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| Path: Main Street : NewsWeek : Archive : Leadership in Focus : Article |
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Leadership in Focus: Monica Patten
By Elisa Birnbaum
January 2, 2007
This month in our Leadership in Focus series we feature Monica Patten, president and chief executive officer of Community Foundations of Canada. When she took the helm of CFC in 1992, the organization had 28 members. Since then, her unique leadership, expertise and vision have helped CFC grow exponentially. Now it oversees more than 145 community foundations across the country and holds $2 billion in assets. Thanks to this passionate leader, Community Foundations of Canada has earned a national and international reputation for innovation and generosity. And in May 2005, Monica received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Lawson Foundation in recognition of her extraordinary accomplishments and leadership.
CharityVillage: Do you think being a leader in the nonprofit sector differs from leading other sectors?
MP: That’s a good question, but I don’t really have a straightforward answer. There may be some subtle differences but it is not necessarily helpful to distinguish between sectors. What we are really looking at are the qualities and attributes of leadership. The kinds of things that I believe are really important are the sense of being in touch with who one is as a leader, the sense of being clear about the principles and values that guide and drive and underlie who you are as a leader. I hope those would be attributes of leaders in every sector.
Having said that, I do think that working in the nonprofit world, leading in the nonprofit world, brings to it certain realities that other sectors don’t have. The bottom line is a different bottom line. You're leading with a different kind of vision and different sense of direction. You’re leading, most often, in an environment of scarce resources. And as you lead in that environment, you have a different way of supporting and relating to the people who work in that sector. So I think that that tends to be different. I think there are some mistakes we can make if we make too many distinctions [between sectors], but on the other hand, the environment calls upon us to understand and use different skills.
CV: What specific leadership challenges do you face in your role?
MP: I run an association of members and that’s a particular kind of nonprofit. My relationships are not exclusively with my staff or clients. My leadership is about the relationship I have with members of an association who are disparate in their size, shape and in how their priorities play out. The biggest challenge for me in the leadership of this network of community foundations is to hear - in the broadest sense of the word - and respond to, and be in relationship with a very diverse group of members.
It's very easy to get drawn into being a leader because there’s an idea coming from a group of members that I really like and it's something I’m passionate about. But it may mean nothing for two-thirds of my members. So it’s a very different type of nonprofit and I have to be in tune with that. Somehow, I have to be constantly balancing how I am relating to and how I see myself leading this disparate group of members. And it’s national, so not only do you have disparate entities in your membership, but you also have regional issues and concerns. It’s a microcosm of the Canadian reality; it's about geography, history, regionalism and all those kinds of things.
CV: What should individual organizations be doing to foster young leaders?
MP: This question is really challenging because in so many nonprofit organizations there’s really very little space for growth inside the organization. The staff is small, salaries are often low, incentives and places to move into are limited. I think there are specific programs that organizations can get hooked up with, but it seems to be the obvious things, like sitting on the board and hiring young staff, and so on. Somehow we have to do more mentoring and coaching.
And I think sometimes it’s hard for some of us old-timers to understand that there is a completely new way of working, a new culture that is less formal, less organized than when we entered the workforce. So we tend to think that this is all about making space for young people, but then we just make assumptions. I would say, let’s focus a little bit of our attention on working with long-term employees and supporting them so that they can all become comfortable with youth and younger employees. That’s where I see the big divide in organizations. The younger employees are not particularly welcomed by some of the older ones. We’re putting all of our energy into creating a space for younger leaders to come on without understanding how challenging that is for people who’ve been there a long time. We need to look at it from both sides, to be supportive of everyone in the organization, not one group at the expense of the other.
CV: What about the nonprofit sector as a whole? How is it doing in terms of fostering young leaders?
MP: It’s not something that we can ever say, ‘we’ve arrived, we got it’. I think it’s all about evolving and it's circular, not linear. So the circle is about constantly inviting, hearing, listening, supporting, mentoring, encouraging people to maximize their own potential. Not everyone is going to be a leader, but everyone is owed the honour of having a voice or a space somehow. To that extent, we constantly have work to do.
I do think it’s true that some of us old-timers need to get out of the way. But I’m not convinced we’re adequately engaged or have made it possible for youth to step into our organization. So we do have some work to do there. I don’t think we’re ever going to be home free, but I don’t think any sector is. Look at the business sector; they go through leaders and managers for a variety of reasons.
CV: What traits do you think make a leader great?
MP: Compassion, the ability to listen and hear, a solid sense of who one is and an ability to bring that to life. It’s how you behave. Money and mouth go together. I see and hear, over and over again, people spouting off all these things, but their practices tell you something so different. So for me, it's about alignment with the values, the principles and the behaviour. I think that’s number one. Of course, the ability to be clear, firm, to handle conflict, and to manage and enter into relationships are all important. But primarily it is about alignment between value and behaviour, the ability to express values through behaviour and the ability to articulate them, to move other people and to understand them.
CV: What leaders do you admire and/or look to as mentors? What is it about them that you find inspiring?
MP: There are so many people I admire so I won’t name them. But when I’m sitting in a group, I admire the person who speaks what is, for that person, a reflection of his or her beliefs and values. I admire a person who has courage to speak about what he or she sees as the truth. And sometimes saying, ‘we shouldn’t do that, that’s not going to be a good thing to do’. It’s not always about moving the group ahead; sometimes it's about saying, ‘let’s think about that’.
I admire the leader who can stir up the passion and the energy to get something done. I am very admiring of leaders who bring their intellect, knowledge, and depth of understanding of an issue. They bring that intellectual capacity and marry it with behaviour, saying ‘here’s how and why we might think about this’. I also admire leaders who are really inclusive, who have an ability to hear voices that are not always heard, who don’t always turn to where power is. I admire leaders who stand in solidarity with those in the world – and that world can you be your street, your organization, a conflict, whatever - who have been marginalized and whose voices have not been heard. They don’t do ‘to them’, they do ‘with them’. They stand beside them and say, 'we are in this together'. I see that happen and find it profoundly inspiring.
CV: What is your leadership style or philosophy?
MP: I hope what you get from me is a match between my vision and my values. I am also pretty easily able to plant a few seeds and then watch somebody else grow them. I’d like to think I can do that. I am pretty good on my feet and in speaking. I do think leaders are people who inspire. I think on many occasions I’ve been able to do that. I think I’m authentic, and I’d like to think that’s what I bring because it really is my philosophy.
CV: What should the sector be doing to ensure it takes the best steps forward?
MP: I'll tell you one thing we have to stop doing in our sector and that’s whine. We love to whine. It’s one of the things that I really have spoken out about and that I believe profoundly. Let’s hold our head up high. We have lots to be proud for; let’s not beg or whine. If we’re going to be critical, let’s be critical in the best sense of the word, in a way that’s helpful. For too long, we’ve really said, ‘it’s okay, we’re second-class citizens’, and we’ve whined about it. But we’re not; we’re first class citizens and we need to speak about it.
Elisa Birnbaum is a freelance print and broadcast journalist living in Toronto.
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