20. Five Steps to Strengthen your Nonprofit’s Leadership Team

Your Leadership team are your eyes and ears to ensure your agency is running smoothly.
At the most basic level, this group shares departmental information and receives updates from the Executive Director about recent decisions.
But you want to move past the basic level of functioning, you want a  team that takes on tasks that transcend the work that these individuals do as department heads and work cross department silos to provide you with high level strategic problem solving. 
This episode provides five considerations to make to get the high performing leadership team you deserve.

Find more practicable tips on my website Relish Your Role. com.  I have so much respect for the work you do!  
Thanks for listening.

Transcript

When you are running a nonprofit, your success depends on the quality of your leadership team.

Your leadership team should be engaged in a variety of daily tasks that involve managing the organization and overseeing its resources and employees. 

They are your decision makers and problem solvers.

As the Executive Director, your leadership team serves as your eyes and ears as well as your arms and legs.

When your leadership team is high performing, they allow you to focus on the big picture strategic issues with confidence as you know the daily operations of the agency are in capable hands.

But how do you manage your leadership team and in a way that advances your agency’s mission?

Today’s episode will identify five issues every woman nonprofit executive director should consider to get the most from her leadership team.

You can find the full transcript at https://relishyourrole.com/20

Whether they are called a leadership team, an executive team, senior directors’ team, their role in a nonprofit is the same.   At the most basic level, this group shares departmental information and receives updates from the Executive Director about recent decisions.

The Bridgespan Group has written extensively about nonprofit leadership teams and the best way to leverage their potential. I encourage you to read their work.

But you want to move past the basic level of functioning, you want a  team that takes on tasks that transcend the work that these individuals do as department heads and work cross department silos to provide you with high level strategic problem solving. 

What would it be like if you had a team that routinely collaborates to shape organization-wide decisions and shares responsibility for the organization's results?

It does not have to be a fantasy.  

There are five issues to be aware of as the ED to help you shape your leadership team into effective, mission-focused decision-makers.

1. Setting expectations as you define the leadership team's work,

As the agency leader, you shape the priorities and decision-making style of the group.    

You must make clear everyone understands the function of the group and expectations for the type of tasks they need to take on in addition to their routine sharing of information across departments or program areas. 

Typically, the right work involves guiding the organization toward achieving its top priorities and ensuring effective cross-departmental decision making and resource allocation.

In order to achieve these goals, you want to make sure each member of the team is able to think past their own sphere of responsibility and look at issues from an organizational perspective.

2.  Identifying a clear focus for your group

Executive teams can home in on the handful of critical areas by focusing on those which are interdependent and have high impact.

Interdependent issues involve multiple units or functions where cross-leader discussion is critical for effective decision making.

High impact issues are those which have the greatest effect on the organization’s strategic priorities, programmatic and organizational effectiveness, creating a leadership pipeline, and its external reputation, and financial sustainability.

Once an executive team has clarity about its work, it needs to determine what role it will play in that work.

3.Being Intentional about the composition of the group

It is  critical that all leadership team members be able to take a big-picture perspective.  There may be specific issues when you want to  include non-direct reports whose unique skills are essential to the team's work.  If you chose to do so, I would use those staff in an advisory role rather than making them a regular participant  in your leadership team meetings.

You need to make sure the team remains at a manageable size and is consistent in its membership so they can build their own team dynamic.

4. Your communication and processes should support high level decision making

Well-managed processes around meetings and internal communications are essential for a successful leadership team. 

Effective meetings require:

·        sufficient advance notice, 

·        clear and focused meeting agendas, don’t overpack the agenda if you want deep discussion and problem solving

·        thoughtful consideration of the scheduling of the meeting so the members are not distracted with daily agency business

·        You may want to provide material for them to review beforehand in order to prepare everyone for productive discussions

·        Lastly, follow up on decisions or actions from previous meetings is crucial to keep the momentum going and holding each other accountable. 

The most productive use of time also requires management of agendas to ensure that urgent—immediate or unanticipated problems—doesn't consistently crowd out the high-priority work the team needs to do.

 Teams often need longer, meetings to wrestle with important decisions or dive deep into ongoing issues, such as developing talent or budgeting. 

Sometimes teams may need day-long or multiday retreats for team building, annual planning, or strategy sessions.

 The timing and cadence of these different types of meetings should be planned around the organization's calendar, including talent reviews, budgeting cycles, and annual board meetings.

5.You have to attend to and build the team dynamic

Building a cohesive executive team is essential for organizational success. A cohesive team also sets the tone for the rest of the agency, modeling the importance of collaborative behavior.

When people are together just by virtue of sitting next to each other, that is not enough to make a team.

You have to give the group time to grow into a team.

As a rule, nonprofits tend to have a pervasive culture of conflict aversion.  This translates to team members hesitating to question a colleague's view or openly disagree.

This aversion to conflict and hard conversations works against what you need from your team.

Through a series of team building exercises and experiencing collaborative solving problems you can help build a healthy team dynamic built on trust, collaboration, accountability, and shared ownership.

As with so many aspects of managing the relationship in your agency, creating a high performing leadership team takes time and intentionality.  These five considerations can get you one step closer to having the team you deserve.

As always, I believe you can do it and I am here to help.