The 7 Grip & Rip Principles of

Nonprofit LeadershipWayne Elsey

Funds2Orgs.com2

Leaders are made, they are not born. They are made by hard effort, which is the price which all of us must pay

to achieve any goal that is worthwhile. – Vince Lombardi

Like society, the nonprofit sector has been undergoing significant shifts. A couple of examples include how in today’s fundraising environment we’ve moved to a peer-to-peer environment where general gift donors have become cham-pions, advocates, and fundraisers for your group. There was a time when peer-to-peer fundraising was mainly for major donors.

Another shift was social media. Social networking helped small nonprofits get a substantial voice in their community, with minimal, if any expense. All that was needed was someone on the team who took it upon themselves to learn and master social media. Of course, as social networking platforms for brands move increasingly to a pay to play model, the opportunity remains but has become more strategic.

According to McKinsey & Company, Corporate America spends over $14 billion on leadership development, but it seems that despite all of that money going into developing leaders, most organizations don’t have people who can guide their groups into the future. Infopro Learning published a great infographic last year and here are some of their findings.

Funds2Orgs.com3

• By 2020, 48 percent of the workforce will be Millennials.• 91 percent of Millennials plan to remain at their current job fewer than 3 years.• 84 percent of organizations expect a shortfall in leaders within the next 5 years.• More money is spent on leadership development than anything else in corporate learning, but…• 71 percent of those surveyed do not feel they have people on their teams who could lead them into the future.

I think it’s safe to say that Corporate America might not entirely have its leadership act together for the future, but nei-ther does the nonprofit sector. We are at the dawn of a new age, and it is vital for leaders to adapt to cutting-edge ways, particularly with the use of technology.

Leaders have to be visionary by really adapting to the digital and technological world, even if they don’t fully understand it. This is especially important, I believe, in the nonprofit sector because we address issues that are crucial to humanity, such as improving education, medical outcomes, the eradication of poverty, inequality and so much more. Technology can and will play an integral part of the services organizations provide.

That said, although leaders have to adapt to the change and use the new tools at their disposal, especially since Millen-nials and Generation Z employees are fully immersed in digital and technology, the human factor remains. People still connect with each other in the same ways as they’ve done in the past, even if the tools for that communication may be different.

That means that understanding human emotion and motivation is still fundamental to understanding how to be a good leader. Despite the enormous changes that society is experiencing, there is still space for great leaders to serve their teams, motivate, inspire and make the impossible, possible.

I’ve been a student of leadership ever since I was a 15-year-old kid who was in a work-study program and took over managerial duties in a retail shoe store, even if I couldn’t have the official title due to my age.

Through the years, I worked my way up in the shoe industry and became the president of an international shoe man-ufacturing company, founded my own nonprofit and then created several shoe drive fundraising social enterprises, which I operate with my team today. The following are the old-school leadership principles that I developed, which still work in the digital age, because as I mentioned above, despite technology, humans are still fundamentally, well, human.

7 Grip & Rip Principles of Leadership:

1. Change Your Attitude2. Take Ownership3. Erase “I Can’t” and the Excuses4. Get Off the Couch5. Commit6. Do the Work7. Accept the Consequences

Principle 1: Change Your Attitude“Don’t find fault, find a remedy.” – Henry Ford

The essential element of leadership is the leader’s attitude. Your team members are a reflection of who you are as a lead-er and what you project to them. If you’re someone who is an optimist and a realist, your team is going to demonstrate

Funds2Orgs.com4

a similar view. If you’re negative, guess what’s going to happen. You’re going to have a frustrated and cynical team.

All leadership begins with the 6 inches between your ears. Your mind is the key to your attitude and how you see the world, which drives your perspective. And, because your team is human, the energy that you put out to them––your mood, view for doing things and attitude––is what they’re going to respond to and react to in doing their work. You have the power to keep your work environment optimistic and realistic.

Principle 2: Take Ownership“As a leader your every action has a consequence, make sure it is one you intend.” – Katherine Bryant

Leaders take ownership for the decisions they make and that of their team as well. Although it might have gone out of style in today’s world and the pendulum has swung to people deflecting responsibility for things, a real leader has integrity. That integrity means they take responsibility and ownership for their decisions.

I’ve seen in the nonprofit space managers, including CEOs, who have led their organization into a downswing, and then they spend their time blaming their team members, past CEOs or anyone else but themselves. It’s unseemly not to take ownership. Assume responsibility for a situation and then deal with it. You’ll get much more respect in the end by taking that no-nonsense approach than having others, especially subordinates, take the heat.

Principle 3: Erase “I Can’t” and the Excuses“A genuine leader is not a searcher for consensus, but a molder of consen-sus.”– Martin Luther King, Jr.

I think many people view the nonprofit sector as a timid bunch of peo-ple. However, having been working in it for a long time now, I do real-ize many extraordinary people and groups are breaking new ground and making the impossible, possible. Still, many executives bend too quickly to the will of destructive boards or don’t believe that they can achieve the extraordinary. “I can’t,” and endless excuses seem to be part of their DNA.

That’s unfortunate and one of the reasons why Corporate America and social enterprises have been exploiting the opportunity of so many fearful executives by entering more boldly into the sector. When you’re a manager who has a perspective that is full of constraints, you foster in your team an environment that can become disordered, mediocre and unstable. Remember, your organization wants to believe in you and a higher vision and story beyond themselves. That means never using “I can’t” or giving excuses––ever.

Principle 4: Get Off the Couch“Leadership is an opportunity to serve. It’s not a trumpet call to self-importance.” – Donald Walters

Leadership is not lazy. Period. The best leaders are those that get off the couch and are with their teams in the trenches. In my offices, as an example, I ask my managers (including myself ) to keep their doors open. I don’t like closed office doors because it sends the signal that managers are disconnected from the broader team. I want to foster an environ-ment that is open, transparent and where everyone, including managers with offices, is doing the work.

Funds2Orgs.com5

This active perspective of getting off the couch extends to our work with our company’s nonprofit partners. As an exam-ple, it doesn’t matter the person’s title in our company; if the phone rings and no one is around to answer it, everyone is involved in picking it up. But, it’s not only that. If partners or callers are looking for information about our work, the buck is not passed to the sales team if they’re unavailable. Everyone is trained to help anyone who calls. In my view of leadership, a leader should: 1) never expect their team to do what they wouldn’t; and, 2) stay connected with the cause or people you serve by getting out into the field and out of your office.

Principle 5: Commit“Commitment is what transforms promise into reality.” – Abraham Lincoln

I think it’s fair to say that most of the people who work in the nonprofit sector are committed to the mission. But, often the challenge for nonprofit executives is to commit, 100%, to the decisions they make, especially when they are significant and transformative. They miss the opportunities that exist in pilot-ing new programs or projects for fear of failure.

Fear of failure can be lethal. By now, you’ve probably seen countless articles about how a leader should never be afraid to fail. There’s a reason why so much is written about the topic; it’s true. Failure is the path to success––plain and simple. As committed as you are to the cause, you should also create an environment that is innovative and committed to solutions, which means you have to be testing out ideas––continually. Develop a game-changing organization where your funders want to support you even more than in the past because they see a group that’s challenging the status quo and committing to be a creative and innovative nonprofit.

Principle 6: Do the Work“The only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you hav-en’t found it, keep looking. Don’t settle.” – Steve Jobs

Two things are essential for this principle. 1) You have to do that work, which is unique to your position as a leader; and, 2) You have to understand what it takes for others to do their job, and sometimes that means rolling up your sleeves and seeing

things for yourself. In my social enterprise, I give my team a lot of room to maneuver, and it’s served me well. I’m always clear about the vision and goals we want to achieve, but how they get to those goals is for them to develop typically. Most of the time, that approach has worked because I’m not micro-managing them, they feel empowered, and I’m fo-cused on doing the work which is unique to me as CEO.

Doing the work also means I have to understand the work of others. As an executive, you have to know how all of the pieces fit together. I’ll share something with you. We have a warehouse where we process and reconcile the shoes that we collect in our shoe drive fundraisers. I’m licensed to drive the forklift because I’ve wanted to see for myself how much time it takes to process incoming shipments. My efforts have also helped me model for my team a value that is essential within my companies and brands; no one is above rolling up their sleeves to work, pitch in and understand how things can and should be done.

Funds2Orgs.com6

Principle 7: Accept the Consequences“Option A is not available. So let’s kick the sh** out of option B.” – Sheryl Sandberg

Leaders lead, and they accept the consequences not only for their decisions but also those of their teams. We’ve been all there when a significant donation perhaps has not been processed quickly, or credit has not been correctly given in the way the donor would like. Even if the CEO did not handle the gift, he or she should still assume responsibility for the inaccuracies of their team. More substantial decisions, including project failures (which are fine, by the way, because there’s a lot of learning that’s done from failure) are also activities that need to be accepted with grace. That means not decimating team members who failed but understanding what went wrong and what could be improved next time.

Life, and being a nonprofit leader, is all about consequences. Few things in life come without some result, even if the outcome is a good thing. When you choose one path over another, that has consequences. And the more decisions that you make, the more effects, good or bad, that you’ll be facing. In this world of social media outrage, you may even have people who will criticize you no matter what you do. Ignore the complainers, learn from your mistakes, accept the consequences and keep going.

Final NoteThe best leaders understand that there’s always an urgency to get things done. They are restless people who are con-tinually driving to improve, create and innovate. Top leaders eventually get recognized and rewarded. If you know me, then you know that the urgency is a “grip & rip” urgency to get things done. Leaders have to keep their foot on the ac-celerator because time is the most significant commodity with the highest price. If we take it easy, that’s fewer mouths we will feed, more climate change, higher poverty, less quality education, more illness, etc. The world can’t wait. There’s a demand for action now. Not tomorrow.

So, be a great leader today.

And remember, LEAD where you are!

Funds2Orgs.com7

About the Author

Wayne Elsey has changed lives around the world. He is the founder and former CEO of Soles4Souls, a nonprofit that helped put over 20 million pairs of shoes on the feet of those in need in response to some of the world’s largest natural disasters. He also grew this organization from zero to over $74 million in fewer than 5 years. Today, his company, Elsey Enterprises, offers consulting, fundrais-ing and business services for nonprofits, social enterprises and for-profit orga-nizations looking to make a large social impact. He accomplishes this through the independent brands of Elsey Enterprises: str@tegic, Not Your Father’s Charity, Funds2Orgs, Sneakers4Funds, Shoes With Heart, CELG Freight and SocialGoodU, an online education platform for learning all things related to the social sector.

A nationally recognized authority on nonprofit and social enterprise leader-ship and topics related to motivation, business and personal success, Wayne’s life work is dedicated to business projects that have a humanitarian impact. He also seeks to educate and inform social sector organizations, philanthropists and

entrepreneurs on the latest trends in the industry through public speaking, consulting and as an author. His network appearances include NBC Nightly News, Good Morning America, Today Show, & Fox News, and he is a member of the Forbes Business Development Council.

As a thought leader, all of Wayne’s books (available for cost on Amazon) dissect various business principles and teach readers that much of what is learned across multiple disciplines can be applied strategically and thoughtfully to the so-cial sector. In his first bestseller, Almost Isn’t Good Enough, Wayne shows readers how to be successful in the social sector and not suffer financial hardship. His philanthropic ethos is to go from surviving to thriving.

With his subsequent, Not Your Father’s Charity book series, Wayne touches on the most critical topics and issues based on his years of experience and success in the social sector. Books published to date include issues related to marketing, fundraising, leadership and the state of overall philanthropy. Wayne also published a motivational book, Get Off the Couch: Grip & Rip and Break the Barriers Holding You Back in Life, which is a resource of practical and no-nonsense advice and counsel for those who want to overcome obstacles that seem to be in the way of reaching their full potential.

© 2018 Funds2Orgs. All Rights Reserved.