Hello Teamwork Facilitators!  It’s Tom Heck, President & Founder of TeachMeTeamwork.com with your September 2010 teamwork ideas e-newsletter.

The economy continues to challenge many, particularly those who work in small and medium-sized nonprofits.

Over the past couple of weeks I’ve been talking with several Executive Directors (EDs) of small and medium-sized nonprofits about how they handle the development needs of emerging leaders (“rising stars”) within their organizations.  Most don’t have a clear plan in place.  All of the EDs recognize the need for leadership development, but two big obstacles stand in the way:

1. Cost of the leadership development (training)
2. Time away from work

Large nonprofits (YMCA, Boys & Girls Clubs, Red Cross, etc.) don’t have the same training and development obstacles that small and medium sized nonprofits do.  The big guys have entire departments at the national office dedicated to advancing leadership development within the entire (networked) organization whereas the small and medium sized nonprofits are on their own.

One ED at a medium-sized nonprofit told me she would hesitate to provide leadership development to an emerging leader on her team because the average person only stays a year or two (especially true with Gen-Y).  So her team members do their best without any leadership training.  Before the recession, the ED found this system worked.  Now the challenges are great and her staff lack the leadership skills to move forward with confidence.

There is another way.

What if you provided cost-effective, results-driven leadership development to your emerging leaders (rising stars) knowing full well that staff would likely stay for one to three years?  The investment in staff development would pay off in two ways:  1) Your organization benefits from having inspired, capable leaders and 2) Word gets out in the employment marketplace that your organization is the place to go to receive the leadership training needed to advance careers (regardless of where one works).  This is the same approach many large, forward-thinking corporations are using (as reported by Gen-Y expert Bea Fields).

If you’re the Executive Director of a small or medium-sized nonprofit, I want to talk with you and learn about your leadership development needs so the TeachMeTeamwork.com community can support you.  Take a look at the TeachMeTeamwork distance learning leadership development program Leader As Coach Fast Track Program and let me know if this is the type of leadership development that would benefit your emerging leaders.

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