Strategic Fund Development: Building Profitable Relationships That Last, Third Edition

Summary

So there you have it—thoughts on leadership. Now it’s up to you. Read and talk about leadership. Develop your own leadership. Help others develop their leadership.

With good leadership, you build a stronger organization. With expanded leadership, you can create a sustainable organization. Leadership is one of the key components of relationship within your organization.

And without leadership … are you slowly going out of business?

Never forget: Leadership is about more than your organization and its success, or even your own success. Think bigger and broader. Think about the local and global community.

And ask yourself this one, final question: “Should leaders wait to be invited?”

It was one of those cage-rattling moments that often happen in my classrooms at Saint Mary’s University of Minnesota. This time, thanks to Ann Hermes, Mary Miller McCrae, Wendy Zufelt-Baxter, and Carolyn Egeberg, members of Cohort 15.

“Is part of our job as leaders to ‘unblind’ people? To reveal issues relevant to group effectiveness? To make the invisible visible—things like unearned privilege, unacknowledged group dynamics, elements in the room, and skeletons in the closet?

“Or is this appropriate only when invited?”

What was their response to this question they identified?

“Yes, the leader is responsible to ‘unblind’ others. Yes, the leader must reveal issues relevant to group effectiveness.”

“Yes,” these four said. “Leaders make the invisible visible, with or without invitation. Yes,” they ...