I just talked with the outgoing Executive Director of a non-profit who’s worried about one of her younger staff members at the Director-level. She’s concerned that this young woman will quit because the conditions of the job are changing and will put more pressure on this Type AAA personality and perfectionist.
We both laughed about how leaders make mistakes – it’s part of the job description. There’s no room for perfectionism when you’re a leader. Yes, you can strive for excellence, and you can insist on certain standards being met. You quickly come to realize that you have to set priorities for what gets the most attention, and you also realize that imbuing an organization with standards of excellence takes time, energy and money.
Many young leaders find this out when they take on a leadership position in a small non-profit. I was 35 when I became ED of City Harvest. I know now that it was pretty young. Had I known what I was walking into, I still would have taken the job yet would have had more realistic expectations of myself. I would have realized that it would take years to build a high-performing organization and perhaps managed the Board’s expectations a little better.
The pressure to be perfect comes from both internal and external sources. I can only address the internal issues, because external sources – namely the Board – are beyond my control.
Before most of us take on formal leadership positions, we’re in roles where we are doing things and have to produce something for our boss. Bosses usually have standards we have to meet, and when we don’t meet them, we have to do the thing over. Learning to meet the standard is part of gaining mastery over a task. It’s not necessarily preparation for leadership, however, despite the fact that doing our current job really well is often what propels us into leadership roles through a promotion.
I did the best I could with what I knew and based on my experience in the past. That meant I made mistakes, because I’d never been responsible for an entire organization. As the leader of a division in a NYC department, I’d gained a lot of great experience by making many mistakes and turning them to my advantage. Perhaps the biggest error I made was having a performance management meeting with my assistant late on a Friday afternoon. I really valued and liked Charlotte, but there were some aspects of her performance that were lacking, and I told her about them. This was the mistake: saying critical things on Friday afternoon.
When I arrived in the office on Monday morning, I learned that Charlotte was in a coma in the hospital, after a severe asthma attack. It was stunning news. I couldn’t believe my last interaction with her was to tell her I was dissatisfied with some of her work. And while I believe the cats, dogs, ferrets and cigarette smoke in her household contributed greatly to the asthma attack, I also know that stress can exacerbate it. So I felt a little responsible. Charlotte never awoke from that coma, passing away 2 years later. She left an enduring legacy in me, however, for I immediately resolved that getting things done was far less important than the quality of my relationships with other people.
Another mistake I’d made was allowing the pressure from my boss and from the Mayor to pass through me onto my staff, and that my focus was on delivering results, with little regard for people’s feelings. Now, I determined that I would focus more on people, their circumstances, their feelings – and would think of people as members of my team. And I did.
A year later, I was approaching a team member who was orienting an intern. Susan continued talking as I came closer and I could hear her saying, “Yes, a year ago it wasn’t very fun to work her but Julie’s really changed and she’s great to work with.” I put my arm around her and endorsed her words. This was a huge turnaround, where my team felt comfortable enough with me to tell the truth, and for me to welcome that truth.
My department became one that many people wanted to join, which made for some problems with my colleagues who proceeded to make my life more difficult at work. That didn’t matter, however, as I took delight in the amazing work my team did. I protected them from unreasonable pressure and secured resources as possible, and they delivered fantastic results. So I learned that when I pay attention to the quality of my relationships with others, we will together produce great results – we will get things done, and done at an excellent level.
I brought that approach to City Harvest, resolving to create a culture where I wanted to go to work. We would have high standards, because the people we served deserved excellence. We would work together, because a team is more powerful than a collection of individuals. We would have a plan to follow, so we could chart our path and track our progress toward our vision and goals. We would learn from our mistakes and no one would be punished for making a mistake – because then no one would be willing to take any risks and discover new approaches to our work. And we would have fun together, celebrating our successes, and welcoming those who worked with us. We would be a community.
I became fond of saying “there are no mistakes, only opportunities to learn.” That meant we would examine something that seemed to go wrong to discover the causes and see if there was anything we could learn or change.
One example is when the person pulling the mailing list for our big holiday card mailing pulled the wrong list. The mailing was very important to us because it brought in $350,000 at a time when our budget was just over $2 million cash. The card printing and envelopes were donated by corporate supporters. And postage cost a pretty penny because we had to send it first class. The office team eagerly awaited the donations we had seen pour in the previous year, my first with the organization. We did get a lot of responses flood in, but they were “returned, addressee unknown,” “deceased,” and “moved, no forwarding address.” Mark had pulled the “dead file” of names – people who were lapsed donors (hadn’t given in the last 48 months).
He was horrified, as were his boss and I. If ever there was a mistake, this was it. And yet, we also realized that we received some donations from family members who remembered their loved one supporting City Harvest. So it was not all bad news.
Mark felt horrible enough, so what his boss and I did eventually was laugh. Because it was a little funny, really. And his boss sat with him to go over what had happened and they developed a system to ensure that this didn’t happen again. I went to the corporate donors and explained what happened, saying we would of course pay for the printing. Luckily, they saw the humor in it, too, and decided to ask us only to pay for the paper this time. And the way I explained it to the Board, they accepted that the organization was now stronger than it had been because we now had a better system for managing our donor database. Mark went on to do great work, and everybody actually got to celebrate that the mailing to the “dead file” covered its costs after all.
I certainly made more mistakes as did members of my staff and also the Board. Because we had the attitude that we could learn from mistakes by viewing them as growth opportunities, those mistakes didn’t damage morale. There was no punishment. Sure, there was dismay at learning something had gone wrong. Yet more important was that we got out of the dismay, didn’t blame anyone, looked at what had happened and found ways to a) correct the immediate situation, and b) prevent it from happening again, if possible.
Some things are just human error. It happens. If the person could have prevented it happening, I assumed they would, because we all were working for the same mission and purpose. Blame never served anyone, and in fact, I saw it drain energy and enthusiasm from people who then couldn’t be part of the solution.
I learned about this the hard way, through the loss of my assistant, as well as observing what happened to me when I was blamed for making a mistake. I believe I became a better leader because of it. Was I always true to this doctrine? No, because I too am human. The consequences of my veering toward blame were so negative, however, that I apologized and resolved to do better in future, with more and more success as time went on.
How do you think of mistakes?
