Unlocking Effective Nonprofit Leadership Through One-on-One Meetings and Transparent Communication

Establishing regular one-on-one meetings is essential for fostering strong connections within nonprofit teams. These check-ins enhance accountability, ensure transparent communication, prevent conflicts from escalating, and provide support for professional development.

Here are some of the points discussed on today's episode:

• Creating a culture of consistency and accountability through regular meetings 
• Fostering transparent communication for open dialogue 
• Preventing conflicts by addressing small issues early 
• Supporting team members' professional growth and development 
• Highlighting the connection between individual roles and the organization’s mission

Chapters

• 0:08 Benefits of One-on-One Meetings
• 9:13 Importance of Transparent Communication in Leadership
• 22:00 Support and Development Through Regular Check-Ins
• 29:31 Investing in Nonprofit Team Development

Transcript

Nathan Ruby: 0:08

You could share about vision and mission and how your staff specific role connects to the overall goals of the organization. As leaders, it's easy to skip that part. We paint a bigger picture of the organization's overall vision, but we don't always connect it back to the people actually doing the work.

Tim Barnes: 0:29

Welcome to the Practice of Nonprofit Leadership. I'm Tim Barnes and I'm Nathan Ruby. Well, today, nathan, we're talking about the benefits of one-on-one meetings with key staff. I'm curious do you have any one-on-one meetings in your work history that you remember that stand out to you?

Nathan Ruby: 0:48

Yeah, I do. I think this was first introduced to me early in my career. I was the director of development for a homeless shelter drug addiction recovery program and the CEO there was a great leader. I learned so much from him and that was the first time where I'd actually formally had these weekly one-on-ones. It was an hour. I'd go into his office, he would come around the desk and we'd just sit in two chairs together and have a conversation and what was going well, what's not going well and it was.

Nathan Ruby: 1:26

It was a time where I could, you know, bring problems. I could talk about some of the things that you know, cause often in in staff meetings I didn't always say what I actually thought. I have a I have a tendency, if I don't watch myself to Tim, it's impossible to offend me. Let's put it that way. I don't get offended and I sometimes forget that other people do, and so I could say things that offend people and I don't even know that I did it because that wouldn't have offended me. So it was a place for me to say, okay, this is what I really think about things. And so, and actually today, when I do my one-on-ones with my staff and my team. It is basically the format is what I learned there, so that's that's how I learned how valuable these one-on-ones can actually be.

Tim Barnes: 2:21

You know, one of the things that's in my mind, too, is so, whoever might be listening, you may say well, that'd be great If I had staff, I would do one-on-ones. But I'm wondering you may have some key volunteers, nathan. Does this play out with some key volunteers? Or even maybe, maybe, even applying it to your board?

Nathan Ruby: 2:43

I don't know what do you think? Oh, Timmy, yeah, Excellent point. Absolutely, this really applies to things that we're going to talk to today or talk about today really do apply to any anybody who is having a weekly, daily, weekly, monthly impact on the organization. So, yeah, if you have, I you know and I have worked with some organizations that it was just the executive director and everybody else was a volunteer, and so I think the title is less important as opposed to what it is that the person is doing for the organization. You know, absolutely, I talk to, you know, my finance chair every day, not every day every week.

Nathan Ruby: 3:27

My philanthropy chair a week is what we're going to be talking about, but that may or may not be the cadence. It may be every other week or maybe once a month is sufficient. You have to decide, as the leader, in what is that right span of time, and and I think the way that you could do that is to just include the person that you would be talking to. So if you're have a volunteer that you feel, do that is to just include the person that you would be talking to. So if you have a volunteer that you feel that you need to have a regular conversation with. Just ask them hey, what do you think, would you feel comfortable once a week or once every other week? I think that's how you would do it. But absolutely, if you have volunteers, board members that are acting, that are doing things on a day-to-day basis, that would include this would work for all of them.

Tim Barnes: 4:26

Regular meetings whether it's once a week or once a month, however you guys decide is you know, with those who report to you or who are playing an important part in the organization is really an investment of time and energy, and an important investment, one that's really needed. So let's go through these four reasons that you might want to make sure that this is part of your regular routine, for your team, and why it's worth that time and energy. So, nathan, let's dive in. What are the four things you got for us today?

Nathan Ruby: 4:57

All right, let's get at it. Number one consistency and accountability. And you know, and like I said before, we're going to use the weekly meeting cadence, but this would be however often you're going to meet. So weekly meetings keep everyone on track with their responsibilities and projects. And in nonprofit work and Tim, I'm just talking about my own experience. Other people's experience may be different, but in my experience as nonprofits, sometimes we're not quite as good on consistency and accountability as we should be. It's just not a skill set that a lot of people that I have worked with within the industry have, and so these weekly meetings, uh, allow an opportunity for updates on regular and ongoing projects. Um, and so, typically, when I pull together my team and and I will often start off with a simple question that sounds something to the effect of what's happening, you know, tell me what's, tell me what's going on, and then the responses then is staff is talking about. These are the projects I'm working on, these are the things that I'm working on, and it allows us to talk through those things. Okay, I know where we were last week on this project, where are we this week? And so it's from week after week after week. It's an opportunity to track things and I don't get like down to the nitty gritty, granular, but I do have. I do keep notes so that I can refer back, and so it's just understanding where things are and how they're progressing. Understanding where things are and how they're progressing, and then another question that I ask often during this time is what's going well, what's going really well, what are you excited about? And so they get a chance to talk about some successes, and it then gives me a chance to validate those successes. There is a Tim I think this is probably a general human issue rather than just a nonprofit working issue but most people are starved for affection, they're starved for recognition, they're starved for someone acknowledging their successes and their wins, and so this just gives you a chance to say hey, that is great progress this week. You were doing an excellent job, thank you for what you do. This is just a great opportunity for that. All right, so updates on regular and ongoing projects, roadblocks and challenges, and the question I ask on this is what struggles are you having? And the reason I ask that is one of your primary jobs as an executive director is to solve problems for your staff that they can't solve themselves.

Nathan Ruby: 7:58

Now we just did an episode a couple of weeks ago on questions, and the questions were based on helping your staff solve their own problems, so that they weren't coming to you for every little thing to solve every single one of their problems. Now that's not what we're talking about here. What we're talking about here is to solve problems, remove barriers, remove roadblocks for your team that they cannot remove themselves. So what would be an example of that? Well, an example would be to increase the budget or to go outside of the budget to solve a specific problem. So they may know what the solution is, but they can't execute that decision or implement that decision because they don't have the budget to do it. So they don't have the budget authority to say, oh, we're going to spend an extra $5,000 to solve this problem, but you, the executive director, you have the authority, or at least you could go, if you need to go, to the board, you would be the conduit by which that is solved.

Nathan Ruby: 9:01

So your job is to solve roadblocks and challenges that they can't solve on their own, but you need to know what those are. So that would be third, within consistency and accountability. And then the third one is expectations for the coming week. And that's kind of at the end, typically when I do it, and that question is what's your plan for this week? I do it and that question is what's your plan for next for this week? So what things are you working on? What are, what are your goals for the week, what are the expectations that you have? And so that way you get a sense of where they're going and you know how they're, how they're going to get there for the week.

Tim Barnes: 9:38

We oftentimes forget that our role is to help people be successful, help our team be successful, and so if I have somebody who's stuck and who needs a connection or needs a resource or needs some extra finances, I should want to help and help open that door, you know for for my team members, so they can be successful, not just going well, go figure it out somewhere. So that's part of what I want to do I want to help them be successful.

Nathan Ruby: 10:09

Right and so much of being. I always talk about this in fundraising that fundraising is an art and a science. And there's definitely science to fundraising and if you don't get the science right, no matter what you do, you're not going to increase your revenue. But it's also art and the art is something that you acquire over time and you develop and you work on it and you get better. And I think there's also obviously an art and science to leadership when, when to push forward, when to hold back, when, when to solve a problem for your, for your person, when to let them struggle with it a little bit more. I mean, to your point, I would hate to know the answer. And then, but not tell them and say, okay, well, you go, struggle with it and we'll talk about next week. Well, I don't want them to lose a week's worth of production. That's just frustrating and holds everything up. So there's that art there of when do you solve problems, when do you not solve problems. But the other thing Tim is sometimes just sitting down I think what I've found over the years most people, if they're the right staff person or right volunteer, they know the answer inside of them.

Nathan Ruby: 11:33

They know what the right thing to do is they know what the next thing is to do. Sometimes they just need a little encouragement or they need a conversation to just bring that out to, so that it reinforces to them that they've got the right answer and then they can go do it, uh, and so I think that's part of that. So maybe the accountability you know well, maybe this is a Nathan issue you know, I think of accountability as the hammer. You know you didn't do this and you didn't do this, uh, and that's not what accountability is. But I guess sometimes it can be. And. But accountability is also coming to you, the leader, and saying I need some help figuring this out, talking it through, and then they could go go implement that. So maybe accountability is not as much of a four letter word as sometimes we think it is.

Tim Barnes: 12:23

Yeah, well, it's good to know that there's somebody who is walking beside you and is asking you, and if I know my boss is going to ask me about a project I'm working on. It does keep me a little more accountable to say, hey, I'm going to have to have an answer. What have I done this week? So there's a lot of positives about that as well.

Nathan Ruby: 12:44

Okay. Number two transparent communication. These one-on-one meetings with staff, volunteers, board members, whoever they they may be, foster an open, direct communication, which is vital in nonprofits, where the focus is on mission, and this comes out when you get a. It's a place for your staff to share what they really think, and this is up to you, as a leader, to create that environment or that culture where your staff feels they can speak freely. A little bit ago I mentioned that sometimes during staff meetings, I wouldn't actually say what I thought, because I know that I could be a little type A on some people and I always pull back. You also could have staff that are the exact opposite of that. Maybe they're not comfortable talking in larger groups when you have a full team meeting, and so this gives people, no matter what their personality, no matter what their uh likes or dislike in speaking out, it gives them a place where they can speak freely, as long as you, the leader, are giving them that permission to do so, all right. Number two opportunity for concerns that might be outside of pure job duties. This is also a time during this time where things like staff conflict can come up, things that are maybe outside of that person's direct job duties, but something is happening that they're seeing, that they, you know it's a, it's a chance to to bring that up, uh, and a place for that to to come out. And uh, another thing that can that could come from that is, uh, you know, sometimes you know somebody is down or they're tired or they're just their energy level is down, and so in these meetings, this is an opportunity for you to use your nonverbal communication, but you can tell when something is going on, and this would be the time to address it in this setting.

Nathan Ruby: 14:57

And I had one time a situation where I was actually serving as the operations director and we were going through a significant let's see how do I say this A significant rollover of staff, and it was a. It was a difficult time. We had a lot of staff leaving, some voluntarily, some not voluntarily, and I had a handful of direct reports, and so I was doing our weekly meeting and I could just tell something wasn't right, and so I just I stopped it and I said what, what's going on? You know, I can see that you're not feeling good. You're feeling what's up.

Nathan Ruby: 15:43

Well, this person took a while, but they finally came out that they were concerned that their position was. You know, they were one of the ones that were going to be rolled over and I had to, you know, reassure them that nope, you know it was not. It was not that, it was not them. And I had not done a good job of explaining to my direct reports what was happening and what was going to happen and why.

Nathan Ruby: 16:13

And after I shared that as much as I could, the whole meeting changed, the whole demeanor, changed the whole the language, the non meeting changed the whole demeanor, changed the whole, uh, the, the language, the nonverbal, everything changed. After, after we had that, that three to five minute conversation, um, and then I realized that, oh my gosh, I have a problem. And so then I went and did the same conversation with with the other direct reports and I had the same experience. And so it just it's a time for you to be able to really assess what's going on with this person and is there something that you could do to make it better?

Tim Barnes: 16:50

And I think your approach communicates how transparent they're able to be. Sometimes people feel like, oh, I just got to stay in my lane, just do my job, that's all. But I think if you can create an opportunity, so when people come there, if they have a concern about the organization or they're wondering about something, about a direction, that doesn't mean you're going to do everything that someone says hey, have you ever thought about this? Maybe you will. But I think, having that, that atmosphere of transparency that people can say, hey, I have a thought. Well, bring it on, let's, let's talk about it, I think it's really important.

Nathan Ruby: 17:28

And, if, and, and and uh. Wrap that up by saying, hey, you know what? Thank you, Thanks for your input, thanks for your thoughts, thanks for your uh. You know whatever uh you want to call it, and you know I don't know if that's something that we'll do, but you know that that was pretty insightful and I really appreciate you bringing it up to me so that I can think about it. And you know we've said it before in the show, but if there's one thing that you can implement easily in your team is just a sense of that you listen to them and that you hear them and that you are acknowledging that you are listening to them. Oh man, that just solves so many issues and makes your team feel like they're connected and really part of a team.

Nathan Ruby: 18:15

Okay, Last piece of transparent communication. I think this is a place where you can share about the vision and mission of how your staff's specific role connects to the overall goals of the organization. As leaders, it's easy to skip that part. I mean, we paint a bigger picture of the organization's overall vision but we don't connect it back to the people actually doing the work. And I don't know, you may not have experienced this, but in a lot of nonprofits I worked in and a lot of nonprofits that I work with, we all don't get paid. All that is that we are a piece of something, we are doing, something that really matters and that is important to changing the world. And when your team staff member, volunteer, whatever, when they have a better understanding of how their role, what they do on a day-to-day basis, how that connects back to the vision of the organization and the global impact or the impact in the community or in the state, whatever you are, that gives them a better sense of individual purpose and they will do better at their jobs. So it's just these one-on-ones are an opportunity, through this transparency, to really connect back what they are doing and how it impacts the big picture of the organization.

Nathan Ruby: 19:55

Okay, number three conflict prevention. This is an important one. Issues are less likely to fester. I really like that word.

Nathan Ruby: 20:06

Tim Fester is so descriptive and nobody wants anything to fester. But issues are less likely to fester if discussed regularly and openly, and so basically, what this means is this is a chance for you to solve small issues before they become big issues, and one-on-one meetings are a great place for irritants, and an irritant is like a, a small pebble in your shoe. So if you have this little tiny, it can be really small, tim, and you know it's probably not going to stop you from walking right now, cause you know you're walking along, and maybe it's not every stride you feel that, cause it's kind of moving around inside there, but every once in a while it gets on the ball of your foot, or what is that part of your foot, tim, that's right below the big toe, whatever that piece is, I don't know what that's called, but, man, when you have a pebble that's underneath that and you step on that, that hurts. So it may not be an issue that causes a problem today or tomorrow, or maybe not even next week, but something is wrong and something is festering and something is getting worse. And it is so much easier, so much easier to address things when they're little things rather than to wait until you have two staff people in a, in a verbal or, and I've even had physical confrontations in the hallway because it went from being little to being a massive issue that nobody addressed. And so these are absolutely perfect times to be handling some of those issues in the privacy of an individual conversation, where you've got this open culture to where you could address some of these things. All right, that's conflict prevention. All right.

Nathan Ruby: 22:00

Number four support and development. Regular check-ins allow you to offer guidance, mentorship and professional development and basically there's a couple of different pieces here. One is the human connection. We've been talking this whole session about the communication and having an open forum and making a culture where people can really talk about what they think and what they feel and their issues. But that's not just about work, it's also about outside of work and if you have somebody, whether it's a staff person, a paid staff person, a contractor, a volunteer I have a couple of contractors and I'm meeting with them every week, some of them actually every day. I'm talking to them, but so it could be a contractor, staff person, volunteer talking to them, um, but so it could be a contractor, staff person, volunteer it.

Nathan Ruby: 22:58

If you're having this regular communication process with them, you need to know what their life is like outside work. Um, you know how are you doing, how are you doing. You know what's going on at home. How was vacation, how was? You know how's little Jimmy or little Susie? Uh, how is um gosh? You know, you told me a couple of weeks ago your husband got laid off. Is he you know? Has he found anything yet? Um those, those conversations that are outside of work, don't underestimate the power that those conversations have in making your staff, person, volunteer, feel, feel, feel what Tim, feel part of the team, feel valued, feel important. It goes a long way in that, so don't underestimate that.

Tim Barnes: 23:49

Well, it's important too because you know what goes on outside the office impacts what goes on inside the office. So if you're having, if you're having issues, you know in your personal life away from the office oftentimes gets brought in, even though we try to separate it. But you know, if you're feeling down, you're trying to get your energy up to do your work. So you know, part of being a leader and some of us are really good at it. Some of us are not great at it in terms of just trying to be sensitive, to pick something up like maybe a passing comment and it's like well, tell me a little bit more about that, as opposed to okay, well, that's great. So it takes a little bit of being aware and it's hard. When you're really busy and you got a lot going on, it's easy to just kind of keep going, but that's such an important, important part.

Nathan Ruby: 24:36

So another piece of support and development is self-reflection and self-awareness, and one of the questions I use for that is how are you doing with blank? So it could be. You know. How are you doing with the problem we talked about last week. How are you doing? You know we talked a couple of weeks ago that you got angry when somebody moved your pencil on your desk. You know how's that going, um, you know, however, you solve that. So just just giving people a chance, um, that's kind of silly. I don't think I've ever had anybody get upset because somebody moved their pencil, but maybe somebody else has. Uh, but just working on self-reflection and self-awareness and helping staff to work through those things by just being aware. And then, lastly, coaching. And I wish I could.

Nathan Ruby: 25:26

I don't know who I heard this from. I don't know who I heard this from, but one of the testaments to your leadership ability is how many leaders you develop, and there is I've heard that phrase or something a similar phrase to that. One of the things that often comes up is well, if I develop one of my people as leaders, then they're going to leave my organization and go somewhere else for more money, and then I'm going to have to replace them and I don't want to replace them. That's kind of a glass half empty way to look at it. As you, you know, you're helping your, your team, become more capable in leadership.

Nathan Ruby: 26:15

You know, going back to the beginning, I talked about the one-on-ones that I had early in my career with the CEO of that organization. Maybe it was from him, maybe that's where I got it, because that was one of the things that he tracked. And when I was there at that organization, I think there were four directors, I think four. And you fast forward now all four of us are executive directors of organizations and I know that he is so proud of that. And so I think, yes, we don't want to lose staff. Yes, it's hard to replace really good staff, but the other side of that is by not growing your team, by not growing the people that are doing the work, growing their leadership skills, making them better at what they do, you will never reach the full success of your organization. You'll never reach your vision, you'll never fulfill your mission if you have mediocre people that stay mediocre, if you have mediocre people that stay mediocre. So helping your team become better leaders is going to make your organization better over the long haul.

Tim Barnes: 27:24

Those are some really good points, nathan. My mind's going as you share. I always appreciate the things that you bring up and I would just encourage all of you who are listening to say wow, those are good points, but just grab one. It's one action that you can do this week. Just do one. You don't have to do them all. Do one thing and let us know about it. We'd love to hear about how you take one of those things and implement it in your organization.

Nathan Ruby: 27:57

You know, tim, yeah, that'd be great, and I tell you I will. This is absolutely honest. Our best part of the day is when our email goes off and there is a question from one of you, from one of our listeners, or a statement or a. Hey, you guys are idiots. I don't agree with what you said at all. You know, whatever it is, it doesn't make any difference, it just it. It. It brightens our day and it's so awesome to hear from you. And so, yeah, that'd be, that'd be great to you know, to pick one of those and then let us know. We love to hear your story, love to to hear how these, the things that we're saying and sharing, are making a difference in your work and making a difference in the world.

Nathan Ruby: 28:39

As we wrap up today's episode, here are a few key takeaways on why weekly one-to-ones are so valuable for your team. First, they bring consistency and accountability, ensuring that both you and your staff stay focused on what's important while staying connected to the bigger mission. These meetings create an opportunity for open, honest communication where everyone can voice their concerns, share wins and understand how their work contributes to the organization's overall impact. They also help prevent conflicts by addressing small issues before they snowball into bigger problems. And, perhaps most importantly, they offer a platform for support and development, giving you the chance to mentor, guide and connect on a deeper level with your team. Remember, as nonprofit leaders, you are the lifeblood of your organization and the more you invest in your people, the more they'll invest in the mission. So take the time to check in. Whether it's weekly or every two weeks or once a month, whatever the cadence is that you decide is the right cadence and it will make a world of difference in your team's morale, productivity and sense of purpose.

Tim Barnes: 29:58

Thanks for listening today. If you found this episode helpful, don't forget to share it with a fellow nonprofit leader who could use a little guidance in building stronger, more supportive teams. And if you're feeling really generous today, leave us a review on the platform that you are listening to. That's all for today, until next time.