Finding your Leadership

Amanda Lavergne serves as the Office Coordinator at the Case Foundation and helps to oversee the operations of the organization. As a recent college graduate, Amanda is delving into the nonprofit sector for the first time & enjoys spending her time with family and friends as well as her pug, Rupert. You can find her on Twitter at @mandalavergne.

Recently I had the opportunity to listen in on a webinar hosted by Independent Sector as part of their 2012 NGen Leadership Series.This program was entitled “A Call to Leadership” and focused on the challenges leaders face in the nonprofit sector and how we can, as nonprofit practitioners differentiate what works and what does not. So we’re all on the same page here, the definition of leadership in the dictionary is a person who guides or directs a group; or the ability to lead; an act or instance of leading. But how does one use this skill? Obtain it? Mold it to move a group of people?

Moderated by Mikaela Seligman of Independent Sector, I learned that by the year 2016, 80,000 new managers would be needed in the nonprofit sector. How could this even be possible, I thought to myself? Why are people so quick to get out? Or is the sector growing so quickly that this need is created? There are numerous reasons it turns out, which include: long hours; feeling stifled in one’s career growth; and a lack of work and life balance.

With all of these factors working “against us” so to speak, how is one supposed to rise above to become a leader in this space? Also, how is an employer supposed to retain their employees in order to help grow them into future leaders?

Rafael Lopez, of the Annie E. Casey Foundation had some very sound advice to give:

• Establish and become a part of numerous networks – you never know where you may find a mentor or the talent you want for your organization.
• Attract talent into the sector – Lopez noted that in the past, many people committed to one job sector for their entire life, but with Millennials, they don’t fit that model anymore, they need to be able to change and grow.
• Develop talent – once you attract that talent to your sector, develop ways to retain it and help it grow.
• Deploy team members – help the talent you acquire the ability to deploy to other teams or departments within your company so they don’t get too bogged down with day-to-day activities.
• Assess, reward, and retain talent – invest in this person’s long term growth and their ability to become a leader.

Trish Tchume, of YNPN National built upon these points by adding that many meetings that senior staff conduct and attend, such as succession planning, looking at budgets, etc. keep the junior staff in the dark. Obviously, some of these are for confidentiality reasons, yet, for a lot of these meetings, junior staff should be given the opportunity to at least sit in, to see how the organization works, and experience what to do in a certain leadership role so that they can take note, whether they move into a leadership role at their current organization or somewhere else.

I wholeheartedly agreed with the points that both Lopez and Tchume made. I think that for someone in a leadership role it is imperative for them, when they have the time, to help mentor younger staff members, and allow them to see what it means to be a solid leader. However, as Monisha Kapila from ProInspire pointed out, many Millenials (myself included) struggle with recognizing the influence and leadership skills they already possess. Which, I stress again, as well as the speakers did, why it is so important to have a manager or mentor help a Millennial to own and grow with the leadership they have. Lopez chimed in with more advice aimed at Millenials:

• If there is an opportunity early in your career; go for it – most of the time if people step up a manager will welcome it and be impressed with your ambition.
• Don’t be afraid to have more informal networks – it doesn’t all have to be professionally related.
• There is a myth that you have to have someone older as a mentor, which is not true, look to have mentors that span across several different generations.
• Be sure to use the best of your resources wherever you are, not only on a professional level, but through volunteering as well.

Overall, if you look at the resources you already have around you and take the initiative to own and grow with the leadership skills you already have, there is not telling how far you will be able to go within your sector. And remember, as one speaker pointed out; at the toughest of times come the greatest opportunities.