For many people reading this book, this chapter could be called “Working with Yourself,” because as the only paid person, the title “executive director” describes you, as does the all-encompassing title of “staff.” Nonetheless, even if you are a sole staff person, you may find this chapter helpful in avoiding mistakes once your organization is big enough to hire someone in the development role. Some organizations are lucky enough to have one or more volunteers who devote themselves to fundraising, being in essence unpaid staff. If you supervise people in this role, you will want to review this chapter. But mostly, if you are a development director working with an executive director, this chapter is about you.

As development director, the executive director can be your greatest ally or your biggest challenge, but rarely anything in between. The job of the development director is an odd one in the sense that you report to and are accountable to the executive director, yet your job includes organizing the executive director’s time efficiently with regard to fundraising—which means telling your boss what to do. To work effectively with an executive director requires discussing early on in your tenure how the executive director wants you to present the fundraising tasks that he or she is to carry out and how the executive director intends to be accountable to that work. Here’s how an ideal working relationship between an executive director and a development director would play out.

At the beginning of the year, the executive director and the development director create a draft fundraising plan. Perhaps the development director does most of the work on the plan and then brings it to the executive director to discuss, but the executive director is familiar with it and believes it is the appropriate plan for the year. These two staff go over the plan in great detail with the board leadership, such as the fundraising and finance committees. Board members’ suggestions for changes are incorporated, then someone from the board presents the plan to the full board, ideally receiving enthusiastic buy-in (or at least willingness to do the job) from the full board. The development director feels supported by the executive director in all her efforts to work with the board and with the executive director. The executive director sees the development director as a partner in the financial future of the organization—a junior partner perhaps, but still someone she turns to for advice and whose counsel and instincts she trusts. The development director, in turn, sees the executive director as someone she learns from and whom she likes and respects. If not friends, at least these two see themselves as strong colleagues, interested in each other’s opinions on a wide variety of topics related to running the organization.

Some co-workers develop this relationship naturally. They are usually people who are competent, not competitive and not controlling, more committed to the mission of the organization than to their own ambition, and able to delegate tasks and share information. Each appreciates the strengths and talents of the other, and they have complementary skills. These people are not without their struggles or disagreements, but they are able to be straightforward in conversation and listen to each other, and they are willing to take the time to work things out.

People who do not naturally subsume themselves to the work of the organization can still have a strong working relationship if they work at it a bit. These are usually people who are competent but can be controlling, who are committed to the mission of the group but wanting personal recognition, who are so overwhelmed with work that they have trouble sorting out what can be delegated and what cannot, and who keep information to themselves more out of sheer inability to find the time to share it than any real intent to conceal. Again, honesty in communication and a commitment not to harbor resentments will help this be an effective working relationship. It is also important to note that chronic overwork with no praise or recognition of effort can cause anyone to become difficult to work with.

DEVELOPING A GOOD RELATIONSHIP

Unfortunately, there are far too many situations in which the relationship between the executive director and the development director does not work. Although some of these poor relations may be primarily the fault of the development director, the majority have their roots in the work style of the executive director. Here are the most common reasons a productive relationship between executive director and development director fails to occur:

• The executive director’s successes eventually mean that the organization grows beyond her ability to run it. Rather than admit that she has reached her limit of competence, the executive director becomes more and more controlling and may actually shrink the organization back down to a size she can manage. This dynamic is particularly prone to occur with executive directors who were founders of the organization.
• The executive director has been at the organization too long. He feels tired and has lost enthusiasm for the work, but he stays in the job because he can’t imagine what to do next, or he is afraid he won’t find another job. Mediocrity becomes the standard of work. Other staff, as well as the board and volunteers, follow the lead of the executive director and exhibit the same mediocrity.
• The executive director is sensitive to criticism, even defensive. She creates a work environment in which only total loyalty to her is acceptable and questioning her decisions or directions is perceived as insubordination. Creativity is squelched.
• The executive director is afraid to ask for money and will not help with fundraising from individual donors. Often this fear is disguised as “I can’t deal with a bunch of little gifts. Let’s just get a foundation grant.”
• The executive director doesn’t trust the board members or wants to retain power, so does not share decision making with them. Few if any boards will actively engage in fundraising if they are not involved in policymaking and other board activities, so the board is little use in fundraising.
• The executive director is threatened by the development director’s knowledge of fundraising and feels that his own lack of knowledge will be perceived as incompetence. He continually belittles the development director’s ideas or ignores them altogether.
• The executive director’s job is too big. She works between sixty and seventy hours every week, which means she is often at the office on weekends; she rarely takes a vacation (and then is responding to e-mail and sending work-related text messages several times a day); she expects the same effort from the other employees, even though she will protest that she does not. Such people do not realize that they simply disguise the cost of doing business, and they wonder why they have high employee turnover.
• The executive director believes that the development director’s job is to get the money. He wants the development director to bring in the cash, no questions asked. He is slightly embarrassed that the organization needs money at all.

There are many other variations on these themes, but these are the most common. If you are already working for an executive director who has one or two of these characteristics, it is possible to make a change in the staff dynamic, usually with the help of a coach or a consultant. If your executive director has several of these characteristics, it is more likely that you will need to find another job. To guarantee that you don’t take a job where these dynamics prevail, make sure that you know what you have the right to expect from an organization and an executive director and what they have the right to expect from you.

One of the best ways to develop good working relationships is to be absolutely clear about your job. Your job is to coordinate the fundraising function of the organization. You are to make sure that all fundraising tasks are completed, one of which is to help the executive director complete his or her tasks. You lead by pushing others into doing the work, and your job is to involve as many people in fundraising as possible so that the organization can raise as much money as it needs from as many sources as you can manage. You also set an example of being able to ask for money by soliciting some major gifts, but you are not the only, or even the main, solicitor.

Given that these are your responsibilities, the executive director should expect that you and she would work closely together to create the executive director’s fundraising task list and that you would have the authority to remind the executive director about her tasks and to hold her accountable for completing them. She, in turn, would expect you to provide the support she needs, such as materials, prospect information, strategy details, reports, and so on. Keep in mind that the executive director is the front person for the organization. Many donors will prefer to meet with that person rather than anyone else in the organization. The development director has to appreciate that the executive director balances many tasks, of which fundraising is only one—even if it is very important.

Sometimes the executive director will know a lot more about fundraising than the development director does. In that case, the executive director should mentor the development director. More frequently, the development director knows more about fundraising than the executive director. The executive director should welcome this knowledge, recognizing that an organization hires staff partly because the executive director doesn’t have the time—or necessarily the skills—to do the whole job. Many successful executive directors have used their development directors as mentors. While their job titles give one authority over the other, they choose to play to each other’s strengths and to create a learning community. Generally, this attitude will be found all the way through the organization.

Your job is also to coordinate the fundraising efforts of the board of directors and other volunteers. You should have access to all board members and be actively supported by the executive director in your efforts with the board. Both of you should work closely with board members, particularly on personal, face-to-face solicitation.

Both parties should know how the other likes to work. Questions of working style should be talked out early in the relationship. Such questions include whether interruptions are OK; how each feels about editing the other’s writing (because the executive director needs to feel good about everything that comes out of the office, all written materials should be read and edited by other people); how much nagging about getting a task done is bearable; methods of dealing with conflict; the best way to hear criticism; and so on.

The way to have a good working relationship between development director and executive director is to be clear from the beginning what each of you thinks the executive director and development director jobs are and are not—and to agree on those job descriptions. In the end, the people in these jobs need to work as much as possible as partners in fundraising and to see the board as an asset to be developed. As development director, be mission-driven and know that your main loyalty has to be to the work of the organization. Know that you are not always going to see eye-to-eye with the executive director and that final decisions rest with the executive director. Above all, be honest and demand honesty in return. Your relationship needs to mirror the kind of relationships we want to see in the world: respectful, caring, nurturing, genuinely interested in the other, and joined in a mutual belief in something bigger than yourselves.

ON DEFENSIVENESS

Defensiveness is so important and so endemic that I feel it merits a short discussion on its own. Defensiveness, according to the dictionary, is “resisting criticism or attack.” Defensiveness surfaces as the inability to be told that one’s thinking or behavior either is or might be wrong—or even that there may be equally viable alternatives to one’s thoughts or actions. Executive directors can be very defensive, as I mentioned earlier, partly because of the enormous responsibility they often feel for making everything go right so as to keep the organization afloat. Unfortunately, however, defensiveness can be found in all parts of an organization, and it needs to be addressed early and often.

There are several reasons that a person might be defensive, but one very common root of a defensive attitude is that many people equate disagreement with disrespect. It is impossible to have a discussion with someone who sees disagreement this way. Everything is taken personally, and the defensive person has a limited ability to separate action from personality. They hear “I disagree with you” as “You are wrong and stupid.” I have worked with many people in leadership who demand their staff exhibit the kind of loyalty one expects of a dog to its owner. They can change, but such change usually requires intervention from someone they respect as well as some training in how to accept—and even use—criticism. Sometimes people (defensively) deny that they are defensive, but they truly may not realize the effect of their tone or body language. Simple changes can make a world of difference. For example, one harried executive director received this feedback from a facilitator hired to help with tension between him and his development director: “When the development director is speaking, you often interrupt her to explain why something happened the way it did, instead of letting her finish her point. This gives the impression you don’t want to hear what she has to say, and she also tends to lose her train of thought.” The executive director was surprised, and noted that he can’t stand being interrupted by others. He now consciously waits until he is sure his staff person has finished what she wants to say before responding.

Another executive director received feedback from watching a video one of her staff was making about their mentoring program to post on YouTube. Although the final video was only one minute long, the staff person had shot a lot of footage that the executive director reviewed, seeing herself in several settings, including a board meeting. The executive director felt that the board was ineffective and offered little leadership to the organization. What she saw, though, was herself shooting down every idea that anyone proposed: “That can’t work—no one will fund it” or “We did that a couple of years ago before you were on the board and it was a complete bust.” She realized that she was so emphatic and dismissive that no one wanted to speak up. With the help of a coach, she has learned how to listen and to encourage ideas. Ironically, as she points out, she needed to learn the skills her organization looks for in finding good mentors.

For those who are not the executive director, defensiveness often arises out of fear of being perceived as a poor worker. “I disagree with you” becomes “You are a bad worker.” Others just automatically put their backs up when criticized about anything. These people overcompensate by posturing that they are always right. I know so many people like this that I have given them an acronym: “NIMF”—Nothing Is My Fault. One way you as a leader can counter this kind of defensiveness is to give honest credit and praise much more often than you levy criticism. Such balance will help your staff trust you enough to be able to hear disagreement or admit error.

Finally, of course, we live in a culture that is averse to conflict. When we read about things people are frightened to do, such as public speaking or asking for money, I sometimes think that at the top of that list would be “starting a conversation that might lead to conflict.” Some organizations do in-house trainings on conflict and conflict resolution in order to strengthen their staff and volunteers’ ability to be in creative dialogue with each other and to surface disagreements before they fester and become explosions.

None of the manifestations of defensiveness are good leadership qualities. Of course, all of us feel defensive from time to time. Thinking about what makes you feel on the defense and what helps you to let go of that defensiveness will help you deal with others. People who want to be effective leaders are always working on not taking things personally, and organizations that want to be healthy workplaces should put processes in place that encourage civil disagreement, that praise people for admitting mistakes and errors, and that teach people how to give and receive both positive and not-so-positive feedback.