Posted By Clore Social Leadership,
06 March 2017
Updated: 22 October 2020
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Julia Worthington MinstF(Dip) is a Fundraising Leadership Coach and Mentor based in the north of England. Find out more about her here.
Here’s a quick quiz question. It’s Friday night, and you’re just putting your coat on when your boss comes in, and asks you to stay late to finish a report. You’ve made plans to go out for dinner with your family. How do you respond? Do you sigh, and take your coat off again – after all, the report must be important and your family are sure to understand? Or do you politely but firmly say that you have other plans for tonight, but you’re happy to come in a little early on Monday?
If you’d always choose to stay and do the extra work, your response might not be as helpful as you think it is, nor does it demonstrate great leadership. Setting clear boundaries at work helps to make you more productive, and saying ‘yes’ to everything isn’t always the best response.
Some of the leaders I work with say ‘yes’ to working at an evening event when they have a night class or circuit training, or they say ‘yes’ to completing reports or extra work on their own because nobody else volunteers. Whilst this can be a successful short term solution, it is not effective over months and years.
While constant demands on your attention and focus might make you feel in demand and successful, they can also drain your focus, positivity and productivity, leaving you feeling like you’re not in control of your own life.
If you continue to be the person who says ‘yes’ all the time, no-one will appreciate your sacrifices as they’ll think you genuinely don’t mind being permanently on call– and they’ll keep asking you.
Each time someone makes a request, think about it based on individual merits. Is it a genuine, unavoidable emergency where it’s all hands to the pump, or could it be rescheduled? Is someone else better placed to deal with it, can you delegate it?
How can you avoid always agreeing? Instead of automatically saying ‘yes’ to every request, say you’ll check your diary and get back to them. This will not only give you a little thinking time, but will also help break the reflex ‘yes’ habit.
For conditioned people pleasers, saying ‘no’ (or even ‘not yet’) can be difficult. Safeguarding your personal time is essential to achieving a good work/life balance, and makes you more productive during the times you are at work. Setting boundaries really will help you to be a better leader, and surprisingly the sky doesn’t fall in.
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Posted By Clore Social Leadership,
21 September 2016
Updated: 22 October 2020
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Amber Sainsbury is the CEO and Founder of Dramatic Need, a creative arts charity that helps vulnerable African children. The charity will celebrate their 10th Anniversary in 2017.
Leadership is - to me - much more about asking for help than passing on instructions. And it isn’t just about inspiring people that your cause is valid. Not everyone will be sold on an idea through your personal conviction.
There is a lot of understandable rhetoric about leaders and leadership, often designed to encourage and enthuse young people to go on and do great things. Words like vision, inspiration and transformation are frequently associated with the concept, and we are inundated with pithy quotes from Ghandi to Mandela on coffee cups and T-shirts reminding us why these leaders were so effective in forging change. However, in a day-to-day model of leading a group or organisation, neither lofty visions of change or didactic methods of working are, in my view, necessarily the most helpful. It must also be about being open with people as to where your weaknesses lie and letting them help. Partly because they are inspired by what your organisation is trying to do - of course! - but also because it is empowering for both individuals and groups to know that their impact will be noted and substantial.
I have frequently been told to not mention to people that we are a ‘small’ charity. The fear seems to be that we will be seen as less able, less important and therefore overlooked. However, much like lying about your age, it seems to me that pretending you are what you are not will catch up with you eventually. Instead, I find being up front about your limitations helps people you are approaching to feel that they stand to make a real difference. It is important to admit that you are stuck, that you don’t have the resources, the personnel or know-how to achieve something. It’s also important to see yourself not just as a leader, but as someone who is also a follower, willing to be led and to learn about something in which you lack expertise.
Dramatic Need employs just four people across two continents, and yet we have three functioning community art centres, work with several thousand children per year and put on participatory fundraisers which have involved globally recognised creative talents from Anish Kapoor to Nicole Kidman to Benedict Cumberbatch.
It is not that our cause is more valid that the next, and certainly not that I am a more inspiring leader than the next person. It is simply that we ask for help prolifically and candidly, from everyone across the social and creative sectors. Thousands of people have been involved with this charity, some for very short amounts of time, some for longer, but all of them have been directly asked for help because we didn’t know how, or we couldn't do it without them.
There is something to be said for keeping overheads limited, with as much of the funds and impact of what you do being spent on the people and the cause you are trying to help. This is only possible if your team remains small and enthusiastic, with a wide skill-set and the ability to roll up their sleeves and get on with any aspect of the job. This too is about asking people to help out in the right way. There is an increasing trend towards specialisation within the workplace. Titles like ‘social media manager’ are great in a large company as the more specific your job specs are, the easier it is to fit into a well-oiled machine. However, in a small charity everyone has to be able to do everything. If one of your team doesn’t know how to do something, teach them. If you don’t know how to do something, ask them to teach you. Smart delegating is of course a crucial part of leadership, but keeping on top of the detail and knowing how everything works is essential. Small teams mean if someone is ill or occupied, you have to be prepared to step in and do it yourself.
Some things to consider:
1. Both people who are well established in their professions and people who are just starting out want to make the greatest impact with their time/money/talent or expertise. No one enjoys these things being wasted. The advantage of a small charity is that the effort/impact ratio of anyone involved can stand in your favour. Make that clear.
2. Tell people what you need in specific terms early on. Tell them why the cause is different and important, but also communicate clearly what you need. For example, ‘please attend our event’ or ‘please be our visual marketing partner’ could mean different things to different people.
3. Small charities are often niche charities. Make sure your mission statement and branding are clear, succinct and impactful so that you don’t get bogged down trying to explain your cause before getting to the point of asking for what you need.
4. It might seem obvious, but never lose touch with anyone who has helped you in the past, or who you think might be helpful in the future. Keep a detailed and cohesive database of everyone you and your team meet, and keep them up to date and informed with the work you are doing. The social sector is small; every time you can remember someone’s name and how they helped (no matter how small their contribution) the better the chances are that they will support you in the future. Simple, but important personal touches.
5. Make sure that you are not asking anyone in your team to do something which you couldn’t do yourself. Small can mean lean and efficient, it can’t mean elitist or heavily stratified. Of course job specifications are necessary, but make sure you hire team members who, when the chips are down, are also happy to do take on the unspecific task.
Visit here for more information about Dramatic Need or follow them on Twitter.
Tags:
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