Leading Into a Storm

Hello, Chad Weinstein here.  I am pleased to introduce Fran Lyon-Dugin to this blog.  Fran is a new member of the ELA team and we are very excited to have her. She provides strategic consulting and leadership development services as a member of Ethical Leaders in Action.  This post draws from her significant leadership experience. You can read about Fran’s background on our profiles page.

Leading Into a Storm
By Fran Lyon-Dugin

Our organization was integrating 13 sub-units into one, as part of a nationwide consolidation of a large nonprofit. As CEO of the largest of these sub-units, I had a vested interest in making sure that my employees ended up with jobs in the new unit. Many of them were new, young professionals; some had worked for the organization for over 20 years; some were near retirement. Many of the more senior ones had never had a resume, nor applied for any other job in their career.

I knew what the new CEO would do after the merger: quickly build an organizational chart and have employees apply for “new” jobs, some of which would be different than the ones we had previously. I decided that we needed help, so I called in an HR consultant to do some workshops. We did one on change management, one on resume writing, and she and I both offered one-on-one meetings with employees to work on their resumes. I allowed some daily work to slack so that this work could be done; it was important to their futures. My days were filled with discussions of skillsets, experience, interests, and recalling victories and successes that could be translated into completed deliverables on a resume. The CEOs of the other sub-units had a different approach: withhold information about what was going on, shelter the employees so that they would not fret and stew, and act like nothing was going to change. They were surprised and critical of how I was handling things, and were not hesitant to let me know it.

The search committee moved ahead, and a new CEO was selected. (It was not me, but that is another, very different, story.) Sure enough, the new CEO sent out a new organizational chart within days, and she announced that interviews would be held in two weeks. My staff was ready, resumes in hand, and they excitedly searched the new organizational chart for the jobs that interested them. Out of 21 staff, only three were not placed in the new organization. We fared much better than the other sub-units, where many staff were blindsided….and downsized.

As I reflect on that experience, I can apply ELA’s Virtues of Ethical Leadership: Competence, Creativity, Clarity and Courage, all leading to Service. I believe that the virtue of Clarity provided me with vision, the capacity to see and describe a compelling picture of the future.  It helped me discern and evaluate the reality ahead of us….that we would be required to adapt and change, quickly, and that staff needed to be ready.  The virtue of Courage enabled me to do what was right in the face of difficulties….employees that were scared, concerned for their futures; peers that were critical and disapproving; day-to-day priorities that had to be set aside for this important work. It was a difficult time, but one that I can reflect on positively and know that I had practiced these virtues in order to serve the staff.  The Robert K. Greenleaf Center for Servant Leadership shares that “The servant-leader shares power, puts the needs of others first and helps people develop and perform as highly as possible.”

At Ethical Leaders in Action we believe that most, if not all people, can develop themselves to play leadership roles in many different spheres both large and small. The foundation of this development process is a short but powerful list of virtues which can be developed and improved through conscious effort. For more information feel free to take the Virtues of Ethical Leadership Self Inventory (VELSI) which breaks these virtues down into features that can be individually developed. The results of the VELSI come with a quick reference guide to help you understand how the virtues and their individual features fit together. https://ethinact.com/velsi/

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