5 questions to help you be a better nonprofit thinker and leader
As a nonprofit leader, you do a lot of thinking. However, are you doing the right kinds of thinking at the right times?
- Are you good at critical thinking?
- How about strategic thinking?
- What about big picture thinking?
These pieces go together, but as Natalie discovered during our coaching call, they needed special attention.
Executive Director Natalie’s Challenge
Natalie was dealing with a problem employee that we’ll name Sonya. Regularly, Natalie gets triggered by Sonya’s behaviour.
Natalie is a very self-aware leader. In a recent meeting with Sonya, Natalie knew she’d been triggered. Working on being mindful, Natalie did some deep breathing and managed her thoughts.
Natalie started with critical thinking.
Natalie then put to work her critical thinking skills. First, Natalie analyzed what was going on in her body. She noticed the tightening in her chest and the warmth washing over her. She knew she wanted to shut down but talked herself into staying engaged. Then Natalie tuned into Sonya’s body posture, non-verbal and tone.
Natalie’s self-awareness helped her be an effective leader.
Natalie and Sonya got through that conversation more positively than negatively. This outcome is likely due much to Natalie’s work on becoming very self-aware, thinking and acting at the moment.
When Natalie came to the coaching call, she wanted to dive into strategic thinking. Natalie wanted to create a plan to deal with Sonya’s behaviour, their relationship, and Sonya’s relationships with others on the team.
Natalie’s Journey
Last year Natalie decided to invest in going through the Leadership Circle Profile 360. Which is the assessment I’ve been covering in the recent podcasts. Getting the feedback from her team, peers and board helped Natalie see what she needed to focus on this year. As a result, Natalie set a goal to be more courageous in conversations, speaking her truth more often.
To help her gain this confidence, she went through lessons in The Training Library, including Decisive Decision Making and Quick Journaling for Effective Leadership. She created the habit of journaling to look at her triggers and how she could manage them more effectively.
The combination of feedback from the 360, coaching, learning via The Training Library, and the self-reflective work is paying off for Natalie! It helped her have the conversation with Sonya this week, maintain her composure, and say what needed to be said.
It was time for Natalie to think big picture.
But you can’t create a plan with your head down. And before you strategize and make the plan, you need to look around you. So it was at this point, big picture thinking came in for Natalie.
Big picture thinking sees how all the parts fit together now and in the future. Through coaching, Natalie began to look at all of the moving parts. The rest of the team. The board. Sonya’s whole life experience.
A lot was going on for Sonya, Natalie and the team.
Not only did Natalie acknowledge that trust had been lost between her and Sonya. Natalie confirmed trust had also been eroding between Sonya and the team. Additionally, the board had also questioned Natalie’s competence. Moreover, Sonya has been going through some significant personal changes. Oh, and we are still in the middle of a worldwide pandemic.
It was time for Natalie to think strategically.
Much like looking at all of the items hanging from a baby’s mobile, Natalie began to see how each one impacted the others when moved, altered or shifted. Slowing down to see this bigger picture, Natalie was better able to think more strategically once again.
Natalie’s Strategy
Natalie could not just “deal with” Sonya. Natalie needed to look at the work team and then organizational culture. Her strategy now includes:
- continuing to manage her triggers and composure when dealing with Sonya (emotional intelligence)
- rebuilding individual trust with Sonya (social intelligence)
- rebuilding team trust (team culture)
- continue to hold Sonya accountable for her behaviour and impact (employee supervision)
- create a performance improvement plan with Sonya (employee development)
- support Sonya with external resources (compassion, kindness and empathy)
Here is why you need to think differently, too
Like many nonprofit leaders, Natalie spends a lot of time dealing with day-to-day issues. We have our heads down, putting up fires and coping with the crisis that seems to be neverending. But as big picture thinkers, we lift our heads and see how all of those pieces fit together. It helps us be more strategic and visionary and changes our perspective when dealing with today’s challenges.
The types of thinking leaders need to do:
Critical thinking is diving down deep, examining all the parts, and analyzing them.
Big picture thinking sees how all the parts fit together now and in the future.
Strategic thinking creates a strategy or a plan to deal with something or achieve your goal.
5 Questions you can ask to help you be a big picture thinker
To help you think big picture with your challenge, try answering the following questions:
- What are all of the parts of this challenge?
- Who are all the players involved in this challenge?
- How do these parts and players impact each other?
- How do these parts and players fit together?
- What’s going on between these parts and players, or not going on that needs to be?
Big picture thinking how to look at the larger perspective to find root causes leverage strengths and improve overall effectiveness for both your organization as well as the larger community you serve
In this week’s podcast, I dive deeper into The Leadership Circle competency of systems awareness. This competency includes the kinds of thinking from above. You can learn more about how your thinking impacts your leadership here.
If you want to be an effective leader, you will want to strengthen this competency to lift your head and deal with the more significant issues, just like Natalie did. And, if you’re going to be like Natalie, growing your self-awareness and leadership skills by engaging in your growth, join Natalie in The Training Library.
Originally published at https://www.kathyarcher.com.
