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A reader responded to this post: “is your nonprofit a family or a business?” with something I haven't been able to stop thinking about.
He said the job of a CEO is:
Vision: My service to the mission.
Resources: My service to the organization's health.
Team: My service to the individuals.
In that order. If the first two fail, the third is a moot point.
Some leaders get it backwards. They put team first, and in doing so, they end up with no team at all.
Think of a founder who keeps a loyal original staff member in a senior role even as the scope of senior leadership increases beyond that staff member’s current abilities. As the organization grows, that bottleneck creates missed deadlines. The talented new hires they brought in realize there is no room for growth or excellence, and they exit.
Or the Executive Director who keeps a failing program on life support, shielding the team from the hard reality of a lost grant or a shifting market. They quietly burn through the reserve fund. One morning, the cash hits zero, and the lights go out.
Where do you fall on this? When you think about how you spend your time and attention as a leader, which of these three comes first? Reply and tell me. I read every response.
What would make you most likely to forward this email?
