Leaders Make The Tough Calls
A well known leadership expert once said, “we cannot become what we want by remaining what we are.”
As a nonprofit leader, you face very difficult decisions every day - and for many of us when facing the toughest of decisions, we’re quick to consider just about every other option available to us, other than the option that deep down, we know is the right choice… because the right choice is often the toughest choice with the most discomfort or risk connected to it.
It might be a pet program that really isn’t making the difference anymore that it once did, or outdated policies, or even a team member or volunteer that is well-loved by all, but clearly underperforming. All issues that need a strong leader to make the uncomfortable but necessary decision.
Instead of facing these situations head-on, we typically:
Take the path of least resistance: “It’s too much work to change this, or it will take too many difficult conversations.”
Ignore it: “Nobody has complained about it lately, so it might not be a problem anymore…” (not!)
Turn it into a false win: “Well, even though we lost a truckload of donor dollars on that event, we’re planting seeds, or ministry is happening, so…”
We turn a blind eye to the reality that your nonprofit isn’t running as smoothly as it should be, that staff morale is affected, and donors might be moving their giving elsewhere because we refuse to make the necessary, tough calls.
Here are 3 simple steps to help you over the hurdle of doing the “right thing”, even though it’s going to be temporarily painful.
Name It: Write down, in detail, just one of the hurdles that you are facing that you know needs to change for your nonprofit to grow, but that you have been avoiding. Write out all the reasons your organization will be in a better place after this change is made.
Acknowledge the Awkward Truth: Write down why you’ve been avoiding it. What are you afraid is going to happen? Who are you worried about upsetting? A lot of times, when we go through the act of committing all of this to paper, you quickly realize how lop-sided your thinking has been - the list of benefits to making a change is usually a LOT longer than the list of reasons that you’ve been avoiding the change, but those things just felt a lot bigger and scarier in your mind.
Commit to Action: Outline the steps you need to take to address this, and resolve it so that it’s never an issue again. Then, just do the first step - schedule the 1:1 with that team member, write the first draft of a new policy, brainstorm some ideas for a new initiative to replace the old, ineffective one.
Truth be told, we’ve all got a list of “changes” that we know need to be made, but on a Monday morning, that list can look really overwhelming. Taking just one step to making one change can be all that you need to begin to make your nonprofit all that it is supposed to be.