Why smart nonprofit leaders don’t have all the answers

I had lunch the other day with someone I’ve worked with for many years and admire greatly. In the five or six years we’ve known each other, their leadership transformed a stuck-in-the-mud nonprofit into one that has tripled in size, attracted and leveraged the skills of hundreds of volunteers from every rainbow shade imaginable, and scored victories on multiple fronts.

So, you can imagine how surprised I was to hear that this leader, who I truly love, was struggling with how to lead senior staff.  

The problem wasn't a lack of talent or commitment. It was the exhausting belief that a leader should have the answer to every question, solve every crisis, approve every decision, and somehow remain available 24 hours a day. Vacations became theoretical concepts. Sick days felt irresponsible. There was a real fear that the board was expecting the CEO to do it all and do it right.

I know this temptation well. Early in my career I occasionally behaved as if the nonprofit would descend into chaos without my constant supervision. Strangely, every time I left the office, people continued to have meetings, make decisions, and occasionally even get things right.

As we talked, I was reminded of an article I wrote years ago called Managing Through Mentoring. The basic premise was simple: organizations are stronger when decision-making is shared. People become more invested when their ideas are sought out, listened to, and acted upon.

The article outlined a collaborative management approach that works with staff (and board committees) to:

• Identify strategic priorities. In an age where every day feels like a fire drill in nonprofit land, determining which projects to tackle in what order is no easy task. Working together to sift through the pros and cons of what to prioritize ensures that everyone agrees on where you need to head first (second, and third).
  

• Determine the steps to advance that work. Once you’ve settled on the priorities, the next step is developing a clear roadmap for how to get there. This includes agreeing on who needs to do what by when. 
  

• Check-in regularly on how it’s all going. If things are stalled, why? Sure, sometimes accountability is the problem but usually it’s a genuine roadblock. Use the wisdom of the group to brainstorm one or more alternative paths.
  

• Admit when things aren’t working. If everyone has a part in setting priorities, charting a course of action, and understanding exactly how and who is responsible for implementing the project, then no one has to be solely responsible if things go sideways. Instead, the group can collectively decide how to course correct.

The goal of leadership isn't to become the organization's smartest, busiest, or most indispensable person. It's to build a team that can think, act, and lead alongside you. That's not giving up control. That's creating capacity.

Remarkably, the organization may even survive a long weekend without you.

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Pat Libby is a change management consultant working principally with nonprofit corporations. She is author of The Empowered Citizens Guide: 10 Steps to Passing a Law that Matters to You, Oxford University Press, The Lobbying Strategy Handbook, second edition, Oxford University Press, and Cases in Nonprofit Management, Second Edition, Cognella. She has served as an academic, senior executive, board member, and consultant to innumerable nonprofit organizations and foundations for more than three decades.

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