I’m back again with the second part of my posting on the Seven Habits of Unsuccessful Non-Profit Executives.

Habit #4: They ruthlessly eliminate anyone who isn’t a completely behind them

The key word here is ruthlessly. A key to success, as Jim Collins points out, is getting the right people on the bus. So it’s understandable that a new executive director may make some staffing changes. But the right people means people with skills and commitment, not people who are there to be cheerleaders for the executive director.

Habit #5: They spend a lot of time promoting the organization and seem obsessed with the organization’s image

There is no doubt that an executive director has to be the face of the organization, especially with funders. But that public promotion can’t take too much time from key duties overlooking the organization’s operations. Also, if the executive director over-identifies herself or himself with the organization, they may fail to plan for succession and for the organization’s long-term needs.

Habit #6: They underestimate obstacles

As the leader of an organization, the executive director has to communicate the organization’s vision. The executive director plants the seeds of that vision with the board and staff. And those seeds often require imagining achievements that seem beyond the organization’s present capacities.

Yet at the same time the executive director must be sensitive to feedback. It’s easy to cook up an idea cloistered in a board room, but another chore to implement that idea in the community where the vision is subject to the realities of everyday life as well as the opinions and desires of clients.

Executive directors with a "get it done or else" attitude often end up hyping their visions rather than creating new realities.

Habit #7: They stubbornly relay on what worked for them in the past

Good management skills are transferable; yet changing times and the culture of each organization means that the same approach may not work. The key word here is stubborn: when an executive director fails to confront factors that will derail what worked for him or her in the past, then he or she will likely fail.