Because one of the key characteristics of today's nonprofit leader is his or her ability to integrate ideas and models from across the nonprofit and for-profit sectors, this section features a rich mixture of blogs and posts, longer articles, video links, and books we think bring fresh perspectives to the discussion about nonprofit leadership for the 21st Century.
This NPR story, "Nelson Mandela and The Virtue of Compromise", reflects on the importance of pragmatism as a key leadership trait….and strategy.
One of the key understandings Joan and I learned in writing Leadership Matters is that there is a difference between leadership training and leadership development. In this post by Kevin Eikenberry, "If Developing Leaders is the Question, Training May Not Be the Answer," you'll find several doable ways to nurture your leadership skills that go way beyond sitting in a classroom.
They see the big picture. One of the most limiting factors for otherwise strong employees and managers is that they focus too narrowly on their own little sphere of responsibility. They never get the full picture of what their company's business is all about. As a result, they fail to see or create opportunities to take their careers to the next level.
They're driven to push the envelope. Whether you're actually made that way or somewhere along the line you developed the need to prove something to someone, some people are highly motivated — not just to achieve, but to overachieve. They live to push the envelope as far as they can.
Total Leadership: Be a Leader, Have a Richer Life. Stewart Friedman. Harvard Business Review Press. 2008.
Horizontal Thinking in a Vertical World (PowerPoint), a session by the Getty Leadership Institute's NexGen Class of 2011 presented at the American Alliance of Museum's 2013 annual meeting.