Outsourcing Leadership Development - Pros and Consultants
Bill Belichick, the most successful coach in NFL history, continuously tells his players "Do your job."
If each athlete focuses all their efforts on their particular responsibilities within the team strategy they should win. The logic makes sense and the results are pretty convincing. But that model depends on having the right resources, people, information, and support.
Charities rarely have all of those things. Especially in the small and mid-sized organizations Catalyst usually works with.
Charity leaders, especially in an ongoing pandemic, struggle to align limited funds, staff, energy, and capacity among all the competing demands that fit within the broad idea of "do your job". The needs are relentless and even the most effective among us have to prioritize. Unfortunately, we can't do it all.
Often this means we find ourselves delaying, reducing, or totally neglecting leadership development for ourselves and our team. We all know it's important, it just slides down our to do list a little too far to be handled properly. (The fact that most donors aren't enthusiastic about funding conferences and staff retreats doesn't help.)
This challenge is one of the reasons Catalyst offers our One Year Leadership Intensive.
By providing individual monthly leadership coaching for senior leaders paired with a series of webinars and team training sessions that speak to the needs of both individuals and teams we hope to take one important part of "do your job" off the to do list and lock it into your calendar. We can guide the process for a year with tools and a model that have proven effective. You can focus on all the other priorities knowing that a significant investment is being made in developing Healthy Leaders and a Healthy Organization.
That's not to say that our program is the ideal fit for everyone. If you are a leader who excels at developing yourself and your people and you want to prioritize that among your responsibilities we want to cheer you on. Maybe a one time session of ours can add to the good things you're doing. If you have a thriving HR or Leadership department that has the capacity to deliver internal training, or your executives and managers are skilled and committed to doing this work that's excellent.
But if you recognize that some outside involvement would be beneficial there are lots of consultants, conferences, and tools that may be a great fit. We're always happy to recommend great people and resources (you can see some every month in our Catalyst Content newsletter).
Choosing the right outside voices to enhance what you are doing to strengthen your leadership and your team can be difficult. We always prefer to have a good conversation with you to understand both what your organization needs and if there's a natural connection between us. Tools are great, but the best consultant for you will go beyond the tools with strong rapport and an intuitive sense of how to adapt to the particular realities you are facing right now.
We are actively recruiting for the 2022 Leadership Intensive. If it could be a fit for your team's development next year we'd love to talk about it. If you are confident in what you are providing for your team but could benefit from some individual leadership support and guidance consider PACE sessions. And if a single session using one of our tools or a custom approach suited to the specifics of your situation would help we have those options too.
Whether it's with us, another excellent provider, or your own internal approach, we want to encourage you to continue to see developing leadership in your organization as an essential aspect of what it means to "do your job".
Photo by Eric Steinhauer from Pexels