What if you could gather the smartest people you know into one room and ask them anything? Who would be there? What would you ask? Most likely you would want a wide range of advisors who had been there and done that; people who succeeded. You'd want their sage advice on business and life drawn from their real-life experiences.
A new framework for helping nonprofit organizations maximize the effectiveness of their boards. Written by noted consultants and researchers attuned to the needs of practitioners, Governance as Leadership redefines nonprofit governance. It provides a powerful framework for a new covenant between trustees and executives: more macrogovernance in exchange for less micromanagement. Informed by theories that have transformed the practice of organizational leadership, this book sheds new light on the traditional fiduciary and strategic work of the board and introduces a critical third dimension of effective trusteeship: generative governance. It serves boards as both a resource of fresh approaches to familiar territory and a lucid guide to important new territory, and provides a road map that leads nonprofit trustees and executives to governance as leadership. Governance as Leadership was developed in collaboration with BoardSource, the premier resource for practical information, tools and best practices, training, and leadership development for board members of nonprofit organizations. Through its highly acclaimed programs and services, BoardSource enables organizations to fulfill their missions by helping build effective nonprofit boards and offering credible support in solving tough problems. For the latest in nonprofit governance, visit www.boardsource.org, or call us at 1-800-883-6262.
Many nonprofits never take full advantage of their board members. Extraordinary Board Leadership: The Keys to Governing deals with an incredibly important topic - "high-impact governing" - which is at the heart not only of a nonprofit's effectiveness, but also the key to a positive, productive, and enduring board-CEO partnership. This text offers practical, hands-on guidance, which is based on in-depth real-life experience and can be put to immediate use. It goes beyond the old-fashioned "policy governance" approach - beyond the rules - in dealing with the board-CEO-executive staff partnership. The 2nd edition of this successful book includes more case studies and new information aimed at public governing bodies, as well as more tables and charts to accompany a fresh new text design.
Is your firm’s board creating value—or destroying it? Change is coming. Leadership at the top is being redefined as boards take a more active role in decisions that once belonged solely to the CEO. But for all the advantages of increased board engagement, it can create debilitating questions of authority and dangerous meddling in day-to-day operations. Directors need a new road map—for when to lead, when to partner, and when to stay out of the way. Boardroom veterans Ram Charan, Dennis Carey, and Michael Useem advocate this new governance model—a sharp departure from what has been demanded by governance activists, raters, and regulators—and reveal the emerging practices that are defining shared leadership of directors and executives. Based on personal interviews and the authors’ broad and deep experience working with executives and directors from dozens of the world’s largest firms, including Apple, Boeing, Ford, Infosys, and Lenovo, Boards That Lead tells the inside story behind the successes and pitfalls of this new leadership model and explains how to: • Define the central idea of the company • Ensure that the right CEO is in place and potential successors are identified • Recruit directors who add value • Root out board dysfunction • Select a board leader who deftly bridges the divide between management and the board • Set a high bar on ethics and risk With a total of eighteen checklists that will transform board directors from monitors to leaders, Charan, Carey, and Useem provide a smart and practical guide for businesspeople everywhere—whether they occupy the boardroom or the C-suite.
Children in today's world are inundated with information about who to be, what to do and how to live. But what if there was a way to teach children how to manage priorities, focus on goals and be a positive influence on the world around them? The Leader in Meis that programme. It's based on a hugely successful initiative carried out at the A.B. Combs Elementary School in North Carolina. To hear the parents of A. B Combs talk about the school is to be amazed. In 1999, the school debuted a programme that taught The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Peopleto a pilot group of students. The parents reported an incredible change in their children, who blossomed under the programme. By the end of the following year the average end-of-grade scores had leapt from 84 to 94. This book will launch the message onto a much larger platform. Stephen R. Covey takes the 7 Habits, that have already changed the lives of millions of people, and shows how children can use them as they develop. Those habits -- be proactive, begin with the end in mind, put first things first, think win-win, seek to understand and then to be understood, synergize, and sharpen the saw -- are critical skills to learn at a young age and bring incredible results, proving that it's never too early to teach someone how to live well.
Nonprofit leadership is messy Nonprofits leaders are optimistic by nature. They believe with time, energy, smarts, strategy and sheer will, they can change the world. But as staff or board leader, you know nonprofits present unique challenges. Too many cooks, not enough money, an abundance of passion. It’s enough to make you feel overwhelmed and alone. The people you help need you to be successful. But there are so many obstacles: a micromanaging board that doesn’t understand its true role; insufficient fundraising and donors who make unreasonable demands; unclear and inconsistent messaging and marketing; a leader who’s a star in her sector but a difficult boss… And yet, many nonprofits do thrive. Joan Garry’s Guide to Nonprofit Leadership will show you how to do just that. Funny, honest, intensely actionable, and based on her decades of experience, this is the book Joan Garry wishes she had when she led GLAAD out of a financial crisis in 1997. Joan will teach you how to: Build a powerhouse board Create an impressive and sustainable fundraising program Become seen as a ‘workplace of choice’ Be a compelling public face of your nonprofit This book will renew your passion for your mission and organization, and help you make a bigger difference in the world.
THE PRACTITIONER’S GUIDE TO GOVERNANCE AS LEADERSHIP The Practitioner’s Guide to Governance as Leadership offers a resource that shows how to achieve excellence and peak performance in the boardroom by putting into practice the groundbreaking model that was introduced in the book, Governance as Leadership. This proven model of effective governance explores how to attain proficiency in three governance modes or mindsets: fiduciary, strategic, and generative. Throughout the book, author Cathy Trower offers an understanding of the Governance as Leadership model through a wealth of illustrative examples of high-performing nonprofit boards. She explores the challenges of implementing governance as leadership and suggests ideas for getting started and overcoming barriers to progress. In addition, Trower provides practical guidance for optimizing the practices that will improve organizational performance including: flow (high skill and high purpose), discernment, deliberation, divergent thinking, insight, meaningfulness, consequence to the organization, and integrity. In short, the book is a combination of sophisticated thinking, instructive vignettes, illustrative documents, and practical recommendations. The book includes concrete strategies that can help improve critical thinking in the boardroom, a board’s overall performance as a team, as well as information for creating a strong governance culture and understanding what is required of an effective CEO and a chairperson. To determine a board’s fitness and help the members move forward, the book contains three types of assessments: board members evaluate each other; individual board member assessments; and an overall team assessment. This practitioner’s guide is written for nonprofit board members, chief executives, senior staff members, and anyone who wants to reflect on governance, discern how to govern better, and achieve higher performance in the process.
For generations, the cozy, standard model of boardroom leadership was simple: The CEO was also Chairman of the Board, and directors rubberstamped his initiatives. The 2002 Sarbanes-Oxley Act forced radical change on all U.S. public corporations: The board must now hold sessions without management, key committees have tough new independence rules, and all board members now face an unavoidable legal responsibility to provide truly independent oversight of the corporation. Missteps can put companies and individual directors in serious legal danger. The result is an urgent demand that corporate boards develop their own confident, independent leaders from within. But how? That's something that governance expert Ralph Ward, in The New Boardroom Leaders, explains in detail. Until now, no one has tracked and compiled answers to new, basic governance questions. What should a lead director's job description include? Why is a separate chair not necessarily an independent chair? How do you shape an agenda for meetings of independent directors? How do CEOs and the new board leaders divide their roles? How much power should a separate board leader really have? This book answers these questions and more. Companies are scrambling to create new procedures and roles. But there are few job descriptions for these new boardroom leaders—something this book provides, as well as a wealth of insights and tips. The New Boardroom Leaders offers the first inside look at how board leaders actually do their jobs, based on extensive interviews and research. The emphasis will be on practical advice from real board leaders on what worked in their boardrooms, what didn't, and what they expect in the future. It will become a longtime, worthy guide for board members in the new world brought on by Sarbanes-Oxley and the quest for ever-better, and strictly ethical, corporate performance.
As our society faces more complex challenges, the demand for effective leadership grows. Leaders, especially education leaders, often need to solve complicated problems quickly with limited resources. Understanding their own leadership styles, roles, and practices enhances the impact that leaders have every day. Leading Every Day offers direction on providing high-quality leadership amid turbulent times. Modeling the philosophy that leadership exists in all of us, the authors inspire educators to lead in big and small ways. This second edition offers: inspirational stories illustrating effective leadership, cogent quotations for educators to carry with them each day, actionable advice that can be implemented today, invitations for larger discourse that can change the lives of leaders and the lives of those they lead, and the latest research on best practices in leadership, change, professional development, and group leadership.