a daily basis inside the organization, not to manage it. So it's not the board's job to understand so they can strategically think about it, but also in smaller organizations getting time together so these stakeholders can build camaraderie so that they can work together towards a common goal. And lastly is making sure we communicate the idea of just basic stewardship, managing those on the outside to say we're doing what we should be.

These leadership challenges, I could do an hour on each one so this is a short version. But the idea of building effectiveness and inspiring one and two and developing your own employees so that they're ready to rise as opportunities provide themselves. Number three that leading is about bringing that team together and really listening in the team building activities so that you have a chance to do things collectively rather than just independently. That's number four. Number five is not just accepting change but leading people through them, through it. Navigating it. And number six is managing those stakeholders who make your organization possible, whether it's boards or managers. We talk about managing up and you can listen to the former podcast, or your donors, people who make it financially viable for your organization to do what it does. These are the leadership challenges I think of that are the most needed right now in a chaotic world. And maybe if you wrote those down it gives you a chance to kind of think about what am I doing in each one of these areas to be more effective. And if you're doing that then you're making yourself, your department, your team, your organization better and that is really what i want out of these segments and podcasts of "Around with Randall."

Don't forget to check out the pod or the blogs at hallettphilanthropy.com, two or three a week. Some of these issues and others that you can read in 90 seconds, no more. And if you're interested in communicating with me that's podcast@hallettphilanthropy.com. Glad to chat with you about a particular subject, if you disagree with something I said. Finally, I want to make sure if you're listening, watching YouTube or Downcast, iPod, Apple, you know iheartradio, wherever anything you need is somewhere in these podcasts or blogs. Leave me a comment, pass it on to a friend. Maybe it can be helpful to them. Don't forget what you do every day is important. Philanthropy means, in its original latin if we go all the way back to original greek, love of mankind, filos, and anthropos. And what we do is we make a difference in the world. We find people who want to partner with us to do that, and in doing so we help those that need it the most because we love our fellow man, people in the communities that we live. My favorite saying, some people make things happen, some people watch things happen, then there are those who wondered what happened. And in this world we need more people like you, who make things happen for people and the things we love who are wondering what happened. And that is to me the purest definition of what nonprofit philanthropic work's all about. And I hope you know you're making a difference for someone or something every day you do this incredible work. I'll look forward to seeing you next time right back here on "Around with Randall." Don't forget make it a great day.