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Landscape for the New Leadership


Landscape, n. A view or vista of scenery on land.  v. To adorn or improve the land by contouring…  ––The American Heritage Dictionary
 
The word landscape has both an active and passive meaning and is an especially appropriate metaphor when viewing “the new leadership.”  The new leadership will require the ability to step back from the fray and observe the big picture –– the landscape in which not-for-profit organizations must operate –– as well as the ability to act to improve and reshape the contours of that landscape.
 
Imagine, for a moment, that not-for-profit organizations, whether social service, cultural, or educational, faced the following rather bleak landscape as they entered the 21st century:

  1. Declining federal, state, city and foundation funding
  2. Increasing scrutiny of the use and results achieved with public and philanthropic dollars
  3. Increasing needs and demands for services and programs
  4. Increasing costs to provide quality service and programs
  5. Ongoing, constant change as the only certainty for the foreseeable future
  6. Increasing criticism and demands for “accountability” and “measurable results”
  7. Increasing competition and duplication of services from multiple nonprofits
  8. Exciting, challenging opportunities to provide comprehensive, integrated services
  9. Conflicting voices and views about mission and direction of not-for-profits

Thriving requires providing effective, efficient services and programs that fulfill the organization's mission and goals through creative, innovative (even radical) thinking and action about the structure and delivery of programs and services.  The term “leader” has little to do with title or hierarchy, and thus leaders might be staff and publics, as well as policy makers and administrators.

What additional skills, tools, and processes would augment and enhance not-for-profit leaders' ability to accurately view and reshape the 21st century landscape described above?
 
A great deal of in-depth thinking about the answers to this question can be found in the writings and work of such experts as Ronald Heifetz and Roger Fisher.1   If, as Heifetz wrote, leaders will need to be able to juxtapose and hold in tension two or more outwardly conflicting ideas, and facilitate adaptive work, i.e., “the learning required to address conflicts in the values people hold or to diminish the gap between the values people stand for and the reality they face;” and if, as Fisher writes, leadership must be enabled at all levels of the organization, then one essential set of skills to augment and enhance are those involving conflict resolution, mediation, facilitation and consensus building.

Why are these skills so important?

  • In a landscape in which the only consistency organizations and staff can count on is ongoing, constant change, leaders must be able to anticipate and manage the inevitable conflicts that emerge whenever organizations cease to do “business as usual.”

  • In a landscape where the costs of, and needs for, services and programs are increasing while the necessary resources appear to be decreasing, leaders must be able to negotiate effectively for the resources they need.

  • In a landscape where the focus between competing organizations is on zero-sum thinking, i.e., more for you means less for me, and therefore I must guard my turf, leaders must be creative and innovative at expanding the pie of services and resources.  In an environment where there are conflicting views about the mission, goals and direction of the organization, leaders must be able to build and develop consensus.

  • In a landscape where innovative ways of structuring and delivering services and programs are key, leaders must be effective at negotiating joint ventures, partnerships, mergers and alliances with all kinds of organizations.

  • In a landscape where there is an increased demand for measurable results and accountability, leaders need a process which allows them to develop consensus internally and externally around questions like, “If we were successful as an organization, how would we know it?” and “What criteria should we use to measure success?”

  • In a landscape where there is increased scrutiny of the use and impact of public and philanthropic dollars, leaders need tools and processes to strategically communicate their challenges and accomplishments to their publics and create the kind of culture which focuses on results and client satisfaction, not bureaucratic convenience.

In order to take advantage of the exciting opportunities that the 21st century holds, leaders must help those they are leading create a climate in which risk-taking is rewarded and in which staff, boards, funders, and publics can adapt to create a culture that matches the new behaviors and structures required by innovation and change.
 
Negotiation, conflict resolution, consensus building, mediation and facilitation are by no means the only critical skills needed by not-for-profit leaders for the 21st century; however, they are a critical foundation without which all other skills are rendered less powerful and effective.

[1] Ronald Heifetz, Leadership Without Easy Answers.  Roger Fisher, Lateral Leadership.

Author: Irma Tyler-Wood
From Leading Ideas, newsletter of Trustee Leadership Development (TLD). Used with permission of TLD.

Irma Tyler-Wood is founder of Ki ThoughtBridge where she consults nationally and internationally with corporate, government and other public sector clients in resolving complex, high stakes disputes.

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