I believe being a non-profit leader in the 21st Century is one of the toughest roles in leadership! The ongoing reality of thin budgets and fierce competition for donor dollars and volunteer time against the passion and altruism of a host of staff and volunteers requires the leader to have a unique mix of attitudes, knowledge and skills.  It is this backdrop that provides the inspiration for our latest book, “The Missing Piece for Non-Profit Leaders: Achieving Sustainable Programs through Business Alignment”.  In this book, we apply the elements of Business Alignment to assist Non-Profit Leaders in creating their Vision, Strategy and Goals to achieve sustainable success.As Tom Okarma, an experienced non-profit executive in his own right, stated in the book’s Foreword, “Finally, here is a book that specifically addresses the issues and speaks directly to non-profit leaders to show them how their agencies can make that elusive leap to the...

Effective Communications, Goal Planning, Time Management, Prioritization.  These are skills at the heart of sustainable leadership.  Not because they exist from time to time but because they are habits of effective leaders, they exist repetitively and are consistent over time.  That is the idea behind "Better Than Before" by Gretchen Rubin.  While drawing upon the latest research, she also uses herself as her own study to see and feel firsthand what it takes to set and make something a habit.My favorite chapter is titled, “Nothing Stays in Vegas: Loophole Spotting” where she talks about the loopholes we rationalize our inability to maintain a habit.  She pretty much covers nearly all the reasons why people procrastinate and I recognized a few of them from working with my own clients.  In that same vein, my other favorite chapter is titled, “Someone’s Watching: Accountability” which clearly speaks to the value of enlisting the help...

This month I had the pleasure of contributing to Entrepreneur Magazine in Lisa Evans’ 8/12/15 article titled, “Why Entrepreneurs Especially Need to Take a Vacation”. In it, we talked about the importance of stepping away from the business and taking a true break from the business. This is especially true for entrepreneurs who likely started the business and become physically and emotionally invested in all aspects of the business. In truth, the best measure of health of an entrepreneurial business is best described by how well leaders at the top delegate to their next level of managers. How does the business run in the absence of the top leader? What happens when the owner gets sick or has to step away for unintended circumstances? The other value of taking a vacation is the health of the leaders themselves. Intellectually, we know that physical health has a direct effect on mental acuity...

One of the best things a leader can do for another is to be their mentor. I recently met the author as we are both alumni of the same college, The United States Military Academy at West Point. Alan Landry’s book, “Growing Mentor Intelligence™, A Field Guide to Mentoring” is an easy to read and understand guide to being an effective mentor and mentor partner (more on that in a bit). In the classic sense, this mentoring relationship usually meant a more seasoned executive mentoring an up-and-coming leader to help them gain the experience needed to effectively achieve their goals. In the non-classic sense, it still means an experienced professional mentoring a less-experienced professional in helping them achieve their goals. In a perfect sense, the best of both worlds occurs and both parties benefit from the mentoring partnership. My favorite part of the book is Chapter 6: Tools to Empower Mentor...

Achieving Sustainable Growth through Business Alignment As we wrap up Small Business Appreciation Month, I reflect on the many entrepreneurs and small business owners I have worked with in the past as well as those who I currently work with. It is these innovative, hardworking, sometimes frustrating and all the time inspirational business leaders who motivated me to publish, “The Missing Piece for Entrepreneurs – Achieving Sustainable Growth through Business Alignment”! It provides a framework to help the many current and future entrepreneurs and small business owners successfully thrive as a key component of a growing economy. In the book’s Foreword, Joe Abraham, noted entrepreneur and author of “Entrepreneurial DNA” wrote about three groups of entrepreneurs. Of the third group he wrote, “Then there’s the minority – I call the elite – that have invested the time and energy to go through the process you are about to go through. The...