This article was originally sourced from Pro Bono News here and was written by Ivan Brown.
Over a decade ago, while studying part time I began my career as a residential youth worker after a friend of mine told me “the job is fun, all you need to do is take kids surfing and skateboarding”. Being a social science student and 19 at the time this proposition sounded perfect in that I was able to help people, get paid for my efforts and have fun all at the same time.
Unfortunately, after getting the job, my first shift replaced those high aspirations with a harsh reality. The truth was that my work days were usually spent dealing with violence, drug abuse, self-harm, suicide attempts and other not so pleasant experiences.
Although, there were good days and youth work was rewarding in many ways, I quickly learnt that my saviour like aspirations of helping people were in reality as unrealisable and personally unfulfilling as my pay rate! Eventually, after a few months of working in an all-round tough environment I realised that I had two options – either I quit, change profession and give up a slice of my social conscience or I step up and do something different to make a real impact in people’s lives.
I chose the latter. This new direction aside, I realised that to make an impactful change my energy was probably best spent working as a leader of staff and, to my surprise, not investing any more intensely in direct care. The reason I made this decision was that I continually witnessed high turnover of staff, staff conflict over the “right” way of doing things and stifling bureaucracy at all levels – all of which I believed were compounding the crisis nature of an already tumultuous setting.
In my view, the young people didn’t need any more chaos in their lives, and, to be fair, there were youth workers way better than me at service delivery. Where I was stronger than others was anticipating future events, planning for others needs and not losing my cool under pressure. Although perhaps not thought of in those terms at the time, they were all fundamentally leadership related.
On that basis I embarked on a journey, and within three months I became a Team Leader of small team, within a year a Caseworker, then at 22-years-old I became the Operations Manager, leading almost 100 staff, and at 27 I was appointed Chief Executive Officer.
Being the youngest CEO in residential care, and perhaps one of the youngest in the broader NFP sector, was not easy, and along the way I encountered many obstacles and made mistakes, some common to young leaders in any sector and some unique to the NFP sector.
Although, each next generation of aspiring leader will need to find their own way and make their own mistakes, these three principals have assisted me and many new leaders, particularly those who are young in life or the NFP sector, to become successful leaders.
1. You must know why you want to lead
As an enthusiastic and energetic emerging leader in the NFP sector you most likely will want to “help” others, but here’s a news flash, so do the vast majority of the people working alongside you. Similar to a sports team, all the players love to play but they can’t all be, and nor should they be, captain. It’s not uncommon to hear NFP people recite their personal reason for working for an agency and wearing it as a badge of honour. Perhaps this helps remind us why we do such challenging work and somehow subsidises our efforts which are often undervalued, or maybe it is the way we justify our right to be NFP employees.
In any case, this narrative sharing no longer relevant or useful if you want to lead a NFP, the sooner you recognise that passion is a prerequisite to NFP participation and not the sole qualifier for leadership, the quicker you will become a productive leader. Being a NFP leader is not about being the most passionate about the cause, rather it is about being the most able to harness, cultivate and put to work other people’s passion. This requires a totally different mind and skill-set.
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