Can’t-Miss Considerations for Nonprofit Leaders

Nonprofit organizations make enormous investments in recruiting CEOs and other C-suite leaders. Rarely is someone hired into such a senior position who is not capable of success in the role. Yet many dreams—on the part of the organization or the employee—are dashed in a short period of time, either within a year of hiring, or within a year of a change in supervisor (a board chair or CEO transition). Almost always, these sudden leadership transitions are due to deficiency in one of three areas:

• Building and sustaining key relationships
• Building strong and complementary leadership teams
• Clarifying how success will be measured

Sometimes the failing is largely the responsibility of the C-suite incumbent, who allows other responsibilities to detract attention from these three can’t-miss considerations. In other cases, the failing is largely the responsibility of supervisors who create obstacles to C-suite officer efforts to focus on these considerations. Both C-suite officer and supervisor (board chair or CEO) must be aware of the importance of these considerations.

Building and Sustaining the One or Two Most Important Relationships

• Nonprofit CEOs and Executive Directors who have a strong relationship with their board chair can survive a wide variety of challenges and even missteps. They can also weather the loss of confidence of staff members and other constituents. When they lose the confidence of their board chair, even CEOs and EDs with strong track records of success, who enjoy excellent relationships with most or all other constituents, will often lose their jobs or lose their ability to lead even if they get to stay.
• CEOs and EDs who have a particularly strong relationship with their board chair will usually be able to drive significant growth or change. Such a relationship facilitates the work of other senior leaders—for example, a board chair with a high level of confidence in the CEO will spend political capital to rally support for an ambitious new initiative or fundraising campaign.
• Successful CEOs and EDs always know who their next board chair will be, and they pay careful attention to board leadership succession. The choice of board chair is up to the board, but successful CEOs guide and guarantee a productive outcome. They ensure that those who are being groomed for the role of board chair understand the difference between the roles and responsibilities of the CEO and the roles and responsibilities of the board chair and board members.
• Other nonprofit C-suite leaders, such as the Chief Financial Officer, Chief Operating Officer, and Chief Development Officer, must build strong relationships with the CEO, the board chair, and other board members such as committee chairs. Those missing one of these relationships may survive in good times but will be on shaky ground in challenging times. Those with weak relationships with both the CEO and the board chair are unlikely to remain in their jobs for long, regardless of their job performance or the strength of their relationships with staff members and other colleagues.
• Once these one or two key relationships are established, sustaining them must take priority. Successful leaders plan for stewardship of their relationships with their supervisors and other key colleagues (remembering that there is no substitute for in-person interaction) and stick to those plans.

In my research for my book “The Chief Development Officer: Beyond Fundraising,” I heard from dozens of CDOs and CEOs that the principal contributing factor to the CDO’s loss of a job or decision to leave an organization was weakness in the CEO-CDO relationship, including in many cases where fundraising and engagement results were strong.

In my career counseling work, I regularly observe that weakness in the CEO-Board Chair relationship is one of the main contributors to CEO dissatisfaction and stress, and to departures of CEOs, whether initiated by the CEOs or against their will.

Leaders who build and sustain excellent relationships with their most senior colleagues have powerful advocates and important support, especially during periods of challenge and change.

Building Effective and Complementary Teams

• Successful leaders don’t go it alone. They also don’t succeed by trying to be the smartest person in every room, or the best at every job. They understand their own strengths and weaknesses, and their organization’s greatest needs and opportunities, and they build leadership teams of direct reports who complement their abilities and who allow them—beginning within their first year—to make their highest and best contributions. 
• Effective CEOs and EDs support their team leaders in building relationships with the board chair and other key board leaders. 
• Having hired the right people, they inspire them, invest in them, and let them do their jobs. Rather than take credit for the success of their teams, they share credit freely, and they own responsibility for their own failures as well as those of their teams. They remove obstacles and do everything in their power to make their direct reports successful, knowing that without strength around their leadership table, their own success will be limited. 
• They hire carefully, and they remove negative people and poor performers without delay. 

In our search work, my ALG colleagues and I regularly find that C-suite leaders who were asked to step down were viewed as excellent practitioners in their respective areas (fundraising, marketing, finance, etc.) but were unable to build and sustain effective relationships with their peers and supervisors because they had to devote too much time to managing down, having failed to build strong teams of direct reports.

Leaders who quickly “set their leadership table” are better able to focus on their most important relationships and on strategies that drive growth and change.

Clarifying How Success Will Be Measured

• All C-suite positions in nonprofit organizations carry responsibilities that could keep an incumbent busy 24 hours per day 7 days per week. CEOs, EDs, COOs, CFOs, CDOs, and other C-suite officers—at least those who belong in the jobs they have—are in those jobs because they are experts in their area of responsibility and are capable of excellent work and effective management. But that does not necessarily mean that they know how their success will be measured. They can be successful in their own eyes, in the eyes of their staff members, or in the eyes of a wide variety of stakeholders without being successful in the eyes of the person or people who will determine whether they remain in their jobs and organizations. 
• Accordingly, it is essential to clarify, with written documentation, how success will be measured. Successful C-suite officers update this information regularly, so that they and their supervisors are always clear on priorities for their work and outcomes that are expected. They also know how their supervisor will be measured—so that they know how to help their supervisor succeed.
• It is difficult to measure effective leadership. Both supervisor and supervisee must develop a shared understanding of metrics beyond numbers, such as how cultural health will be measured, how engagement of the board will be measured, and how effectiveness of change management will be assessed. 

In every search we conduct for a senior leader, we and our clients recognize that their desired candidate is super-human. Their aspirations for the selected C-suite leader are always ambitious. The list of desired qualifications is long, and the list of responsibilities is longer. One of the most important aspects of our work is developing consensus, across the hiring committee, of what we call “Key Evaluation Criteria” – the “must-haves” among the many “nice-to-haves.”

Once a C-suite leader is in the job, they and their supervisors must similarly develop shared consensus on the “must-accomplish” items among the many “hope-to-accomplish” items. This clarification reduces confusion and stress and increases the likelihood of achievement and job satisfaction, not only for the C-suite executive, but also for everyone in the organization.

There are many demands on leaders in any organization. In nonprofit organizations, CEOs, Executive Directors, and Chief Development Officers work with every constituency of their organizations. Most other C-suite leaders interact with multiple constituencies. Relationships with all of them are important, but relationships with selected colleagues are paramount. Weakness in many relationships can be overcome, provided that these most important relationships are strong, receive regular care and attention, and include shared understanding of expectations for both parties and for the organization as a whole. 

Weakness develops when myriad other responsibilities distract from investment in these key relationships. Any nonprofit C-suite leader can fill their day and night with urgent meetings and emails. Weeks or even months can go by without sufficient focus on these top relationships, especially once these relationships become comfortable and perhaps even taken for granted.

In conclusion, successful nonprofit leaders prioritize building and sustaining key relationships, fostering strong and complementary leadership teams, and clearly defining success metrics. They own responsibility for “managing up” with respect to these considerations while taking responsibility for focusing on these considerations with those they supervise. In short, they keep these “can’t miss” considerations top of mind—when things are going smoothly as well as when challenges arise.

 

Contributing author:

Ron Schiller, Founding Partner and Senior Consultant, Aspen Leadership Group

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