I had a familiar conversation with a colleague the other day, during which he, the manager of a large cadre of fundraising professionals at a major university, expressed his frustration with staff turn-over. We agreed on two major culprits in this decades-old quandary – poor on-boarding and training of new frontline fundraisers, and poor training of those selected to manage them.
The key word in the above paragraph is “familiar.” I have had this conversation with LOTS of colleagues over the three decades I have spent as a fundraising professional. How little has changed during all that time.
I have written extensively about on-boarding and basic training; it’s what I do through my training and coaching programs with The Shephard Group.
Today I want to address what my friend and I discussed – leadership. It’s notable that we’re both military veterans and have a distinctive perspective on leadership and management. What I learned as a young U. S. Army officer is that you manage things and you lead people.
Well, that’s obvious. So obvious it bears stating. In fact, I encourage you to back up and read it again.
So let’s talk about leading people. I see four key steps to effective leadership. The first happens to be a management step.
1. Set standards and performance benchmarks. Articulate what success looks like and create a way to measure it. Otherwise, how can you know if your followers are going where you want to lead them. Whether you use a traditional Moves Management model or one of the several effective performance benchmarks models making the rounds, make your decision.
2. Lead by example. Model the standards you choose; prove they’re attainable and show your followers how to do it. Otherwise, you have zero credibility. “Do as I say, not as I do” is a lousy leadership model.
3. Train and coach those you lead. I like the way Vidal Sassoon put it in a famous TV commercial for his hair products. “If you don’t look good, we don’t look good.” A good leader should be immensely proud of the success of those for whom he or she is responsible. It reflects on that leader as a good judge of talent and as an effective motivator.
4. Empower your people. Once you articulate performance standards, once you show they can be reached, once you prepare those you lead to succeed, give them ownership of their choices. By all means, hold them accountable for those choices, but get out of their way. Coach when you need to. Counsel only when you have to.