Famed American businessman Harold Geneen once said, “Leadership cannot really be taught. It can only be learned.”
If this popular quote is true, how can today’s club managers and directors learn how to be stronger leaders?
How can managers collaborate with the club’s board of directors to establish effective governance standards? How can managers and directors learn to work together more successfully so as to lead as a united front?
And, perhaps most importantly, how can clubs continue to develop future leaders within their membership?
These days, it’s becoming harder and harder to find quality candidates for board or leadership positions at clubs. In fact, in a July 2007 survey of private club staff and board members by the National Club Association, recruiting and developing effective club leaders ranked high as a key issue in a number of categories, including by demographic groups such as general managers and, not surprisingly, by club officers and directors. In addition, building effective boards and nonprofit governance were identified as the top educational program topics.
The following series of articles addresses these key questions and issues and discusses how innovative approaches and practices can strengthen both staff and organizational leadership at your club.
The Board of Directors: Ambassadors for Your Brand
By Richard Melcher
Boards of directors—corporate and nonprofit alike—have stood in the spotlight’s glare in recent years, often more for what they have not done rather than for what they have. Inattention to basic governance standards in some organizations has led to everything from excessive compensation agreements to organizational meltdowns, usually played out in the bright lights of the national media.
To be sure, oversight—of compensation, succession planning, broad strategy, even conflicts of interest—is a board’s crucial function, especially at private clubs. But, directors can—and should—perform a variety of other roles to contribute to their club’s success.
In fact, directors should be the premier ambassadors for the club’s mission and brand.
Properly prepared, directors can be a wonderful resource to raise awareness and visibility, supporting the efforts of the club’s marketing and membership staffs. Director networks can be tapped for membership development, political and media contacts, and expansion in the community. A director’s corporate connections also can be helpful for members, mentors and partnerships, creating an important community bond between the nonprofit and for-profit worlds.
Regardless of a club’s structure—public, private, semi-private or nonprofit—there are similar, and very important, advantages to having diversity of thought, networks, and perspectives on your board, especially when you’re asking those directors to serve as ambassadors of your club’s mission and brand.
Defining Roles
How broadly to use the board is only limited by the imagination of a club’s general manager and the interests and time of the directors. Several factors are important to consider.
First, the club’s leadership must truly see value in the board members serving as ambassadors and should view the board members’ roles as complimentary to the overall mission of furthering the club’s brand, image and message.
A good example of this can be found at a prominent East Coast city club, which recently established an ambassadors program, in which board members, committee chairs, vice chairs and active leaders within the club are responsible for relaying clearly the message and purpose of the club to new and prospective members.
Second, there must be clarity about exactly what the directors should and should not do. It is important to remember that the board is enhancing, not duplicating or replacing, the responsibilities of the club’s professional staff. Boards should serve as policymakers, not micromanagers.
The dedication and commitment of volunteers who show that they have the club’s best interests at heart and are willing to support it can play a key role in assisting and motivating staff. This can take the form of giving time and professional expertise, sometimes working directly with the professional staff.
And third, the directors must be fully engaged in the mission of the club and be well-briefed on its strategy by the general manager, as well as the membership and marketing staff.
To help board members best understand their roles, the club’s mission, and the needs of the membership, most clubs conduct a director orientation program. The process introduces the new board director to the club, its members, his/her responsibilities, and the people with whom he/she will be working closely.
For instance, as part of its board orientation, one North Carolina country club spends time explaining good management practices, as well as correct conduct, to new board members.
A few of its strictures include:
– Engage experts when in doubt
– Preserve institutional memory
– Present a united front on decided policies
– Maintain confidentiality about undecided issues
– Avoid personal agendas, impropriety or self-dealing
Above all, at the very outset, club leadership should make clear the expectation that the director is an ambassador, who should always aim to communicate the club’s mission and message clearly, to strengthen the club’s membership, and to make decisions in the club’s best interests.
The board won’t replace a club’s basic outreach efforts for leadership, nor should it. But, as special ambassadors, directors bring visibility, credibility and connections to help drive club success.
Richard Melcher is a principal at Melcher+Tucker Consultants, a Chicago-based strategic marketing and communications firm working with nonprofit organizations.
Governing and Leading Together: The Board-General Manager Team
By Marla J. Bobowick
With more than 5,000 private clubs and 60,000 board members serving the nonprofit, private club industry, it is important leaders operate ethically, legally and to the fullest potential. Failure can have significant ramifications, from lost opportunities and mission-drift to legal liabilities and even bankruptcy.
But, board governance is not an either/or dilemma. It’s a both/and situation—both compliance and leadership, both oversight and guidance, both challenge and support. Boards must focus on compliance and on advancing their club’s mission through active leadership.
Leadership is all about doing the right things. Exceptional boards remember the fundamentals of governance, such as financial oversight and the intangibles, such as group dynamics. They think strategically, challenge ideas, and probe for better solutions.
And they invest time and energy in building collaborative relationships among fellow board members and with the general manager. In fact, exceptional boards depend as much on their own good performance as on a good general manager’s.
After all, in the give-and-take in the boardroom, it must not be forgotten that governance is a team sport.
A Constructive Partnership
Effective boards focus on organizational oversight and direction setting and then delegate responsibility to the general manager for managing operations and resources.
But, exceptional boards are not just outside examiners; they’re also powerful forces supporting the club and its general manager. While respecting this division of labor, exceptional boards become allies with the general manager in pursuit of the club’s mission.
A successful general manager must be more than competent and confident. He/she also must be open and honest with the board. The board, in turn, must be committed to ensuring success, while recognizing clubs are complex and constantly changing. As interlocking pieces in a jigsaw puzzle that together create a complete picture, the general manager and the board are complements, with mutual trust, respect and appreciation, building the foundation for a leadership team that can handle short- and long-term challenges.
Exceptional boards hold the general manager accountable, formally evaluate the general manager’s performance annually and continually assess the club’s leadership needs as part of succession planning. Members of exceptional boards communicate regularly with the general manager, informally discussing concerns between board meetings.
Compare Assessment Results Annually
Ensuring a club’s board of directors and general manager are on the same page is an important step in successful governance. Find a performance evaluation process that will work for your club year after year.
The assessment should:
– Clarify for the board and general manager their respective roles, responsibilities and job expectations.
– Provide insight to the board’s perceptions of the general manager’s strengths, limitations and overall performance.
– Foster the growth and development of the general manager and the club.
Ask the board and general manager to respond to the same questions, so differing perspectives can be discussed and existing gaps in perceptions can be closed. Use the same questions annually to help track progress and change in performance areas and allow for comparison and establishment of goals.
Board work requires personal motivation and commitment, as well as intellectual curiosity and challenge. Board members must share a passion for the club’s cause. In turn, the general manager must be ready, willing and able to engage board members in making sense of situations, determining what matters and solving dilemmas. Neither the board nor the general manager can simply go through the governance motions and expect great results.
The fundamentals of good governance help board members understand and meet the expectations and requirements of their positions. And, they serve as a tool for general managers, offering a vision of an empowered board that is a strategic asset to be leveraged, not an obstacle to be circumvented.
When the board and general manager govern and lead together, the club benefits and the club members reap the reward.
Marla J. Bobwick is the vice president of products at BoardSource, a top resource for board members. This piece is adapted from The Source: Twelve Principles of Governance That Power Exceptional Boards, a BoardSource publication.
Pull Quote:
Exceptional boards remember the fundamentals of governance, such as financial oversight and the intangibles, such as group dynamics. They think strategically, challenge ideas, and probe for better solutions.
The FuturePerfect Organization: Leadership for 21st Century Clubs
By William A. Guillory
The FuturePerfect Organization is a new organizational model based on creative adaptation to change. The model, which aims to define the best leadership style for the 21st century, can propel your club into a state of exceptional performance, all by leading from the future.
This brief overview presents strategies for implementation and a three-step process for transforming your club into a high-performance operation.
Step One: Creative Adaptation
Almost everyone is guilty of making the “That’s the way we’ve always done it” statement. In fact, one of the trickiest barriers to achieving a creative-adaptive mindset is overcoming processes and ideas that challenge the present way of doing things. However, most everyone would also agree that change can be a good—and necessary—thing.
In order to experience the transformation from liner-adaptive to creative-adaptive thinking, I propose the following strategies, practices and/or behavior:
– Try alternative processes proposed by others—even when we think we are right or have the best present ways of doing things.
– Commit to making the proposal as or more successful than the present way of doing things.
– Evaluate the new processes in terms of results, improved relationships, and the growth of others.
Step Two: The FuturePerfect Paradigm
The successful clubs of the future will be characterized by the following principles of operation:
– Teamwork. Team and organizational success is more important than individual success. Rewards, acknowledgement, and/or compensation for teamwork is greater than for individual achievement.
– Information Management. There is no individual ownership of knowledge, ideas or resources. All assets, tangible or intangible, are comprehensively shared throughout the club.
– Collaboration. The comprehensive integration of collaboration dominates a club’s operation. Practically every task is performed as collaborative or cross-functional learning.
– Multidimensional Employees. Everyone is multi-skilled or has cross-functional competencies. Always remember, there are no indispensable employees.
– Self-Directed Performance. Individuals operate as “intrapreneurs,” and teams operate as “special forces teams.” Employees should be self-led and teams are self-directed.
– Customer Integration. Every activity in the club is a seamless process of exceeding member expectations.
Step Three: Creating a FuturePerfect Work Environment
The following practices and behaviors define the FuturePerfect work environment. Select three to four—or more!—ideas you feel you can begin implementing at your club today.
– Participate in a mentoring relationship on an ongoing basis with a variety of club employees. Use your highest priority responsibilities for mentoring others.
– Create and implement a system for compensation, reward and/or acknowledgment for teamwork and collaboration success.
– Create an intranet network accessible to all employees with updated information important to their established functions.
– Perform every task or project possible as a coaching/learning dyad or a teaming experience.
– Acknowledge and/or reward employees for making others successful in the club.
– Require employees to be multi-skilled at job functions. Remember, everyone can do someone else’s job—even yours!
– Provide a learning experience for everyone to understand what is meant by responsibility, accountability and empowerment and how those terms relate to high performance.
– Establish seamless team relationships with all members you serve.
– Relate to employees on a peer-to-peer basis as often as possible by setting aside rank.
– And most of all, acquire the wisdom to have patience, sensitivity, understanding, empathy and compassion for the people you lead, manage and/or serve.
William A. Guillory, Ph.D., is the founder of Innovations International Inc. This article is based on the book, The FuturePerfect Organization—Drive by Quantum Leadership, by William A. Guillory, Christopher Harding and Daniel Guillory.