03/13/2018

A Leadership Paradox

The skills to get an organization going and to fuel it over the long haul aren’t always the same thing

There are skills required to get an organization going, and there are skills required to fuel it over the long haul. Unfortunately, they aren’t always the same thing.

What’s one of the greatest ironies of association leadership? According to Jeff Hurt of Velvet Chainsaw, it’s that the skills that got an association off the ground aren’t necessarily the same skills that will take it into the future.

“An association’s Achilles heel flares when its volunteer leadership become entrenched in past practices as the only way to manage the organization,” Hurt writes in a recent post. “These leaders don’t want to give up decision-making responsibilities and want to avoid growth.”

He notes that many association volunteers rise into leadership because of their trade or professional accomplishments, but they may be less adept at running an organization. “Likewise, they have a limited amount of volunteer time they can dedicate to the organization,” says Hurt. “At some point, that association reaches its leadership resource capacity stage.”

Please select this link to read the complete article from Associations Now.