Welcome to our latest issue of Leader Points — Centerpoint for Leaders and The Points of Light Foundation's newest e-publication to give you relevant and concise information on leadership and organizational development.

By Sandra Trice Gray

Measuring Volunteering

Quantitative measurement of volunteering is valuable because it can: a) show government and other potential stakeholders that volunteering makes an important contribution to society and therefore deserves their support; b) provide accurate and up-to-date data that will enable policymakers to make informed decisions about volunteering, c) encourage citizens to volunteer by demonstrating the social and personal benefits that volunteering can bring, d) educate the media and the private, public, and nonprofit sectors about volunteering, e) demonstrate links between national and community service, f) provide information that organizations can use to improve their volunteer programs and benefit the people who volunteer in them.

The toolkit takes the form of a practical, jargon-free guide intended to be useful to a broad range of audiences: policymakers in national, regional, and local government; researchers in academic institutions; grantmaking trusts and foundations; volunteer-involving organizations in the private, public, and nonprofit sectors; and community-based organizations.

The entire pdf toolkit, provided by Independent Sector, is available here.

Here are a few selected practices from the list:

Monitor fulfillment of the vision plan. Team performance in accomplishing objectives of the organization’s vision statement can be evaluated with tools such as a Gantt Chart with activities provided in a matrix, in sequential order, and units of time needed to complete each. Adapted From: Innovative Leadership in the Nonprofit Organization by Miriam P. Kluger and William A. Baker.

Assign responsibilities in accomplishing the vision. Assign strategic objectives of the vision statement to leadership team members according to their experiences, strengths and interests; an objective can be assigned to an individual or more than one person. Adapted From: Innovative Leadership in the Nonprofit Organization by Miriam P. Kluger and William A. Baker.

Charter a sound vision planning process. To fulfill strategic objectives of the vision statement, create guidelines that detail what planning would cover, within what time frames, and within what budgetary and other constraints. Adapted From: Innovative Leadership in the Nonprofit Organization by Miriam P. Kluger and William A. Baker.

Create strategic objectives with measurable expectations. Once you have identified your goals, have team members break them down into measurable objectives where progress can be assessed objectively. Adapted From: Innovative Leadership in the Nonprofit Organization by Miriam P. Kluger and William A. Baker.

Convert the vision to goals and establish priorities. Once the vision has been developed, the goals have to be identified and prioritized; the goals should incorporate both the organizational and management visions. Adapted From: Innovative Leadership in the Nonprofit Organization by Miriam P. Kluger and William A. Baker.

The top executive should set the tone for the leadership group. The top executive should assume seldom and explain frequently; he or she should manage bumps in the problem-solving process among members and take as much time as necessary to achieve consensus. Adapted From: Innovative Leadership in the Nonprofit Organization by Miriam P. Kluger and William A. Baker.

Cited and used with permission of the Nonprofit Good Practice Guide, The Dorothy A. Johnson Center for Philanthropy and Nonprofit Leadership: www.nonprofitbasics.org.

You may view the entire list here.

		Correction: We regret that an item was published in our March 21 newsletter, Leader Points, that was not intended for wide distribution, and did not include correct attribution to its source. "Nonprofit Business Planning: What's the Deal?" by Brigette Rouson is from the Alliance for Nonprofit Management's members-only ENHANCE newsletter, and is copyright protected.
The photograph that appeared in the e-mailed newsletter digest does not depict Brigette Rouson. The correct photo is included here.

If there is a topic on leadership or organizational development that you would like to share or see us address, please send us an e-mail at info@centerpointforleaders.org.

by Michael Hudson, Ph.D., Everyday Leader

Recently the subject of negotiation has been playing a central role in my life. It started somewhat intellectually with the development of a new learning module for a client, but it has rapidly become a day-to-day reality . . . the importance of assessing the true strength of your position in order to define your negotiation strategy.
Here are some ways to accomplish this:

1. Identify all of the stengths and weaknesses of your position. Key thought questions include: What do you have that the other party wants and cannot get elsewhere? What is your Achilles heel?
2. Determine the outcome(s) you want from the negotiation. Key thought questions include: Is there an outcome that allows both parties to win?
3. Define your walk-away position. Key thought questions include: What are the non-negotiables from your point of view?
4. Map out your strategy. Key thought questions include: How will you share your desired outcomes with the other party? At what point in the negotiation will you reveal your bottom line desires?
5. Write everything down.

Cited with permission from Everydayleader.com. To read the whole article, with more detail, click here.

by Ann Lehman

What is leadership? Leadership is an influence process: the ability to motivate others to do something, believe something or act a certain way. Leadership style is the pattern of behaviors you use when you are trying to influence the behavior of others. Here's what we look for in a leader:

1. VISION: being able to articulate the future in clear simple language.
2. You must understand what MOTIVATES people.
3. One new trait, a current buzz phrase that was just coming on the scene ten years ago, is EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE (EI).
4. You must be able to EMPOWER others.
5. You must be TRUSTWORTHY.
6. Leaders must be willing to take RISKS.
7. A leader should be able to FOCUS & FOLLOW THROUGH.
8. And finally, but certainly not last — it helps to have a sense of HUMOR.

Cited and used with permission from Zimmerman-Lehman. To read the entire article, click here.

by Ron Crossland

"I want to be cool, I want to be daring, I want to push the edge, but I don't want to be competent." While [my former partner] Tom believes leaders need competency as a baseline of performance, what he railed against was the conformity that accompanies competency in today's world of the six-sigma mindset.

Too many leadership development programs are designed to homogenize rather than individualize leaders. These programs and the attending books that precede them move against the heart of North American business — innovation. And to be innovative, you must be an individual. Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote in Self-Reliance: "There is a time in every man's education when he arrives at the conviction that envy is ignorance; that imitation is suicide; that he must take himself for better, for worse, as his portion; that though the wide universe is full of good, no kernel of nourishing corn can come to him but through his toil bestowed on that plot of ground which is given to him to till."

Cited and used with permission from Bluepoint Leadership Development. To read the entire article in PDF format, click here.

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