Part one: The Mission Comes First

The commitment
A mission statement has to focus on what the institution really tries to do and then do it so that everybody in the organization can say; this is my contribution to the goal. The task of the non-profit manager is to try to convert the organizations mission statement into specifics. The mission statement has to be very clear and precise. As you add on you have to abandon, and you have to choose those things that will do the most for us and let go those that things that are no longer of great significance. The three musts: Look at the strength; look at the opportunities; look at commitment.

Leadership is a Foul-Weather Job

The most important task of an organizations leader is to anticipate crisis. You cannot prevent major catastrophe, but you can build an organization that is battle-ready. Non-profit institutions need innovation as much as businesses or governments. The starting point is to recognize that change is not a threat, its an opportunity. If you first plan and then try to sell, youre going to miss the important things. But you also waste years of time. Selling has to be built into planning, and that means involving the operating people. How to pick a leader: look for his/her strengths and accomplishments, match the strengths with the organizations needs, integrity. You want people as leaders who take their roles seriously not themselves seriously. The leaders who work most effectively, never say I, not because they have trained themselves not to say I. They dont think I. They think we. Basic competences of a leader: self-discipline to listen, willingness to make himself understood, willingness and humility. A leader always has to sustain the balance between the big picture and the little details. The donts for leaders: 1. Dont believe that you are always understood take time to make sure that peoples understood what you want or what you said. 2. Dont be afraid of strenghts in your organization.

Keep your eyes on the task, not on yourself. The task matters, and you are a servant.

What the leader owes

Goal achievement is an annual matter related to the annual plan. But the realization of our potential, thats a life matter. A leader must have vision. It is natural for a leader to be a person who is primarily futureoriented. The first duty of a leader is to define reality.

The action implication

The first task of a leader is to make sure that everybody sees the mission of the organization hears it and lives it. The mission is always long-range but the actions are always short term. Leadership is doing. Not just thinking or charisma. Leadership is doing. Therefore, mission and leadership are not just things to read about, to listen to. They are things to do something about. Things that you can, and should, convert from knowledge into effective action, not next year, but tomorrow morning.