1. Association 101
Leadership
Jim Booth, CAE
Executive Director
PRISM International

2. What is Leadership
• Management is pushing people to do things
right
• Leadership is pulling people along so they will
do the right things
• Manage from the rear
• Lead from the front
• A leader lives and shares the vision and
supports all efforts to get there

3. What will we cover

4. Data and Decisions - Sources
• Financials
• Database reports
• Event reports
• Participation metrics
• Comparative Association Data
• Survey results
• Social media postings
• Others?

5. Data and Decisions
• Who prepared the data?
• Is data biased toward a result?
• Is there time to get data from other sources to
compare?
• Is data accurate?
• Is data current?
• Can data be used to make opposite argument
• Stick to the facts if possible – CYA

6. Collaboration
• People do things for their own reasons – you
need to know their reasons and support those
• Treat all parties as equals
• Allow all parties to contribute something
• Maintain transparency in tracking and reporting
• Demonstrate genuine concern for other parties
• Make sure goals are consistent with your goals
and benefit your members

7. Culture
• Is a reflection of the values of the CEO
• May have evolved over decades
• Demands respect and understanding
• Can be changed over time – not quickly
• Requires continuous reinforcement and
communication
• Should be articulated in a statement of values
• Represents the soul of the organization

8. Governance Coaching
• Volunteers may come trained, in training or
untrained – make sure they are all trained
• Governance and leadership are different
• Start training at committee level if possible
• Formalize leader mentoring if possible
• At point of formal orientation, focus on the
“how” – before orientation, focus on the
“why”

9. Strategy
• The means you choose to achieve goals
• Strategy is flexible – as circumstances or
environment changes, strategy changes
• In team-based objectives strategy is interactive –
team members contribute to determination of
strategy
• Must be communicated to all employees and
volunteers
• Must be measured against benchmark
• Should include milestones to measure progress

10. Risk
• Strategy involves risk.
• Risk can be avoided, mitigated, or accepted
• Fail on the fringe, not in the middle
• Measure acceptable risk in terms of reward from
results i.e., member benefit gained or cost
reduction
• Communicate possibility and results of failure to
Board and ask for input – provide alternative for
risk averse
• All innovation involves risk – price of change

11. ASAE Core Ethical Standards
• Respect and uphold public laws that govern one’s
work
• Be honest in conducting the member’s business
• Respect the confidentiality of information gained
through one’s work
• Act fairly
• Foster an ethical culture through one’s work
• Take responsibility for one’s conduct

12. Integrity
• Don’t do or say anything you wouldn’t want to
see on the front page of the newspaper
• Integrity means being whole and complete
• Requires commitment to honesty,
transparency and right action
• Live this and model it for your staff. Discuss it,
and discipline staff who fail to conform
• Use good controls to keep honest people
honest

13. Conflict of Interest
• Create a policy (SOX requires it) or Bylaws
• Introduce as first order of business before
every meeting or call
• Require disclosure of all company interests of
all staff and directors at time of hire or
assumption of office
• Forbid direct staff benefits or perks from
members or vendors

14. Diversity
• Understand the demographic composition of
your membership and volunteers
• Promote information collection and inclusion of
various demographic constituencies
• Hire a staff that reflects, to the greatest degree
possible, the membership’s diversity
• Maintain policies against discrimination and
promoting evaluation of diverse criteria in
creating a representative Board
• Pay attention to language and symbols – act on
feedback from diverse groups

15. Coaching
• Challenge staff to learn new skills – lunch ‘n learn,
shared training opportunities (software)
• Invest in the professional development of staff (AENC,
ASAE, tuition reimbursement, etc.)
• Encourage staff cross training for DR and also for
personal skill building
• Spend individual time taking the temperature of staff
every week
• Show staff the career ladder and how it might progress
• Be willing to lose staff – help them leave if they want

16. Mentoring
• Informal and formal mentoring
• More structured for volunteers – start early in
leadership pipeline
• Treat mentoring as a confidential exercise to
build confidence as well as competency
• Create informal leaders among staff who
“take others under their wing”
• Personally mentor some staff (jealousy!)

17. Facilitation
• Manage the process, not the participants
• Guide leaders in time controls, rules, objectives
and expectations for meetings
• Begin each meeting with a reminder about
mission/vision/key objectives
• Be ruthless in managing the process but
extraordinarily kind with participants
• Use humor and exercises to get past rough spots
• Never take things personally – use a straw man

18. Negotiation
• Always negotiate in good faith.
• Make sure you have authority to bind the
organization on a negotiation
• Highest best use of your time when it comes
to profitable outcomes
• Be a careful listener and restate positions to
clarify and build confidence
• Have concessions ready

19. Conflict: Ladder of Inference

20. Conflict: General
• Address directly and immediately
• Keep your emotions out, breathe deep
• Focus on behaviors, not people - use straw
man if applicable
• Both sides perceive threat – recognize
emotions like fear when restating content and
reflecting emotion
• Solutions must be mutually agreeable – keep
talking and listening till it is resolved