The benefits and risks of teams working remotely Over the past few years, beliefs about how, where, and when work is performed have shifted, and emplo...
Charities are at the heart of social ecosystems and play a vital role in building and sustaining flourishing communities. Yet, charities face several ...
Articles about leadership in non-profit organisations.
Leadership
Uncovering Your Purpose as a Leader
When change is omnipresent, your leadership effectiveness is amplified, which is why it helps to have an acute understanding of your purpose as a leader. How do we define this type of ‘purpose’ and why is it so important? How can you uncover it and create a plan of action? We’ll look at several types of ‘purpose’ before honing in on what is meant by your ‘purpose as a leader’ and then I’ll outline how to uncover yours.
Phil Preston
Finding Collective Leadership Success
People join boards for various reasons and bring their personalised interpretation of leadership styles based on compounding individualised influences and knowledge of organisational governance on specific operational and strategic components that accumulate followers from either fear, admiration, or financial goals. Research findings have proven continuously through analytical assessments that many organisations need to incorporate the findings of historical board failures and academic research into their board’s selection tools and guides when developing and building their boards, committees, and advisory groups.
William Newall
Engaging Remote Teams: Key Skills for Leaders
The benefits and risks of teams working remotely Over the past few years, beliefs about how, where, and when work is performed have shifted, and employee expectations and needs have changed. Technology now often allows us the ability to get the same job done, no matter where we are. This means remote work options are not only viable, but sometimes preferred. As a result, many employees now conduct a lot of their work remotely (physically apart) and this has led to more work being conducted virtually (communicating, collaborating, and interacting in a virtual space).
Ruth Knight
How Do Australians View the Leadership and Governance of the Charity Sector
Charities are at the heart of social ecosystems and play a vital role in building and sustaining flourishing communities. Yet, charities face several interlocking challenges that have only become more complex in a post-pandemic environment. In this context, charities are grappling with increased demand for services, financial sustainability, increasing job complexity, a declining volunteer workforce and the need to re-establish relationships with donors, all in the context of sustained impacts on the mental health, well-being and resilience of charity employees and leaders.
Dr Samuel Wilson, Carmel Molloy
Integrated Leadership – Solving complex problems with the power of many
How to solve complex problems with integrated leadership teams that harness the power of many. The world is an increasingly complex place to navigate, especially in the stakeholder heavy NFP space. But that is your job. Our leaders are busier than they have ever been. The problems they face require people with diverse skill sets and perspectives to work together to solve. Talent alone is not enough. There is a lot of noise (especially in the NFP sector) about ‘diversity’.
Nigel Donovan
What Are Your Leadership Anchors?
Many people are talking about the Volatile, Uncertain, Complex and Ambiguous (VUCA) world we are living in right now. The pandemic, natural disasters, financial and funding insecurities over the past few years are just a few factors destabilising many people and organisations. The consequences include significant levels of poor mental health, constant change and overwhelm. Unfortunately stress and overwhelm kills creativity and innovation, which is exactly what we need to counter the effects of a VUCA environment.
What Is It About the Role of the Chair?
Once upon a time there was a board member who was passionate and diligent but inexperienced and naïve who was asked to take on the role of Chair of the Board. “I’m really flattered. I don’t really know what I have to do other than chair some meetings, so how hard can it be?” they thought to themselves. A fairy tale it might appear to be, but this was me. Twenty years on, I reflect on my transition from well meaning board member with little experience to having held the role of chair on a few occasions in my career.
Jane Boag
Which Comes First – the Purpose or the Behaviour?
The theme of the Better Boards Conference for 2020 was ‘passionate directors – purposeful boards’. The conference website neatly defined a ‘purposeful board’ as one that is “united, collegial, focused and disciplined, led by a chair who not only facilitates discussions and decisions, but is guided by strategy, KPI’s and timeframes.” One might gauge from this definition that contrastingly, a board that lacks purpose is therefore divided, argumentative, disinterested and irrational.
Brenton Cox
Lessons Learned from a Listening Leader
“Um, Jeremy, there’s an issue with the data in the Board paper.” So it began. I’d been in the role but days as the new CEO, taking over a team who were finalising a major meeting with our Board, including a significant financial decision that had to be made.** The words from one of my team stopped me in my tracks. Somehow, the data on which we were framing the paper was wrong.
Jeremy Irvine
The Discipline in Developing a Winning Culture
Culture is the buzzword of current day governance. A panacea for underperformance, inefficiency and conduct risk. Boards and executives are tasked with developing the right culture in their organisation. But we need to talk about what this means in practice for directors. There is increasing expectation that directors will get out and ‘kick the tyres’ to develop greater understanding of their organisation and its culture, empowering more active and meaningful leadership ‘from the top’ by boards.
Beth McConnell