Political Leadership of Not-For-Profits

Margot Cairnes March 24, 2009

4 min read

As a leader of a not-for-profit, the first thing to be aware of is what an amazing job you are doing. The corporate sector has the capacity to pay high wages, offer attractive job advancement prospects, and share and profit schemes. In the not-for-profit sector, you have reduced budgets, highly inquisitive and critical stakeholders, and big jobs to do. For this you have to offer job satisfaction, job satisfaction and job satisfaction.

Having run a large not-for-profit for many years, and having consulted and been on the board of several others since, I am always amazed by the capacity and willingness of not-for-profit leaders to work as volunteers and on lower wages than the same job would attract in the corporate sector. I have been equally amazed by the pretence that the not-for-profit sector is nonpolitical.

Studies into the amount of politicisation of different sectors show that the least political sector is government; the most is religious organisations, and surprisingly, not-for-profits. The corporate world is in the middle. In trying to make sense of this, I realised that in government organisations and political parties, acting politically is the norm. It is overt, accepted and, therefore, easier to see, learn and play.

In my experience in not-for-profits, you are rarely trained in the political rules because the pretence is that they don’t exist.

Some of the most brutal politics I have ever witnessed have been in religious organisations where there isn’t supposed to be any politics. Decisions are meant to be made by communicating with God.

In government, one can disagree with a colleague or boss. It is very difficult to disagree if someone is telling you that God told them to do something. Disagreeing with the Almighty is way too challenging for most of us. Moreover, there is always the argument that, as not-for-profits, we are dealing with people in need, we are all deeply caring people, and therefore what we do and say to each other is far less important than what we do for our clients.

While government and the corporate sector can learn a lot from not-for-profits about staff and volunteer motivation, not-for-profits can learn a lot from government and the corporate world about healthy politics. Having worked with leaders of global multinationals for several decades, what I have seen is that there is healthy and unhealthy politics. Healthy politics is overt, spoken, and strategically effective. Unhealthy politics is covert, unspoken and dysfunctional, and leads to strategic folly.

Politics is actually skill in the capacity to get things done. When politics is overt, people acknowledge that getting anything done involves buy in by key stakeholders. This often involves lobbying, i.e. sitting down individually, in small and big groups with key stakeholders, and educating them on the proposed changes or courses of action.

Getting things done can involve getting people to put controversial issues on the agenda, discussing hot potatoes and deflecting unwanted media attention from challenging changes. This is, in fact, the process of influence. In politics this is accepted as the norm. In the corporate sector, this is known to be necessary but is often rejected in favour of task orientation. In the not-for-profit sector, it is often seen as unnecessary and yet it happens everywhere.

As a young woman I had the great privilege of managing Darwin Family Centres, a multimillion dollar organisation answering to twelve community committees and three levels of government. We provided most of the childcare and family support for Darwin and its surrounds. In my naivety I remember thinking that my job was to provide childcare and family support. Slowly, I realised that my job was to manage the political relationships with the community committees, the government, the unions, the media, the staff, and the parents. Providing childcare and family support was for me, as the leader, a pleasant outcome from getting the necessary stakeholders moving together in the same positive direction.

What can not-for-profits learn from the corporate sector?

Politics is real, alive and everywhere. The rule of thumb is: that which is conscious can be managed positively, and that which is unconscious, covert and hidden, rules you. So legitimise politics. People are people. They continually influence each other so make that okay, surface it, and learn to do it well, openly and for the common good.
People need to be influenced to get things done. This is, in fact, the work of a leader. Good leaders play good politics, i.e. they influence others for the common good.

The aim of the game is to achieve the outcome, not to have your point of view win the day. Politicians and business leaders are notorious for doing deals. This is because they are after an outcome. Sometimes this outcome means they appear to lose or their organisation appears to lose, like in the case of a merger where often leaders allow their companies to be taken over because it is in the best interests of shareholders. Many not-for-profits fight an ideological war at the expense of the wider game.

Measurement helps. Politics is blessed by the voting system, business by the need to make a profit. Because the desired outcomes are named and measured, influencing people to achieve the outcomes is considered okay. When the aim of the exercise is to do good, along some particular ideological line, measurement of the outcome is harder. Judgment of success then often rests on how pure an ideological line one is walking and this can lead to the most invidious politics.

So, to have skill in the capacity to get things done as a not-for-profit leader: