As a non-profit leader, you want to make a positive impact on your cause, your team, and your community. But how do you know if your leadership style is effective and aligned with your mission and vision? In this article, we will explore some ways to evaluate your non-profit leadership style and identify areas for improvement.
The first step to evaluate your leadership style is to define it. What are your core values, beliefs, and principles as a leader? How do you communicate, motivate, and empower others? How do you handle challenges, conflicts, and feedback? There are many frameworks and tools that can help you identify your leadership style, such as the DISC assessment, the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, or the Leadership Practices Inventory. These can help you understand your strengths, weaknesses, preferences, and tendencies as a leader.
Although it has been many years since I have led in a not for profit environment many of the base concepts hold true with a public sector environment. Lead by example, be willing to put in the hard work of learning about and investing time in your staff. I personally don't find personality tests effective or important. It's the actions not the personality that count. They may help as you learn about your self and may provide you some warning signs as you progress but your gut, your fellow managers, and your leadership and staff should be providing feedback as well. Think about the job as a front line staff. How can it be improved, road blocks removed, streamlined, made safer, more effective, more efficient. Then ask for feedback.
I find that personality test are a great way to assess one’s intent to make them evolve because of the technique is genuine not type scripted also boost their self esteem most people need to thrive and show what they got and perform greater than the assessment truly unleashing their potential because of self evaluation and that eagerness to accomplish something great encouraging my people to build and focus on their strong points toss the weak point yet improve them as they go there is nothing they can’t do moving forward and keep total belief in them as they do themselves making the task at hand a priority until it isn’t.
The second step to evaluate your leadership style is to seek feedback from others. How do your staff, volunteers, board members, donors, and beneficiaries perceive your leadership? What are their expectations, needs, and concerns? How do they rate your performance, trust, and influence? You can use various methods to collect feedback, such as surveys, interviews, focus groups, or 360-degree reviews. These can help you gain insights into your impact, effectiveness, and areas for development as a leader.
In my experience I sought feed back and always insisted to my co workers “I’m an infant teach me your ways” also listening is a key to success in these type of rolls memorization is also great keeping a recorder close by comes in handy for things you can not remember from a meeting or talks of improvement keeping close watch because leading by example means you can follow
Face to face and one on one is typically the best. Be prepared for criticism, that's what your asking for. Be careful asking for feedback unless you are willing and able to make change, otherwise it comes off as disingenuous. Ask what issues need to be addressed rather than your performance directly if you can't handle the criticism.
Just seek for it. Hi friend ???? Feedback is not to keep us at the back, so, don't be afraid to seek it. Ask the people you work with, the people you work for and even your family members how they see your work, no matter how biased it seems, you will get ideas for action from all.
The third step to evaluate your leadership style is to compare it with best practices. What are the characteristics, skills, and behaviors of successful non-profit leaders in your field or sector? How do they align their leadership style with their organizational culture, strategy, and goals? How do they adapt to changing contexts, needs, and opportunities? You can use various sources to learn from best practices, such as books, articles, podcasts, webinars, or mentors. These can help you benchmark your leadership style and identify gaps or opportunities for improvement.
Benchmarking your self against an ideal can be very counterproductive. Instead look for ways your style can be modified to include, more feedback but also a swat model of decision making. Leadership by committee can be almost as toxic as micromanagement. The sweet spot is somewhere in the middle.
The fourth step to evaluate your leadership style is to reflect on your outcomes. What are the results and impacts of your leadership on your non-profit's mission, vision, and values? How do you measure and report your progress, achievements, and challenges? How do you celebrate your successes and learn from your failures? You can use various tools to reflect on your outcomes, such as logic models, balanced scorecards, or SWOT analyses. These can help you assess your leadership style and its contribution to your non-profit's performance and sustainability.
Reflecting on outcomes sounds easy but takes intentional effort as a leader because in the non-profit sector, there are always so many more tasks to accomplish than time or people to tackle them. Because of the service-oriented work in non-profits, I have seen leaders struggle to hit pause and take time to reflect on their work because it feels self-focused on unproductive. Taking this time is actually important for serving clients and the organization in the end because it allows you to get data on your impact, check in to see if you're meeting the needs you set out to meet, and evaluate your approach as you go. All leaders need time to reflect.
The fifth step to evaluate your leadership style is to plan your development. Based on your self-assessment, feedback, comparison, and reflection, what are your goals and priorities for enhancing your leadership style? What are the resources, support, and opportunities available to you? How will you monitor and evaluate your progress and impact? You can use various frameworks to plan your development, such as SMART goals, action plans, or personal development plans. These can help you create a roadmap for improving your leadership style and achieving your desired outcomes.
Leadership is an ongoing journey, and there is always room for improvement. Compare your leadership style and organization's performance with other successful non-profits in your field. Learn from their best practices and adapt strategies that align with your mission.
A mentor is an excellent tool here. These are wonderful ideas but we all have busy lives and many demands. Having a good supervisor or better yet an experienced person outside our chain of command that can see our performance without being responsible for it that can give us tips and corrective taps to come back to the plan.
The sixth and final step to evaluate your leadership style is to implement and review. How will you put your development plan into action and practice your new or improved leadership skills and behaviors? How will you communicate, collaborate, and engage with others in the process? How will you track and measure your results and impacts? How will you review and adjust your plan based on your feedback and learning? You can use various techniques to implement and review your development plan, such as coaching, mentoring, peer learning, or journaling. These can help you sustain and enhance your leadership style and its effectiveness for your non-profit.
Regularly review and assess the overall impact and effectiveness of your non-profit organization. This includes financial health, program outcomes, stakeholder satisfaction, and community engagement.
Evaluate how well you communicate with your team and stakeholders. Are you transparent about the organization's goals, challenges, and decisions? Effective leaders in non-profits often excel in transparent communication.