OK, time to let your hair down.
Matt at Matt’s Fundraising Blog offers these five qualities he would like to see in the top exec of any nonprofit:
- The Director must be passionate about a vision and able to communicate that vision in a way that gets people excited.
- The Director should be a manager, but not a micro-manager. Micromanagement is a disease that will decimate a nonprofit.
- The Director should be someone who, when in doubt, says "yes."
- The Director should be someone who knows how to make decisions.
- The Director should love funders and fundraising.
These sound great to me. Matt elaborates a bit on each.
How would your Prez or ED stack up against these?
I’ve had three nonprofit bosses in my career. One absolutely excelled at #5. One at #3. And one at #1. And each of them was great at #4. So when it comes to bosses, I consider myself blessed.
Any qualities to add?
Tom
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Could you please elaborate on #3? When you’re in doubt and you say yes, it sounds like you’re making a decision without all the details or you’re not 100% in support of the idea that you are backing.
Thanks!
The Director should love working with volunteers and understand his/her relationship with a volunteer board.
Vietca,
I think he’s simply saying a leader needs to be comfortable taking risks personally, which includes giving subordinates the latitude to take risks. No risk-taking, no innovation, no breakthroughs. Which isn’t to say being foolhardy or not hedging one’s bets.
Tom
More qualities …
From Maxima Kahn:
6. The Director should be someone who is good at getting people to work together, collaborate.
7. The Director should be competent and efficient at getting things done.
And from Mona Forrest:
The Director should be someone who knows the roles/relationships between Board, ED, and Staff and be able to manage those.
Director must be able to motivate!
Director must have tolerance for ambiguity, and deep curiosity about how to make the nonprofit more efficient and effective with fundraising!
Awesome blog title! I landed here from Matt’s Fundraising Blog, and although I don’t have a ton to say regarding the question you pose at the end of your post, I often think of people I meet in terms of “would I hire them?” That perspective of analysis is extremely insightful. Sometimes you can’t put your finger on exactly what’s wrong with a person, but you know you wouldn’t want to hire them.