How can we turn our successful business board members into nonprofit leaders?
We must recognize:
• People bring their business and life experiences to a new culture (nonprofit) where everyone is participating on a voluntary basis. While most volunteers are very committed to the agency’s cause, people are busy with work and their personal life and often put their volunteer commitments at the bottom of the ‘to do’ list once they leave a meeting.
• In most other environments, direction can be arbitrary and usually comes from the top-down. In the nonprofit governance structure, while there is a structure of chairmen, there are no tangible rewards and punishments for not fulfilling commitments that comes with a ‘top-down’ management style. Volunteers won’t stand for it.
• Most people are reluctant to “take control” in this equalitarian environment, therefore discussions can go on endlessly and good intentions often go unfulfilled.
• Volunteers are very reluctant to confront, reprimand or fire another volunteer, an action that they might take at their job. Therefore incompetence or neglect has little consequence, except to the others in the group.
Therefore we have to examine a different leadership style that relies more on a “bottom-up” rather than a “top-down” decision making structure. This has been called Facilitative Leadership
FACILITATIVE LEADERSHIP
Facilitative Leadership is “a leadership style that encourages the making of decisions through which a group strives to reach substantial, though not necessarily unanimous, agreement on matters of overall direction and policy which can be supported by all.” In this way, decisions that are made can be owned by the group rather than by the leader, and everyone should have a vested interest in making sure they succeed.
• Facilitative leaders make connections (or help others make connections) between what various people in a meeting are saying so as to draw out conclusions that can become the basis for consensus decision making.
• Facilitative leaders provide direction without totally taking the reins. The facilitative leader always tries to tie the decision-making process to the required action, and seeks to tie the action to those people who were most invested in the decision. Facilitative leaders more often ask rather than tell groups what they need to be doing and help them move forward rather than control their movement.
• Facilitative leaders balance managing content and process. Individuals using a facilitative approach are concerned with both what the group is discussing or deciding and how they are actually doing it. This may require the leader involve those who are silent and quiet those who are dominating.
• Facilitative leaders may raise questions or concerns that are not being addressed by the group. For example, “how are we going to pay for it?”, or “whose going to do it?” or “what will be the unintended consequences?”
• Facilitative leaders focus on building the capacity of individuals and groups to accomplish more on their own, now and in the future. Facilitative leadership is not just about the immediate task. It is also about helping a group or team learn together so they might become more productive in the future….. This long-term definition of success helps keep facilitative leaders from assuming too much responsibility for a group.
• Facilitative leaders operate from a position of restraint. Because facilitative leaders want to maximize others’ contributions, they tend to operate first from a position of restraint, carefully measuring what, if any, action they need to take. The facilitative leader refrains from using the chair to dominate discussions or impose his/her opinion.
The most effective tools of a facilitative leader are:
1. Providing the context or background for discussion
2. Asking questions
3. Summarizing and taking discussion to a new level or focus
4. Checking back with the group to make certain that the summary captures the essence of what was said.
5. Constantly encouraging and thanking people for their input
(Adapted From The Practice of Facilitative Leadership by George Ambler)
Facilitative leadership skills are effective in any environment. Companies often want their officers to work on nonprofit boards so they can develop the ability to use persuasion and collective ownership of decisions. They recognize that even in a profit incentive business, people work harder when they believe in the mission and feel they have been part of the decision-making process.
So let’s help them learn!
Tags: Barrie, board members