Posts Tagged ‘leadership’

 

What’s on Your “Not to Do” List?

Posted on: September 7th, 2012 by Hayim Herring

What’s on Your “Not to Do” List?

check list

Some people are natural born list makers. And for those who are spiritually inclined, there is a Jewish spiritual practice of making a list each day of personality attributes that require work and reviewing them each evening. It’s like creating a spiritual “to do” list, certainly a timely practice before Rosh ha-Shanah.

In essence, this is what good leaders do. They set goals for themselves and then review their progress on a regular basis. And we can’t expect other people to set the most meaningful goals for us. It is our job to lead our lives and not someone else’s.

After reading a blog post by international management consultant Peter Bregman, titled, Two Lists You Should Look at Every Morning, I realized that we actually should be keeping two list: things that we want to focus on and things that we want to let go of. Bregman calls this first list, “Your Focus List” (the road ahead) and he calls the second list “Your Ignore List” (the distractions). I completely agree with Bregman’s suggestion, but I would call the first “to do” list, “Where Do You Want to Go” and I would call the second “not to do list”, “What Are You Willing to Leave Behind to Get There?” Bregman suggests that the first list might have questions like, “What are you trying to achieve” and “What makes you happy?” The second list would have questions like, “What are you willing not to achieve” and “What gets in the way of your being happy?”

Bregman notes, “some people already have the first list. Very few have the second. But given how easily we get distracted and how many distractions we have these days, the second is more important than ever. The leaders who will continue to thrive in the future know the answers to these questions and each time there is a demand on their attention they asked whether it will further their focus or dilute it.”

In the spiritual realm, the practice is to review these lists daily because they take constant focus and attention. And the same is true in the world of leadership. Good food for thought as we approach the holidays.

B’shalom,

Rabbi Hayim Herring

The Hoagie Generation

Posted on: August 22nd, 2012 by Hayim Herring

Recently, some of my close friends and I have been talking about a new iteration of an older phenomenon. In 1981, Dorothy Miller coined the term the sandwich generation to describe middle-aged individuals who were taking care of older parents and younger children. They were sandwiched in between two generations. Perhaps it’s time to rename this phenomenon the hoagie generation. Hoagies are longer than sandwiches, and with adolescence lasting longer and parents living much longer, the image of a sandwich, with regular size slices of bread, misses a change in this phenomenon.

One of the largest growing populations is the old elderly. Additionally, a new understanding of adolescence suggests that it goes well into the mid-20’s. That means that if you are currently a member of the Boomer generation, you can be parenting your parents who are easily in their 80s and older, while still parenting older adolescent children. Adolescence lasts longer, parents live longer and therefore the sandwich resembles more of a hoagie roll that sandwich bread in terms of length.

Those of us who are in the middle recognize the difficulty of children struggling to acquire independence in a new economic reality. At the same time, we can identify with the frailties of our parents, as we begin to experience some early signals. Their task is to safely keep their independence. Government alone can’t meet the challenges of each of these generations. Rather, this is the kind of situation that is well suited for a congregational community. Congregations have the potential to be multigenerational communities. They can give dignity to the elderly, faith to younger generations that they will come through this economic storm and support to those in the middle. Additionally, they provide an opportunity for generations to celebrate transitions in time, marked by lifecycle events and holidays.

With the beginning of the new Hebrew month of Elul, it means that the Jewish New Year is just around the corner. At services, all three generations will be well represented. If you’re at services, take a look around at the crowd. And think about the opportunity that synagogues have to address these kinds of complex issues.

The Results Are In: Top Five Most important Rabbi-Board Evaluation Criteria

Posted on: June 22nd, 2012 by Hayim Herring

Thanks to all of those who responded to the two questions about evaluation that I asked in my prior post:

And the results are in!

The Results Are In: Top Five Most important Rabbi-Board Evaluation Criteria
survey results

 

Thirty-seven people responded to the first question. While I don’t have any background information on those who responded, here’s how you answered (in rank order):

  1. Develop and communicate a vision
  2. Build, inspire and lead a staff – volunteer team
  3. Identify, develop and support lay leaders
  4. Promote and lead spiritual formation for church (synagogue) members
  5. Interpret and lead change.

And for the second question about the existence of rabbi-board evaluation, to which 36 of you responded:

Clearly, more context is needed to interpret these responses. But, here are a few observations from this non-scientific survey.

Respondents value the leadership qualities that one expects of all leaders: visioning, building a team, supporting volunteer and professional talent and leading change. Unsurprisingly, helping people develop their spiritual lives also ranked within the top five criteria. Taken together, these criteria suggest that a 21st-century rabbi needs sound working leadership knowledge and ability in general, and specific expertise in helping people develop their spiritual lives. No surprises here.

But what was equally interesting to me are the criteria that ranked lower, like managing conflict. How do you lead change (ranked high) unless you know how to manage conflict? Another example: rabbis work exceedingly demanding hours and they are poor health insurance risks because of job stress and lack of self-care. However, respondents ranked rabbinic self-care as relatively unimportant for evaluation purposes. Finally, while congregations complain of declining membership, those who responded ranked congregational outreach near the bottom of the list. That may be because the phrase “mission outpost” is not synagogue nomenclature and was therefore misunderstood. But my guess is that even if it were phrased differently, outreach would still not rank within the top five criteria, because reaching out to the broader Jewish community is not something in which many congregations invest resources.

Moving onto the second question, approximately 60% of respondents reported that there is no evaluation for the board. And, about 30% said that evaluation is simply off the radarscope for the board and the rabbi. Both of these responses are problematic because having an evaluation means that there is at least some implicit vision of what constitutes success. When there is no understanding of success, that’s when misunderstanding about roles, expectations and responsibilities emerge.

I am inclined to do more research based on the feedback that you’ve provided and will keep you updated. Thanks, again, for your input!

Rabbi Hayim herring

 

Fresh Views on Evaluating Rabbinic and Congregational Performance

Posted on: June 13th, 2012 by Hayim Herring
Fresh Views on Evaluating Rabbinic and Congregational Performance

Photo: vancajay, on stock.xchng

I’m currently reading a book entitled, When Better Isn’t Enough. Evaluation Tools for the 21st-Century Church. The author is Jill M. Hudson and the publisher is The Alban Institute. The title is a bit of a misnomer and could more accurately be, Performance Evaluation for the 21st-Century Church. New Criteria for Ministers and Church Leaders. But with a title like that, why would ministers be interested in reading the book? After all, as all members of the clergy know from often-poor experience, performance evaluation, review, or whatever you wish to call it falls under the rubric of, “Never put off today what you can put off forever.”

Hudson lays out 12 criteria for evaluation. They are, the ability to:

Look at these questions! They reflect a vision of ideal attributes of a 21st-Century church. Hudson’s insight is that most evaluations are still rooted in the needs of a 20th century church and her book is about guiding lay leaders and clergy to work collaboratively on assessing their joint performance based on new criteria that better reflect the work of today’s church.

Hudson’s insight is true for the Jewish community as well. From what I’ve seen and heard, most synagogue evaluations are also stuck in a bygone era. Over the next year, my hope is to conduct some research on how congregations evaluate rabbis. I can use your help as I begin to explore this topic and would love you to respond to the questions in my Evaluating Rabbinic and Congregational Performance Survey.

Take the survey >>.

Thanks for your thoughts,

Rabbi Hayim Herring

The Fear of Falling Up

Posted on: November 29th, 2011 by Hayim Herring
Ladder to the Sky

Flickr: jepoirrier

Did you ever suspect that some leaders fear success more than they do failure?  If they aim high and hit their target once, how can they possibly replicate the last success next time? And especially if they do, won’t people start to have ever higher expectations of them?

Because of that fear, these kinds of leaders learn to play it safe or take mild risks at most. As a result, they never reach their own potential and even worse, they don’t help a community develop its capacity for greatness. I’m not sure who coined the phrase, “the fear of falling up,” but it certainly captures this attitude toward the apprehension of the consequences of success.

In one midrash (rabbinic commentary) on a famous scene in this week’s Torah portion (Vayetze, Genesis 28:10-32:3), we find an acknowledgment of this very fear. The Biblical partriarch, Jacob, envisions angels ascending and descending a ladder to heaven. According to this midrash, God beckons Jacob to climb the ladder, but Jacob declines. He reasons that he will eventually have to descend, so why risk the climb? He does not consider that although he will have to descend, who is to say that he won’t be able to climb to the top again?

Jewish leaders-and indeed all leaders-can follow two basic paths. They can be content to reach for the “low hanging fruit” and play it safe. Or, they can exercise genuine leadership, and “reach for the stars,” acknowledging that they will only reach them some of the time. What kind of leader do you aspire to be?

B’shalom,

Rabbi Hayim Herring

What Non-Profit Leaders Can Learn from Steve Jobs

Posted on: August 29th, 2011 by Hayim Herring

Apple co-founder and former CEO Steve Jobs is an undisputed genius in the field of technology and computing. Someone with his brilliance is exceptionally rare. And while we can’t be Steve Jobs, non-profit leaders can still learn much from him about some fundamentals of leadership.

Innate genius is a gift. But leadership is something that you can cultivate in yourself and others.

Introducing Hayim’s Blog (Formerly “Tools for Shuls”) + Special Offer!

Posted on: July 25th, 2011 by Hayim Herring

Image courtesy of yourdictionary.com

I’m incredibly excited to launch my new blog!  I placed blogging on hold so that I could focus more attention on my book and building my business.  And, I came to recognize that my Tools for Shuls blog was now too narrowly focused.

So much has changed in the Jewish world since I first started blogging a couple of years ago! The economic recession’s impact on the Jewish community, the fractured relationship between parts of the American Jewish community and Israel, the level of civil discussion within our own Jewish community-just to name a few!  “Tools for Shuls” inaccurately suggested by its title that some quick fixes in synagogues could address these issues, so resetting my blog, while launching the new website for the Herring Consulting Network, seemed timely.

If you’ve been a reader of this blog, what can you expect to see that’s different? And for those who are new, what is this blog all about? The general focus is on developing leaders for the synagogue, Jewish communal and non-profit world who want to create the future that they hope to see, instead of waiting for the future to happen to them. For me, that’s a good working definition of leaders: people who dream big about tomorrow and create their tomorrows today.

You can expect two posts approximately every 10 days. One will relate to aspects of leadership. The other will ask you to comment on trends and issues related to your synagogue or organization. I envision the blog as a space for collaboration, where people can exchange ideas and experiences about leading organizations, and where they can pose questions to a diverse audience. So let’s start the conversation by asking:

Special limited offer:
All those who comment on this week’s question will be entered into a drawing for a free consulting session!*  There will be three different levels awarded:  One three-hour session, one two-hour session, and one one-hour session.  The drawing will take place on August 17, 2011, and winners will be notified via email.  So go ahead, share your responses by commenting below and you might win!

I look forward to resuming the conversation with you.

B’shalom,

Rabbi Hayim Herring

 

*Consulting sessions will be given via conference call and will be scheduled according to Rabbi Herring’s availability.  Sessions are non-transferable and not redeemable for any cash value.

You Can’t be Someone Else, You Can Only be More Fully Yourself

Posted on: November 19th, 2010 by Hayim Herring

When I first began working as a congregational rabbi, I used to ask my wife to comment on my sermons. One day she said to me, “your sermon was good, but do you have to sound so preachy?” I thought that was a funny question to ask a “preacher.” But I’ve learned over the years that the most effective preaching doesn’t sound preachy. Years later, in the work that I did when I was executive director of STAR, I was introduced to Eda Roth, who is a communications specialist and this week’s guest blogger. Eda explains how rabbis and all people involved in public communications benefit when they step out of their role and step back into their authentic selves.  Hayim Herring

Rabbi Hayim Herring has quoted me as saying “You cannot be someone else. You can only be more fully yourself.” What does that mean? Most people express a narrow range of themselves. We all develop habits and stay within a certain range of expression. Professionalism adds even more constrictions. Whether business, healthcare, non-profits or the Rabbinate, there seems to be an agreed upon, accepted set of limitations called “what is appropriate” or “professional”.

Recently when working with rabbinical students, I heard a generic commonality in what and how they were expressing, rather than the vibrant individuality and uniqueness of who they really were, with their insights, passion and genuine desire to reach people. Granted, as students they were beginning to learn effective modes of constructing sermons and messages, but the danger was that some of those early habits would become entrenched and limit them and their capacity to genuinely inspire others; that they would stay within a rather safe, comfortable, borrowed and habituated range.

There is an unmistakable ring of truth when we touch genuine chords of who we are – our individuality, passion understanding, insight – and allow those to be heard and felt. That’s the power of words made manifest. If our expression is timid, or limited, if we are afraid to be loud enough to be heard, or so bombastic that we are not making our own genuine connections with the text and allow that to be heard, then our communication is not genuine.

Years ago a rabbi came to me for voice coaching. He felt his voice was constricted and reported that he would run out of breath. As we worked, we addressed not only on the dynamics of the voice, but his connection to what he was saying in his sermons. Were his messages coming across as compellingly as he desired? Was he really reaching people? We continued to explore the message itself, his real connection to what he was saying, the fullness and freedom of how he was saying it, and whether and when he was genuinely connecting with those to whom he was speaking (whether a Bar Mitzvah or a congregation).

In connecting with text or Torah, it comes most alive when we bring our insights, understanding and passion to the text, and allow those to express THROUGH the text. It’s then that truth and meaning become immediate real and alive, not just historical cultural memory and wisdom revisited. Say, for example, we are quoting from Proverbs, “Trust in God with all your heart and lean not upon your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge God and God will direct your paths.” We first, of course, begin with the text itself. What is it saying? How is meaning conveyed through the construct of language itself? What is the architecture of the language, the arc of the phrasing? Then we address how we enter and fulfill that text. If we bring what we know, understand, have lived of those words to our expression of the text, then it becomes present and alive with meaning. Our understanding, our individuality, what we know and have lived of that text enables us to become a transparency for the truth of the text and IS what reveals meaning. It is not reducing the text to us, but allowing who we are to come through the text. We then become a link in the chain of generations through which the word is not only passed down, but is alive, real and immediate. That is then the power of the word, expressed and felt.

How honest, how daring, how real are we willing to be? More than a repeating or rehearsed expression, do we express ourselves genuinely, authentically? That can only happen if the fullness of who we really are is opened and available. We bring our intellectual understanding, our passion, compassion, the fullness of our voices available to reveal that expression, and most of all; great love of truth and of all to whom we communicate. We do not constrict or circumscribe expression, but ultimately allow and reveal.

It is a noble goal – to inspire – to breathe divine life into – others; to allow that divine life to breathe into us.

Eda Roth
Eda Roth & Associates
Real Presence and Communication

Eda Roth is a communications consultant who uses her acting and directing skills to enable people be more value-based, genuine, strategic and clear. You can reach her at edaroth@aol.com.

Why Your Rabbi Can’t Lead

Posted on: November 2nd, 2010 by Hayim Herring

On October 13, I attended a conference on continuing rabbinic education, sponsored by The Alliance for Continuing Rabbinic Education. I was also a presenter on a panel, where I spoke about an inherent tension in the role of a congregational rabbi which often prevents an effective exercising of rabbinic leadership. Based on some feedback from the presentation, I decided to blog about the presentation, and my post can also be found on the website of the Alliance, along with video excerpts from the other panelists, Dr. Jonathan Woocher and Rabbi Marc Margolius.

I hope that this post will foster some open conversation!

Thank you, Rabbi Herring

—

In 1893, Ahad Ha’Am, a proponent of cultural Zionism, wrote an essay entitled, “Priest and Prophet.” The gist of this article was that Moses, the Prophet, was an idealist. Therefore, he was uncompromising in his expectations about God’s demands the Jewish people.  On the other hand, Aaron the Priest, the older brother of Moses, was a popular leader.  He worked in the messy, real realm of people and was a pragmatist. Aaron was beloved, while Moshe was respected and feared. It took an idealist and a pragmatist, leaders with two distinct roles, to lead the people from Egypt to Israel.

And that’s one of the reasons that rabbinic leadership is complicated today. Idealist and pragmatist have been fused into one role for rabbis. Their training makes them idealists, but living in community of real people, they have to be caring, kind, compassionate, forgiving pragmatists. Jewish communities need both leadership qualities to have a dynamic community.

If it took a Moses and an Aaron to forge a community, why do we expect that one person can embody both religious personalities in today’s Jewish communities? There are others in Jewish communities who have the training or could acquire the training to provide the pastoral, the organizational and even spiritual dimensions of Jewish community life. They can be the primary pragmatists. But only rabbis have the breadth of Jewish learning to provide authentic leadership at the current turning-point in history. (By “authentic,” I mean ideals, ideas and insights that reflect an understanding of an almost 4,000 year-old multi-layered historical, textual, spiritual and intellectual journey).

I think that rabbis and volunteer leaders have some soul-searching to do. Volunteer leaders often express concern about a lack of rabbinic leadership, when at the same time they can be punitive when rabbis actually lead with their ideals. Rabbis seem to be more concerned at times with making sure that people feel comfortable, instead of challenged. This dynamic creates equilibrium at a time when the Jewish community would benefit from a little imbalance created by an injection of fresh thinking and reinterpretation of classical Jewish ideals.

Rabbi Hayim Herring, Ph.D.
President, C.E.O., Herring Consulting Network
“Preparing Today’s Leaders for Tomorrow’s Organizations™”

Who Is Your Governator?

Posted on: January 28th, 2010 by Hayim Herring

Congregational governance-what do you think of when you hear this phrase? Does the image of endless committee meetings come to mind? What about board meetings that result in squabbling? Is it clear when staff should take the lead on an issue and volunteers should? You want a true partnership between volunteers and staff, but the goal of sharing governance responsibilities seems elusive.

I’ll be writing about the issue of governance for the next several weeks, so I’ll begin with a general definition. Governance is the term that encompasses how staff members and volunteers conduct the work of the congregation with one another, with the congregation and with the broader community in a way that fulfills their legal, ethical and spiritual responsibilities.

Some congregational leaders-both professional and lay-characterize governance as the “business” side of the organization. They have an explicit or implicit understanding that staff members should steer clear of governance issues. That is a guaranteed recipe for dysfunction. The other side of the coin is when clergy members arrogate too much power for themselves, with the leadership’s tacit agreement, and undermine the governance structures in the congregation. That scenario usually ends in destruction. So if you have one person who is perceived to be the congregational “governator,” you have a problem!

High-achieving, dynamic, healthy congregations emerge from a partnership between staff and lay leaders in how they govern the congregation. And the congregational board is at the heart of that relationship. Based on my observations and experience, I will even go one step further: vital institutions are always characterized by effective board leadership, and organizations with weak board leadership will muddle through at best. My impression is that most congregational boards are just adequate. That is not to say that talented individuals don’t serve on synagogue boards-they definitely do! But, as a board, the sum of parts is less than the whole and over time, the mediocre quality of boards drives out the excellence that a board is capable of achieving.

 So take a look at your own community and assess which organizations or congregations seem to be doing relatively well. What do you know about their board leadership? How do staff and volunteers work together? Is governance transparent or is there a perception that only a few privileged individuals are involved in decision-making?

 I also want to invite you to ask your own questions about governance-what will help you raise the level of congregational governance? There’s much riding on these issues, especially in this turbulent time for organizations.

Thanks,

Rabbi Hayim Herring