Leading volunteers - a valuable experience

As I prepared my presentation, I went back to an article I’d written about the joys and benefits of volunteering in this column back in 2008, in which I described how leadership opportunities are readily available in such environments and how they then benefit us in our professional lives. Here’s what I said…

As you rise to positions of leadership, which you almost inevitably do in this world of enthusiastic amateurs, you are tested in a most demanding environment, as people are only there because they choose to be.

You can’t give them a pay rise or fire them, and so the means available for motivating them are quite restricted. In Rotary it boils down to helping your members find meaningful projects to pursue and then recognising them for the progress they make.

You become an expert at organisational politics and conflict resolution. You engage with the delicate egos of demanding people – many of whom are bosses in their professional lives.

You may become chairman of the board, including having to run those potentially explosive AGMs, and you must groom a worthy successor.

Through it all you are strongly advised to keep a light touch, or it can thoroughly wear you down. Let me tell you, there’s no better way of testing and strengthening yourself as a leader.

In my talk, I noted that some volunteers are better than others in dealing with people, and that many of those who fall short lack the self-awareness to recognise this to be an issue.

So, I encouraged everyone to seek feedback and take the opportunity presented by this alternative environment to develop their interpersonal skills.

Including by assessing themselves on Blake’s Managerial Grid, which helps you rate your focus on people relative to your focus on tasks – where the goal is to be high on both, not merely on one or the other.

In volunteer settings, it is particularly important that organisational pyramids be quite flat, so that members are trusted and empowered and hence motivated and engaged.

What a great way to experiment in ways you might currently be finding too risky in your workplace, and then applying what you will have learnt there.

You may be exposed to aligning energy between projects, between functions, between generations, between levels, all of which learning you can take back to your day-job.

This requires confident humility, with an ego that’s in check, and all other aspects of emotional intelligence that build positive relationships.

As you join a volunteer set up, be it a professional or business association, a school or a hospital, a service organisation or a religious body, a sports or social club, you name it, you become exposed to skills to do with areas like strategic planning, building partnerships, budgeting, project management, fund raising, chairing committees, taking minutes, on and on. All through learning by doing.

One of the presidents who listened to my talk then invited me to speak on the same subject to his Rotary Club – where he would be the only president present.

So here I adapted my earlier talk to include messages for future leaders, for those who aspired to become presidents of their club… which many justifiably did.

My questions to them were these: What will be your best, you most enjoyable, memory after your time as president? What sustainable impact will have been felt? What will you be proudest of? How do you need to continue learning and growing to make sure you become an effective leader and that this happens?

Now I conclude by challenging you to become a volunteer somewhere if you are not one already. It will most likely greatly accelerate your development in so many ways, and assuming you join a well-run entity, so much of the learning and growth can be applied back to other aspects of your life.

And if it is not well-run, your learning opportunity is even greater, as you work to professionalise the place! Oh, and did I forget to mention that meanwhile you will be doing good in the world?

The writer the is chairman of management consultancy The DEPOT, and co-founder of the Institute for Responsible Leadership.  [email protected]