Tuesday, November 01, 2005

Leadership fun

Had a ridiculously fun discussion at Kellogg last night with my MBA students about leadership in nonprofits. The students were engaged and animated, and it was a great time.

Most interesting to me was the number (about 25%) who responded to a pre-class assignment by providing the same top two leadership characteristics for for-profit leaders AND nonprofit leaders. Previous classes had made careful distinctions between the two. As I told the class, I think this is because, more than our previous classes, this group "gets" the concept that leadership is about people, and people are really pretty much the same everywhere.

We did agree, however, that the impact of poor leader behavior for nonprofit leaders is greater than in for-profits. Thus Martha Stewart comes out of jail, gets a reality show, and is back on track, her company little if any worse for her time in the slammer. Try imagining a nonprofit leader getting her old job back after jail time for a felony.

Anyway, good discussion. A room full of bright eyes. What a rush.

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