Lead Now!
Leadership Resources
Because one of the key characteristics of today’s nonprofit leader is his or her ability to integrate ideas and models from across the nonprofit and for-profit sectors, this section features a rich mixture of blogs and posts, longer articles, video links, and books we think bring fresh perspectives to the discussion about nonprofit leadership for the 21st Century.
BLOG POSTS
This NPR story, “Nelson Mandela and The Virtue of Compromise”, reflects on the importance of pragmatism as a key leadership trait….and strategy.
One of the key understandings Joan and I learned in writing Leadership Matters is that there is a difference between leadership training and leadership development. In this post by Kevin Eikenberry, “If Developing Leaders is the Question, Training May Not Be the Answer,” you’ll find several doable ways to nurture your leadership skills that go way beyond sitting in a classroom.
In his post “What it takes to be a rising star“, Steve Tobak isolates three critical leadership traits:
They see the big picture. One of the most limiting factors for otherwise strong employees and managers is that they focus too narrowly on their own little sphere of responsibility. They never get the full picture of what their company’s business is all about. As a result, they fail to see or create opportunities to take their careers to the next level.
They’re born problem-solvers. Most people see problems and obstacles. Some people see those same problems and obstacles but almost immediately begin to formulate ideas and solutions to overcome them. As Machiavelli put it, “… there is little difference between obstacle and opportunity….”
They’re driven to push the envelope. Whether you’re actually made that way or somewhere along the line you developed the need to prove something to someone, some people are highly motivated — not just to achieve, but to overachieve. They live to push the envelope as far as they can.
BOOKS
Learn like a Leader: Today’s Top Leaders Share Their Learning Journeys. Marshall Goldsmith, Beverly Kay, Ken Shelton, Eds. Boston: Nicholas Brealey Publishing. 2010
Total Leadership: Be a Leader, Have a Richer Life. Stewart Friedman. Harvard Business Review Press. 2008.
REPORTS AND WHITE PAPERS
Daring to Lead 2011 – “Thirty-two percent (32%) of executives in their first year on the job have less than one month of operating reserves; in other words, those on the steepest part of the learning curve often have the smallest margin for error.”
OTHER
Horizontal Thinking in a Vertical World (PowerPoint), a session by the Getty Leadership Institute’s NexGen Class of 2011 presented at the American Alliance of Museum’s 2013 annual meeting.
Leadership Matters 