Nonprofit leadership is a creative practice, not a title you master. Executive coach Gary Bagley led New York Cares and now works with the executives and boards holding organizations together.
In this episode of Ronderings, Ron sits down with Gary, board adviser and adjunct professor at Columbia and Baruch, to talk about what nonprofit leadership asks of people when the ground keeps moving.
Gary trained as a musician. A friend asked him to play piano for a kids' musical theater class, and inside he thought no. He said yes anyway and fell in love with it. That yes led to teaching arts in New York City classrooms and eventually to the top job at New York Cares. A seventh grade aptitude test had told him to be a teacher, be a preacher, or be a social worker. He did not know what a social worker was.
He and Ron dig into the gap between the power people assign a nonprofit CEO and the power the job carries. Gary's view is that the most important decisions do not belong to the CEO, and that real preparation means sitting in rooms where people disagree.
They also get into boards. A board governs an entire organization on roughly ten to twelve hours of meeting time a year, and going virtual gave Gary the best attendance he had ever seen without the engagement to match. And the people absorbing the most pressure right now are not CEOs. They are the senior leadership teams one level down.
Tune in to hear why Gary defines trust as the sum of expectations met, and what saying yes to possibility looks like when the moment feels closed.
Chapters:
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02:48 Gary Bagley: from teaching arts in classrooms to running New York Cares
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08:29 The piano favor he almost turned down
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12:05 Making one and one equal three, and why leaders have to fail
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17:48 The biggest decisions in a nonprofit do not belong to the CEO
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25:48 Somebody put a foot on the gas pedal and never let up
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32:58 The time boards need most is the time they have least
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40:18 Trust is the sum of expectations met
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44:37 Senior leadership teams are getting hit the hardest
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47:17 The Ronderings question: say yes to possibility
Links:
Reach out to Gary Bagley to talk executive coaching, board governance, and succession planning, and follow his biweekly LinkedIn newsletter Bagleyisms for his running notes on leading and managing nonprofits.
Episode 105
