Part 3 Values Building at the Top - Questions for Existing & Emerging Leadership
Excellence starts from within. Intention and words will only take leaders, teams, and organization so far. Leaders and organizations need values to establish consistent meaningful action. While ethics tells us what not to do, values (or operating principles) give us and our whole organization direction, commitment, and decision-making prowess. It’s time to up the ante on “good” leadership.
Table of Contents
1. Overview
2. Questions for the Board (or Advisory Committees)
3. Questions for the Executive Director
4. Questions for New Executive Staff (Including Human Resources)
5. Resources to Fill Your Toolbox
Key Takeaways
Clear, relevant, and accurate values at the board level can close the gap between what you say you do, what you actually do, and what others think you do.
The executive is instrumental to ensuring the values of the organization are operationalized so that the organization does what it says it will do and how it says it will do it.
New leadership should be recruited, supported, and regularly engaged around the equitable principles and values they hold to establish shared principles in aid of collective objectives.
Overview
We have been exploring how individual and organizational values can function as operating principles. Specifically, we have come to understand values as the means of demonstrating active compassion in a way that compels meaningful action from a space of shared principles. Values are also tools that create standards of operation and allow for consistent, aligned, and independent decision making across the organization.
Let’s now consider how values-based leading can begin at the top. Today we discuss key questions for emerging and existing leadership. These questions should encourage leaders to bring their values to work and confidently practice leading with their values to build organizational will for meaningful action from a values-based perspective.
Questions for the Board and Advisory Committees
The board and its (or the organization’s) advisory committees play crucial leadership roles. It is in the spaces where these participants work that the organization receives direction, strategy, and the allocation of resources needed to meet its mission on a daily basis. These leaders are fundamental to the organization’s overall ability to steer the organization and the community to a world that matches their collective vision. What better way is there to determine that vision and deploy resources to execute the vision, than through a clear understanding of the values the organization holds?
The following are questions for consideration that reflect opportunities for the board to take action to integrate a values-based perspective into their leadership roles and responsibilities.
1. Does the organization’s mission, vision, and most recent organizational plan clearly identify and center the currently stated values of the organization?
It is of the utmost importance that any values held by the organization are reflected in its most visible language and communications about itself. If your mission or vision do not reflect your organization’s collective values, it is time for a refresh! Be sure to use this as an opportunity to also gauge the relevance and accuracy of the values held by the organization and the board or committees. Does this align with what you say you do, what you actually do, and what your stakeholders understand you do? Clear, relevant, and accurate values can bridge any gaps.
The organization’s most recent strategic or operational plan should also reflect organizational values. This is where the rubber meets the road! The plan of action tells not only what the organization will do or accomplish but also how it will be done. This is the work of values-based leadership and decision-making. It allows us to design our present and future behavior to demonstrate active compassion in a way that compels meaningful action from a space of shared principles. Tailor your plans to help you live your values.
2. Which organizational values are also held by board or advisory committee members?
This question requires understanding member values. This is important not just for socializing or establishing a “culture” but for ensuring your organization has the leadership it needs. Some people may appreciate certain board values more as they perhaps hold them as their own personal values. This could mean they have practice using those values and will be instrumental in identifying when those values are missing or how to include them in decisions and operations. This is an excellent way to ensure your board and committee recruitment efforts do not get stale or lead to homogenous or ineffective membership.
Questions for the Executive Director
This key player is the brain of the organization, making all things go. Their role is to operationalize the vision and mission of the organization. They are ultimately responsible for ensuring the values the organization holds show up in the daily operations used to accomplish the mission. Getting clarity, buy-in, and support of values needed to execute the mission in alignment with the vision begins here.
These questions encourage the executive to consider how they can truly operationalize the organization’s values, so everyone is empowered to act intentionally and independently within their scope. It doesn’t hurt that these will also help the executive identify key steps that can improve strategic action towards organizational goals and ensure the organization does what it says it will do and how it says it will do it.
1. Is all staff clear on the organization’s current goals (think 1, 3, and 5 years), including their specific priorities and targets to help accomplish those goals?
Goal setting should infiltrate all operations and everyone should know not only what their work is but why it matters to the end result. Funnel these questions down from organizational, departmental, and team roles and responsibilities all the way through individual roles and responsibilities. This provides clarity, and coordination, which will all aid in getting you to your goal. Take it one step at a time and use it as an opportunity for transparency and revival (with or without the trust falls).
2. Does your data confirm you are operating according to your values?
This is not necessarily a full-blown equity (or values!) assessment and it is also not necessarily a purely quantitative evaluation. Instead, this requires knowing what questions to ask of your data to understand how your existing values or lack thereof have impacted your operations and results. This begins with an examination of what will help you serve or engage with staff, clients, donors, stakeholders, audiences, and deliver programs and outcomes aligned to your values. Then you should examine what your data shows you are doing or prioritizing.
Review your communications, client policies, stakeholder feedback, management systems, and other tracking and information sources. Does this information match with who and what your values say you should be serving, engaging, and doing? If not, thank the data, then consider how to recalibrate your activities or reconcile your values.
Questions for New Executive Staff & Human Resources
New leadership should be encouraged to bring their values to work and integrate the organization’s values into their roles, responsibilities, and their sphere of influence. This is an ideal opportunity to consider how recruitment, retention, training, and leadership can be built to suit the values of the organization, instead of to generic or outdated standard operating procedures.
These questions will help you consider how to season leadership with the values and missional integrity that will give them confidence to operate independently but in line with larger organizational values.
1. What principles of equity are most important for how you work, where you work, and what work you seek to do?
If you don’t know, ask. This is not the “how do you prefer to work” question, although it can answer it. This is about understanding in what ways these people are motivated to take meaningful compassionate action. Specifically, this is what drives their present and future behavior for participation, problem solving, and effectiveness. Ideally, this is the kind of question that will be posed in the job description, asked in the interview, and reviewed at least annually (not for improvement, necessarily, but for transparency and alignment to the goals, mission, role, and opportunities available).
This question requires existing management and staff to appreciate equitable principles of access, inclusion, balance of power, transparency, and integrity. If they do, then they can ensure that the values incoming leadership has are leveraged to support and balance the leadership values of the entire organization. Discussing organizational goals and values regularly, will keep these values top of mind and relevant, which establishes shared principles toward collective objectives.
2. Do our internal policies and procedures reflect our staff and our reality?
An annual review of internal policies and procedures, like human resource manuals, is a necessity. Make time for it if you value your human capital. Ask what these policies are actually for and how they are impacting all levels of staff. Aim to understand if they meet your needs and operate as intended. Perhaps this is an anonymous survey of what policies and procedures the organization should assess, change, or consider. Do these rules for how you treat staff, clients, contractors, and the planet reflect what you value about them or wish to see in the world? If not, consider your options and make the change.
What’s Next
Engage
Who else on your team or in your organization or system needs to know values-based action is possible? It may be time to drop some nuggets into the next conversation.
Your leadership will have values. Those values, once known, will be beneficial to the organization and to ensuring the organization’s values are in operation. Talk about it. Often.
Test
Ask the questions! How can your organization shore up the way leadership reflects and operates from a values-basis?
Where are you at? Is it time to establish (or reestablish) values, infuse values, or check values? Start where you are. It is a cycle, not a game board. Find your space and keep it moving.
Stay Tuned
Watch this space for more information on values-based strategies and updates to this content.
Resources to Fill Your Toolbox
1. On board leadership: Joan Garry’s “The 6 Attributes of a Highly Effective Board Chair”, available here.
2. On, among other things, shared principles and values intersections for better leadership and equity in governance: Nonprofit Quarterly article by Elizabeth A. Castillo, “Why Are We Still Struggling with Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in Nonprofit Governance?”, available here.
3. On coping with conflict produced by social transformation using, among other things, your values: Nonprofit Quarterly article by Ingrid Benedict, Weyam Ghadbian, and Jovida Ross, “Into the Fire: Lessons from Movement Conflicts,” available here.
4. Yes, there is research on the impacts of values-based leadership on organizational outcomes: Macy, Granger. Outcomes of Values and Participation in ‘Values-Expressive’ Nonprofit Agencies, 2006, https://doi.org/10.21818/jbam. Also available here.
This post is part of the “Values-Based Leadership” series. To catch up, click here.
If you are eager to explore values mapping or planning for your organization, including board and leadership development, please reach out. From decision-making frameworks to policy updates to goal setting or board restructuring, I’ve seen it and done it. Let me know how I can help you achieve your values-oriented goals. If you would just like to chat or partner, I’m here for that too!
Kommentare