Category Archives: Leadership

June 23, 2020

Jewish Organizations: The Importance of Acting Ethically

By Ruth Schapira

Remaining in Focus

What many of us strive for in life is achieving personal integrity, a state of being when our ‘inside’ motivation matches our ‘outside’ behavior.

Ideally, our actions should reflect who we (really) are. We don’t just want to believe that we’re honest, we want to act in ways that are honest, a perfect match-up of our intentions and behaviors. Don’t be deceived; this sounds relatively easy but is in fact very difficult.

It is just as challenging for businesses and organizations to hold a high ethical standard.

Accountability

Years ago a new field emerged called ‘corporate responsibility’. It was the very beginning of companies making an effort to conduct business honorably.

No longer can companies quietly go about the dirty business of polluting the environment, paying unfair wages, and not treating employees equitably. At least not without negative social consequences and losses of revenue. To a large extent, social media sees to that. However, even more now than before, it seems that there is still a long way to go.

In the last weeks, we’ve seen that even organizations who promise to uphold the highest ideals of communal values of fairness fall short. As a society, it is challenging to change stubborn and hateful behavior.

What about Jewish organizations?

But should we not hold smaller organizations, those with an especially narrow focus, to the same standard? After all, relationships with employees and constituents are more regular and frequent.

In the current economic climate however, as organizations might need to downsize, it is even more important not to compromise on these values. People are more vulnerable in so many ways and the more expedient way is not the most sensitive.

The Torah provides a foundation for how employees should be treated and laws are expounded in the Talmud regarding specific challenging situations and additional pressures.

This information would ideally inform decisions and interactions so that the values of a religious organization should live up to its potential as a model of ethical behavior.

Rabbi Sidney Schwarz states in Judaism and Justice: the Jewish Passion to Repair the World that there are two principles in operation regarding Jewish behavior.

“Jews are driven by their twin impulses to survive as a people (Exodus) and to help the world be ordered in accordance with a higher moral standard (Sinai).”

Expanding on this concept, Jewish organizations need to survive in order to fulfill their ultimate mission of bringing the ethical teachings of Torah out into the world. But not at the cost of compromising its own behavior.

Leadership in a stressful time

The challenges facing the Jewish community now are perhaps more acute than ever and as a result, we need to be aware of ethical breaches and inconsistencies and expect more of our organizational leaders.

This pursuit of ethical excellence is discussed widely in the Talmud as well as the intimate relationship between character, leadership, and community. In Arachim (17a) our sages note:

“One said: According to the leader, so the generation. The other said: According to the generation, so the leader.”

We are ultimately accountable. Our leaders need to hold us to a higher standard, but they too are products of our culture. Our culture seems to value the development of our outsides (material gains) in favor of focusing on our insides (ethical and spiritual development). Organizations have often conducted themselves similarly, prioritizing  external goals (a new building, more members) over those that are less tangible (meaningful experiences, membership connections).

Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, in the Seven Principles of Jewish Leadership  states that “Leaders must be relentless learners and believe in the people they lead”.

Leaders must be open to change and in so doing, model that for others.

Yes, these are extremely challenging times. Organizations need to work extremely hard with minimal resources to reconfigure themselves in the (God-willing) post-pandemic world.

We can weather this storm but in order to do so ethically, we need to uphold our values.

 

1 Comment   |  tags: , , , , | posted in Ethics, Jewish, Jewish Community, Judaism, Leadership, Life, Non-Profit, Religion, Synagogue

May 12, 2017

Refuse to accept the arrogant model of leadership

By Ruth Schapira

julius.

 

We live in a selfish age. I know, no kidding—so I needn’t bother you with listing all the reasons why this is true. Believe me, it would be cathartic for me to do so.  Are you sure you don’t want some examples?  Okay, just one. In 2014, over 93 million selfies were taken daily. Ninety-three million. This narcissistic attitude permeates our entire culture and is not only limited to individuals, it is also the way companies do business.

Headlines depict company after company’s egregious behavior toward consumers: airbag negligence in cars, airline seats subject to fine print agreements, bogus real estate deals, industry price-fixing, and the numerous recalls of tainted food. There’s even a television show created a decade ago, with enough content to offer viewers a glimpse of dirty dealings called “American Greed”.

This culture of self-hood even extends to appeals by organizations to continually ask you to do things for them, even though you’re the consumer and should be the recipient of any largesse. They want you to like them, follow them, and also post and tweet about them. The goal is to enhance their image by connecting with you via the currency of your social media identity.  Doesn’t this also seem like very self-centered behavior? However, why blame amorphous companies, when the leadership sets the tone.

This morning, Jim Cramer, a commentator on a business show said “we live in an arrogant society”. After reading the first published earnings report from Snapchat he flatly stated that CEO Evan Spiegel is “so arrogant” and needs to find some humility.  He said this because Spiegel did not own up to the facts (a 20% loss) and laughed (Snapchat is a public company). Arrogance is the enemy of humility, because you become so wrapped up in yourself that you are unaware of your obligations towards others. You lose a sense of being connected with others. It is arrogance that has de-humanized the workplace so much so that employees rarely feel a sense of company loyalty, and when they do, it makes headlines. Not surprisingly, the CEO of oGOLead.com  says that we’re in a leadership crisis.

Jewish non-profits can create a different model of leadership, one that has Biblical origins in our patriarchs and matriarchs. The desire to serve people (and a Higher Being) is a mark of humility. Being ‘other-oriented’ requires the ability to recognize that your place is not above another’s and arrogance occurs when someone forgets that.  Recently espoused by Max Depree in The Art of Leadership, a leader is one who serves.  Being a ‘servant’ leader today seems counter-cultural although it is where our roots lie.

Servant leadership means flipping the ‘what can you do for me’ equation to ‘what can I do for you’? This is not as simple as it seems.  First, let’s take a fundraising example. I recently saw a huge billboard sign posted in front of a non-profit (bearing the ubiquitous thermometer) that said “Give so we can make our goal”. See? You might think, ‘what’s so bad about that? It’s honest isn’t it?’  But that approach comes off as just a little arrogant and demanding.  How much more effective might it be to take the place of the other, the one who you’re trying to reach and think about their point of view.  Why should people give to your campaign? How will their help contribute to making the world a better place?  How can your organization serve others better by receiving a donation?

Next, let’s use membership as an example. I receive direct mail requests so often, and find most are highly ineffective, because they haven’t figured out the obvious. It’s not about them, it’s about the cause. Why should someone join? Believe it or not, the reason someone joins is not to become a member. There might be hundreds of reasons why your constituents might be motivated to be a part of your mission, and you need to discover at least some of them.  In order to serve, you need to have information.

At the very least, it comes from a place of humility and a desire to learn, and not in any way like posting a selfie.

 

 

 

Leave a comment   |  tags: , , , | posted in Jewish Community, Judaism, Leadership, Non-Profit, Outreach, Social Media

April 26, 2017

What To Do When LEADERSHIP is Lacking

By Ruth Schapira

pexels-mountain-climbing

 

Research shows that most non-profits are concerned about succession planning. There often is not a lack of talent in the organization, just no clear pathway to get to a leadership position. Why is this so?

Cultivation of leadership is a long-term enterprise, and often we don’t have the patience or resources to devote to the effort it takes. We’re lazy, wanting the quick fix, sometimes by sometimes hiring a known leader from another organization or looking for someone new to take a position rather than building capacity internally.  This holds true for organizations whether or not it is staff or lay-led. My comments apply to both types of non-profits so for ease in reading, the term staff will be used.

In most cases, staff leave for reasons more to do with lack of job satisfaction than any other reason. This infographic from Inc.com confirms the top 5 reasons that employees leave. It is costly to replace people who leave due to dissatisfaction, and the costs of that is enormous in increased expenses due to lost time, lowered morale, efforts in training, and more.

We don’t take the time to really get to know our staff beyond the basics.  The vocabulary of the conversations that need to occur will consist of words like desires, skills, talents, goals and dreams. These are not quick conversations by an unskilled manager or human resource professional.

In an earlier post, I marveled at the way one organization nurtures its volunteers, but that was just one example. What are some specific general ways that a non-profit organization can expand its leadership pipeline?

The consulting organization The Bridgespan Group found that “based on collaborative research with 30 nonprofits committed to leadership development, we identified four elements organizations should have in place to align their strategy for talent to their goals for impact.” Those elements were managers who were committed to mentoring others, identifying opportunities for skill development, creating individualized development plans focused on skills, and mechanisms for putting those efforts into action.

The tips I offer below are for smaller non-profits who frequently struggle with this issue but lack the resources of larger organizations with layers of support systems. These suggestions assume that your organization is based on a collaborative and not a competitive model.

  1. Require staff members to complete a basic questionnaire that contains questions about their skills, interests, goals and desires. Don’t just file it away, a top level person needs to study it and arrange a time with the staff member to discuss it.
  2.  Institute a practice for peer coaching, sharing guidelines and boundaries with participants. Assign everyone a partner to whom they will check in periodically about their goals. This can be formalized through completion of a self-assessment.
  3. Provide opportunities for staff/volunteers to stretch themselves in new ways—by trying out new skills and develop new talents. Paired learning is effective for this.
  4. Allow staff/volunteers an opportunity to shadow someone whose position interests them for a few hours.
  5. Establish regular check-ins for feedback and coaching.  So far, there are no costs involved here, only dedication to the practice.

If you would like to request a form to use for this purpose, please go to my site and write “Staff Form” in the subject line. You will receive it as my gift to you in order to encourage leadership development at your non-profit. This offer expires on May 31st, 2017. 

 

1 Comment   |  tags: , , | posted in Jewish Community, Leadership, Non-Profit, Outreach

December 20, 2016

What I Learned About Leadership From An Evangelical Minister

By Ruth Schapira

lessons-learned

Here’s what I learned about engaging lay people from an Evangelical minister during a holiday dinner party: a faith community’s goals should be reflected in its paths toward leadership.

Last week I sat diagonally across an intense yet energetic, full-of-spirit kind of guy who gives greatly of his time in his church, and who has subsequently become a minister. In that role, he leads study groups and connects closely with church members, taking on their stories and their pain, and in the process, connects them to their faith on a very personal level. The group studies scripture, but the group isn’t just about studying. Teachings are put into practice right then and there.

One of the members of the group said an elderly woman in the parish didn’t have enough money to pay her heating bill. In very short time, group members found the funds for her, paying her electric bill for the winter. I asked if anyone informed the priest, to see if there was a pathway for things like this to ‘bubble up’ to that level. “No,” he quickly responded, “there was no need, this was within our ability to do, and we took care of it quietly”. I didn’t need to ask for elaboration, what he didn’t say filled a huge space. This was true leadership by lay leaders, taking on responsibility to do what needed to get done. No fanfare. No bureaucratic red tape. They knew it was in the mission of their work to care for other members.

He finds immense spiritual nourishment from this work and engages in it while working full-time, attending to his marriage and his two teenage daughters. It’s what he does, what he feels called to do, and it kind of makes you wonder about your own free time.

It took no time at all for us to find common ground about topics that in other circumstances would cause a lot of eye-rolling and polite excuses by others who would choose to converse about much juicier topics. But, we were at a holiday gathering, and the spirit of the season was seated at the table. We soaked up our differing ideas about faith, belief, the bible, and the role of organized religion in people’s lives. I learned a lot from him, and he from me.

Among the things we talked about was the structure of his church, and how lay people who are so moved religiously, are gently led on a path to leadership. The priest encourages them to receive training–doing so incrementally and slowly, and then, when ready, they provide ministry to others within the church. This is accomplished within a small group model, one person ministering to several small groups, even though the church might have thousands of members.  It keeps things small, intimate, and full of personal meaning.

Certain positions within the church lead to ordination by an Archbishop, like that of Deacon, who after years of study and involvement attains a level respected highly by other church members. I thought about what this means, especially when comparing that to the many synagogue lay leader positions that seem mired in fiscal management, operations and building maintenance, and fundraising.

I know that the entire structure of synagogue life is different, but what can I learn from this? How could my experience of synagogue life be so radically different from the picture of spiritual meaning that I heard? It seems like a commitment to living a Jewish life is not generally a requirement for attaining synagogue leadership roles.  What if there was a pathway of leadership that involved religious and spiritual growth?  Can you imagine that? What if there was a requirement for leaders to be personally committed to advancing their spiritual and religious practice? How inspirational would that be, to see people in leadership roles involved in holy soul-work?

If the synagogue’s goal is to build a faith community, how are we working towards that? We know that there are Jewish spaces that have transformed themselves, and it would be interesting to know if their leadership pathways are reflective of that change. What strategies might we employ to incorporate this kind of thinking?

For example, The Union for Reform Judaism developed a strategy for small group work that might operate on the method mentioned above, though I’m unaware of any evaluative material about the outcomes of that enterprise. There might be other innovative approaches to this as well.

We need to learn together, pulling from as many different sources as we can, to reinvigorate the purpose of creating community.

 

Leave a comment   |  tags: , , , , | posted in Church, Jewish Community, Jewish Education, Judaism, Leadership, Outreach, Religion

June 2, 2016

What Engagement Is (and Isn’t)

By Ruth Schapira

chef

I wrote earlier on my blog site “Double Take” that some job descriptions are so vague, it’s almost impossible to figure out what the tasks are. In that post (called “What will you actually be doing if you get this job?”) I revealed that reading job descriptions is something I did regularly as a career consultant.

Scanning those help wanted ads (when there was such a thing) was valuable for so many reasons: it kept me abreast of industry changes and trends, corporate buzz words, and even company expansion into new areas. Think positions in corporate social responsibility, community relations, and medical ethics— fields which are now commonplace.

It also helped me coach clients on what to watch out for: job descriptions that were unrealistic, too vague or cryptic, or filled with tell-tale warning signs like: “ability to work under pressure with tight deadlines and irregular hours”.

So, what does this have to do with the state of the Jewish community? Plenty, it turns out. The position openings I see posted most often are positions I would have warned people about. These are jobs that on the face of it, have interesting titles, but when you dig deeper, issues bubble up. Most often those positions have either ‘Outreach’ or ‘Engagement’ in the title.

On the surface, those positions sound great and are full of promise, but since we know that many established Jewish non-profits are experiencing contraction (due to economic circumstances, demographics) their inability to effectively undertake the two things above is already a warning sign. When I read the descriptions more closely, my optimism takes a further hit.

The jobs, instead of focusing on involving new and prospective people in the organization, are often a mishmash of tasks that sound more like a recipe than a bona fide job description. Imagine the Grand Chef of Outreach, standing over a pot and adding in: a little marketing, a dash of donor relations, a sprinkling of grant writing, a bit of database management, a with a splash of social media thrown in for good measure.

This is neither outreach or engagement. It’s a job that is made of pieces that don’t necessarily belong together. The tell-tale sign for me is that no where do most of these openings mention responsibilities that should be essential components of outreach or engagement: interviewing stakeholders, gathering data, developing leaders, and implementing strategies and training mechanisms across departments to change organizational culture.

So, in order to do outreach, organizations need to make sure that it’s just not a new job that makes everyone feel a little better that something’s being done, but a real effort at organizational change that is manifested by the true work of engagement.

Leave a comment   |  tags: , , , , | posted in Jewish Community, Judaism, Leadership, Non-Profit, Outreach, Social Media

May 17, 2016

The Funniest Tweet I’ve Seen

By Ruth Schapira

//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

Leave a comment   |  tags: , | posted in Jewish, Jewish Community, Judaism, Leadership, Marketing, Outreach

March 17, 2016

Jewish Scholars Wanted to Know Years Ago: Are These the Leaders We Deserve?

By Ruth Schapira

 

Who is a Leader?

Who is a Leader?

Whenever I get ready to write a headline for a post, I google it, to make sure that it hasn’t been used before, but also to search for content that might be relevant. This time, my search results were lackluster. I did see this headline, from Israel’s Ha’aretz paper, which was really close to what I wanted to say: “Are the Leaders of Today the Leaders We Deserve?  Though the article was written three years ago, referring to Obama, Martin Luther King, and the impending Israeli election, it asked similar questions.

Asking these kind of questions is not a recent phenomenon. In the era of the Talmud, scholars were discussing aspects of character, leadership, and community. Perhaps because we’ve been outsiders for so long, we tend to think objectively about the society around us, and our place in it (or not):

Rabbi Yehuda Nesiah (grandson of Rabbi Yehuda Hanasi, the redactor of the Mishnah) were in disagreement: “One said: According to the leader, so the generation. The other said: According to the generation, so the leader.”   Talmud, Arachim, 17a.

What is your opinion? Is our society reflective of the characteristics of our leaders, or are  have we produced the leaders that represent our values, morals and ethics?

What do you think of this in light of the presidential race?

Are you surprised by the character flaws of the candidates? Did you expect more in the way of the choices you have? In what way are these candidates reflective of our society? Are enough people who are disappointed with the choices we have turning a mirror toward our society and its flaws? How much responsibility should our society bear? If so, how would things change? How do we encourage the types of leaders we want? Is that even possible?

There are those who think that we have very good choices in front of us and might be wondering why I’m even writing this. There is enough evidence of candidate scandals, dishonest dealings, name calling, hostile speeches, angry rhetoric, and divisive tactics to fill pages. You just can’t wish the evidence away.

I’ve heard and read many complaints about the leaders we find front and center in the Presidential race. I’ve experienced this from media on the right and left, online publications, blogs, and posts. The comments about the situation range from anger, disbelief, frustration, to hope and faith.

But I have yet to hear anyone turn those observations inside out (maybe I missed it, please let me know) and examine the kind of society that produced such choices.

1 Comment   |  tags: , , | posted in Ethics, Jewish, Leadership, Religion