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Reviving the Nonprofit Leader: A Q&A with Transformational Leadership Strategist Hugh Ballou

Reviving the Nonprofit Leader: A Q&A with Transformational Leadership Strategist Hugh Ballou

Last updated on: September 18, 2016 at 5:36 pm by Deborah Arca

Reviving the Nonprofit Leader: A Q&A with Transformational Leadership Strategist Hugh Ballou 2016-09-18T17:36:53+00:00 Deborah Arca

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Transformational Leadership Strategist Hugh Ballou

“The nonprofit world has become complacent, static, timid, risk-averse, and minimalistic. We have inherited systems that compromise success. We have been taught leadership wrong.”— Hugh Ballou

This week, Patheos launches an exciting new blog for nonprofit leaders called The Nonprofit Entrepreneur. Blog author Hugh Ballou is a transformational leadership strategist and corporate culture architect and has worked for 30+ years with visionary CEOs, pastors, and nonprofit leaders and their teams to develop a purpose-driven high performance collaboration culture. Learn more about Hugh’s background, which includes 40+ years as a church music director, here.

I caught up with Hugh this week of his blog launch to find out more about his vision for nonprofit leadership and what we might expect from his new Patheos blog.

Hi Hugh! Let’s just cut right to the chase — you think the way many nonprofits and churches are leading is terribly ineffective, outdated, and just plain “dumb.” What is the general problem with our leadership? What are church and nonprofit leaders getting wrong?

According to The Nonprofit Times, more than 45 percent of young nonprofit professionals surveyed recently predicted their next job would not be at a charity. The respondents cited burnout and low pay as the main reasons they would leave.

In 2013, the Meyer Foundation surveyed nearly 100 executive directors of nonprofit organizations to learn how it could best support them. Executive directors reported a range of challenges affecting their effectiveness; some of the most commonly cited were fundraising, personnel management, and working with boards of directors. The survey also showed that most executive directors saw strong links between leadership development opportunities, organizational effectiveness, and personal well-being.

We get minimal work from our stakeholders and less than adequate donations because we, as leaders, set up a negative dynamic beginning with the interpretation of the title “Nonprofit” we use to describe our organizations. We set up scarcity thinking that result in low performance and minimal results. I constantly find nonprofit executive directors and pastors complaining about low functioning boards, committees and a lack of volunteers and in the conversation I understand that it’s a situation that the leader sets up and actually makes worse over time. We have been taught leadership wrong and we have inherited systems that no longer, if ever, function.

You suggest a new paradigm for leadership. Tell us a bit what that looks like.

I’m a champion for Transformational Leadership, which is a specific style of leadership, which supports leadership as a system and as a culture. I reframe this powerful style of leadership into a musical model – the musical conductor teaches leadership. A good example of a high functioning culture is a musical ensemble such as a choir or an orchestra. The leader is not the dictator. The leader is the influencer and the enabler. Many leaders over function in their role and responsibility, which sets up a paradigm of an under functioning culture. I assist leaders in understanding the consequences of their actions and to rethink how to build a culture of excellence.

Many times, more ofter than not, organizations don’t even have a strategic plan. Participants don’t know what to do or when to do it without a plan. This would be like me trying to conduct an orchestra without a musical score and parts. The biggest gap in nonprofit leadership is in not engaging the stakeholders in the implantation of the plan. In my world, the engagement begins with the planning process. The planners and the doers must be the same. The integration of strategy and performance begins with the planning process itself. Through this process, we develop what I have termed a New Architecture of Engagement TM.

What is your background and how does your experience make you qualified to teach about more effective leadership?

My 40+ years in “middle management” as church music director, my study for coaching, my facilitation training, and my 30+ years of leading planning sessions and working with leaders on leadership development and organizational development give me the experience and knowledge to know how to help people who are, “in the trenches.” My knowledge is not academic. My systems were created out of real life situations – mine and others.

Rather than classifying myself as coach or consultant, I have trademarked the term “The Transformational Leadership Strategist.” I represent the integration of planning and action. I know how to create and maintain high functioning cultures from my vast experience of creating musical ensembles and I have worked with influential leaders in church, business, and nonprofits for many years.

Your blog tagline is “Creating high performance cultures.” That sounds very corporate-speak — and many church & nonprofit leaders are resistant to buying into business principles for running their spiritual organizations. What would you say to them? How do allow business principles to enhance, versus create the culture of our spiritual leadership?

In conversations with church leaders about creating a vision and mission for the church, they respond that The Great Commission is the vision and mission. I disagree. The Great Commission is a biblical mandate and not a choice. The vision and mission for the church is what happens after making disciples. It’s not much different with other charities either. Along with small business owners, we are all “Social Entrepreneurs.” We don’t work in corporate America and we don’t want to answer to their mandates. We are creating value for people that doesn’t already exist and we are changing people’s lives.

It’s imperative that church and nonprofit leaders learn business principles to run an effective organization. Those business principles must be reframed for the charity culture, however the basic principles are crucial for success and sustained success.

Our current crisis in the mainline churches with members leaving in large numbers is a result of our lack of leadership first of all and for other reasons secondarily. Many years ago, Marva Dawn published her book, “Reaching Out Without Dumbing Down.” She addressed how we have dumbed down in our thinking and acting, especially in the church. The multiple ways we have dumbed down our systems, programs, and functioning have now backfired with people leaving our churches. There are other factors as well, but this one plays out over time in a rather profound way.

I imagine there are some differences in how you might advise/encourage a nonprofit leader versus a church leader. What might those be?

I don’t see many differences. We are all social entrepreneurs, or should be. We are making an impact and changing people’s lives. We have a culture connected by a central theme or philosophy. And we rely on people to opt-in with their time without a paycheck (commonly called “a volunteer). I don’t see any difference. We just use different words for things.

Tell us about what you hope to do with your blog, and specifically the Friday Forums.

My primary goal is to get leaders to think differently. The best leaders I work with are constantly working on themselves and their personal growth. Much of the personal growth I get is reading things written by people who make the think differently. Many things I read are things I don’t agree with. It’s not important that we agree, it’s important that we thing for ourselves. Healthy dialogue is a leadership skill. We don’t need to agree to learn, to grow, or to have good conversation. We are afraid of disagreement. We shy away from conflict when we should move toward it. And we argue position rather than looking for the fine element of truth that resides in the point of friction in the conflict (or sometimes the apparent conflict.)

The theologian Reinhold Niebuhr said, “comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable.” I loved watching Andy Rooney. I love it when people inspire to think outside my normal box. Therefore, my hope is that readers don’t agree with me, because I’m not always right. it not important to be right. it’s important to seek a better way of leading the important initiatives we are tasked with shepherding.

I repeat, “I’m not always right.” Perfect is the enemy of good.

Check out Hugh Ballou’s new blog here.

Recent posts from Hugh Ballou:

The Way We Perceive Nonprofit Leadership is Way Wrong!

A New Paradigm for Leadership

transformational leadership

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