The Complete Leader (Doesn’t Exist)

The complete leader doesn’t exist.  If success depends on having the perfect person in charge, the likelihood of failure increases.

The right person, with all the requisite skills and experience, might be a perfect fit for the organization at that moment in history, addressing challenges specific to that time.  But change is inevitable, inevitably revealing weakness, and sometimes strength, that seemed unimportant before. 

Over time leaders can sharpen their skills at the helm, and organizations form around them in subtle ways to optimize their strengths.  Still, if ever the leadership fit was perfect, it is likely to become less comfortable over time. 

In the non-profit sector leaders are often uncredentialed, rising through long toil, hard earned experience, and strong interpersonal skills.  Professional development opportunities, common in large corporations, are rare for aspiring n-f-p executives and managers.  Remuneration is low relative to business and government, so candidates with the best formal qualifications tend to launch their careers elsewhere.  This heightens the risk of recruiting for, and reliance on, the leader who can do it all.

Volunteer board members are tempted to overstate leadership qualities when launching a hopeful new initiative or explaining a failed attempt.  It’s understandable.  There are limits to their volunteer time and energy, and they feel responsible for outcomes over which they have limited control.  They naturally want a chief executive who they can rely on to eliminate problems before they reach the board table.  It is equally tempting to blame the messenger when their one direct report brings them problems they’d rather avoid. 

Image taken from Unsplash

This isn’t always explicit.  If spoken at all, it’s usually in whispers around, not across, the board table.  No one wants to be seen undermining a typically overworked and underpaid n-f-p ED or GM.  There may not be anyone better to do the job, and leadership turnover can create problems of its own for beleaguered volunteer directors.  Nevertheless, there is a persistent belief that a plan might work if the right person leads it or that a plan cannot succeed if entrusted to a deficient leader. 

Non-profit executives and managers should be more open about their limitations when their organizations require skills and expertise they don’t possess.  And Boards, for whom the ED or GM may be their only direct report, could be surrounding their staff leaders with what they need for success rather than doubting their abilities and thinking about replacements.

A major capital project is a once-in-an-organizational-lifetime occurrence.  N-f-p’s can’t afford to keep specialized talent on salary in readiness for the moment when stars align and a big project is launched.   Some will have board members with useful experience to share, but tens of thousands of charities will be led by ED’s and GM’s with little or no understanding of what, in addition to existing job requirements, will be demanded by the capital project.

This too seems obvious, yet it’s common to see staff executives working in relative isolation trying to bear too much responsibility for the planning, design, management, administration, and financing of initiatives for which they lack sufficient energy and expertise.  When doubters or detractors imagine the executive or managerial talent they’d prefer in these circumstances, they may miss the unseen supports that helped these leadership all-stars succeed elsewhere.

I had a client Board discussing a leadership change as part of a new facility initiative, imagining that they could bring in someone who’d led a huge project in a different city.  This client’s project was about one tenth the size.  Their entire administrative and marketing staff was roughly the same size as this executive’s former development team, and her salary expectations would have been between a quarter and a fifth of the entire budget.  I had to point out that they lacked the resources necessary to support the desired executive at the level of performance they expected.  They were at an earlier stage of organizational growth, with different prospects and challenges than the flagship organization where the star candidate’s reputation was established. 

Although they were warned off that candidate, they hired an expensive search firm and recruited for the charismatic executive they believed would make up for all their resource constraints and talent deficits.  Not surprisingly they chewed through three new ED’s in rapid succession, incurring big severance, search firm, and relocation costs along the way, not to mention costly disruptions and reputational damages.

The better way is to reinforce operational leadership with temporary, project-relevant supports, compensating with specialized counsel (planning, design, fund raising, and project management) to keep the organization intact during the sometimes bumpy passage from its current state to its desired state.  Then those temporary supports can be removed, leaving behind a leader and supporting cast that’s gained from knowledge transfer from outside experts during the capital project period.

Of course, the eternal question in the n-f-p world is about how to pay for these extra costs.  The point is that they are not in any sense extra.  They are real and necessary requirements for the duration of a project that significantly exceeds the scope and scale of normal operations.  The people leading these projects need support and guidance, not unrealistic demands and doubts.  Therefore, the cost of their support should be rolled into the capital budget and treated like other soft costs (architecture and design, permits and approvals, etc.).

Prospective donors and funders may notice the incremental increase of the capital fund raising goal, but they’ll also appreciate knowing that the organization is braced for the additional stress on its leadership team throughout the capital project period.  Only in the n-f-p sector do we mistake frugality for wisdom in this way, assuming that a slightly lower fund-raising goal makes more sense than a realistic plan to help leadership excel at their day job while also overseeing a major capital project.