One of the biggest challenges I have observed, both in my own experience as an Executive Director and in conversation with my peers, past and present, is that leaders rarely have a safe space to try out new ideas.
It’s difficult to explore new ideas or propose new approaches to anyone on your team because the first place they naturally go is “how will this affect me or my co-workers.” Further, as soon as an ED/CEO poses a new idea, there is a risk that it is interpreted as a directive because the leader is supposed to be the visionary determining the direction of the organization. There are times when this can be a useful leadership tool – throwing out an idea to test the waters while also getting a team used to this new idea. But more often than not, new ideas from the leader generate anxiety about change and more work. Some of the best ideas start from something wild and crazy but are iterated to become something truly visionary. If the crazy idea gets shut down from the start out of fear or anxiety, we never get to the visionary ideas.
In an ideal world, the President or Chair of the Board of Directors can serve as a sounding board for the Executive Director. But even in perfect circumstances, this can be a challenging place to introduce new ideas because it creates fertile ground for expectations rather than exploration. Expectations are not in and of themselves a bad thing, but the potential for judgement (especially if the idea doesn’t go anywhere) can stymie deep exploration of ideas. What if an idea doesn’t come to fruition? Does that mean I can’t deliver as a leader? Or what if it comes to fruition, but falls flat? Will I be seen as a failure? “Failure” is a huge part of the idea generation and exploration process, but it’s incredibly vulnerable to put yourself in a position to fail in front of the person who, as the leader of the Board, bears partial responsibility for doing your performance review.
And, generally, it’s not an option to explore new ideas with other EDs or CEOs. Every leader has their own challenges that they’re dealing with at any given moment so they have limited bandwidth to go on idea expeditions for someone else’s organization. Plus, idea exploration often requires some base of knowledge about an organization’s work or at least some context building – not always possible for peer leaders. And if there is a peer who is in the same area of work (mental health, museums, youth development), there may be issues of confidentiality or proprietary information involved that limit open idea exploration.
This is something funders and nonprofit capacity-building organizations should pay attention to. We have big problems to solve and the only way social impact organizations can address them is by constant adaptation to a rapidly changing external environment. Adaptation, by necessity, requires new ideas and approaches to seemingly intractable problems. Perhaps these convening organizations can create safe spaces for organizational leaders to engage in idea exploration.