There’s no doubt that more intelligent leaders are needed to deal with the emerging challenges and demands of today’s world. So what does it take to be one?
There’s no doubt that more intelligent leaders are needed to deal with the emerging challenges and demands of today’s world. So what does it take to be one?
Bronwyn Sheehan is the founder and CEO of the Pyjama Foundation, a not-for-profit organisation that transforms the lives of children in foster care through education. Since the Foundation’s inception in 2004, they’ve trained 4,000 volunteers with the values-driven leadership Bronwyn has worked to embed in the organisation and its staff.
For her work, Bronwyn was awarded Qld Australian of the Year in 2009, and was a national finalist in the 2008 Telstra Business Women’s Awards. In the lead-up to her presentation at the 2016 Not-For-Profit People Conference, we spoke to Bronwyn about her journey, and how she’s managed to establish an organisation with such a committed volunteer workforce, from the ground up.
It’s difficult to talk about power. Mentioning power can conjure up memories of encounters with parents, teachers, bosses, the law, family or partners who have exercised power over over us in negative ways.
But power relationships are woven throughout our lives, and throughout our workplaces. And being clear about who holds power – particularly the power to make decisions – in your organisation, as well as ensuring that structure reflects your organisation’s shared values – will mean that staff and volunteers understand how and why power works as it does. And that can mean the difference between an empowered staff member, and a disempowered, disengaged one.
In the lead-up to his presentation at the 2016 Not-For-Profit People Conference, Monash Business School professor and servant leadership expert Dr Sen Sendjaya shares his insights on servant leadership, including why it’s a particularly powerful approach for NFP organisations.
In the lead-up to her keynote address at the 2016 Not-For-Profit People Conference in November, we spoke to Oxfam’s Chief Executive Dr Helen Szoke about leading teams through transformative change – the highs, the lows, and what you can learn from one of Australia’s leading international aid and development NGOs to apply to your organisation’s change processes.
This is the story of how one fundraising team boosted their weekly productivity by 400 percent.
It wasn’t due to pay rises or catered lunches – or even an inspiring or well-trained manager giving staff the motivation to do their work better. So what was it?
If you’re a manager in an Australian NFP, it’s quite likely you haven’t received any formal leadership training. Indeed, one study found that leaders on average only received leadership training a full decade after they started managing people.
But what if there was one simple thing you could do now that would dramatically increase your success as a manager and leader?
Ongoing workplace boredom can impact your team in a way that’s comparable to chronic stress.
If not addressed, a staff member’s boredom can quickly transform into resentment. That can then lead to them ‘checking out’ – beyond being passively uninterested, the staff member becomes bitter and no longer wants to work at an organisation they don’t care about.
Did you know that up to 70 percent of organisational change initiatives fail?
A new guide to change management can help ensure yours isn’t one of them.
Much has been said on the topic of giving feedback – it’s vital to building an effective team and boosting productivity, among other things.
But what do you do if you’ve given a team member feedback and they ignore you? Or get defensive? Or even begin to evade discussions involving feedback?