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Phil Reese of the Washington Blade kicks off a discussion about the Human Rights Campaign’s recruitment effort to replace outgoing leader Joe Solmonese. The official, extensive job description is now online. A snippet:
…The President reports to the Boards of Directors of both the Human Rights Campaign and the Human Rights Campaign Foundation and is responsible for the overall management and leadershipof HRC’s activities and programs. The President’s job is to develop and implement HRC’sstrategic vision, its policies and programs to advance the interests of its membership and the LGBTcommunity as a whole. The new President will be charged with leading this important organizationduring a time of great change and progress in the country.
The President will be working every day to improve the lives of LGBT Americans by identifyingand overcoming societal and legislative barriers to LGBT equality. At the same time, s/he will beworking to engage, educate and empower millions of fair-minded Americans to advocate for equalrights for the LGBT community.
Specific responsibilities include [Note from Pam; I'm condensing these and numbering them, so check out the full descriptions]:
- Provide vision and focus for a dynamic organization.
- Build, maintain and continually inspire a work environment to achieve the highest standardsof performance and accountability.
- Manage through change.
- Represent and lead HRC in the most positive manner, enhancing HRC’s visibility and influencing public opinion.
- Lead the development and promotion of legislation and public policies that positively affect LGBT families and their children, as well as, oppose legislation and public policies that wouldadversely affect LGBT families and their children.
- Attract new members, allies, strategic partners, advocates, donors and volunteers.
- Engage diverse constituencies.
- Lead the development of educational programs that positively affect the societal and culturalcondition, as well as shift public opinion.
My post is going to take a look at the elements of doing a recruitment at this level, not a post-mortem on the Solmonese Years at HRC. While that leaves out opportunities for cheap shots and snark (I’m sure commenters will do that anyway, and there is likely plenty around the blogosphere), I felt it would be more thoughtful to explore just how hard it is to find good people, good leaders – so hear me out.
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The above-listed responsibilities from the HRC document, aside from being tethered to LGBT matters, are about what you’d expect for the president of a large non-profit with a reputation to uphold within its sphere of interest.
That Joe Solmonese’s tenure at HRC in this position has been the subject of plenty of criticism by PHB readers (and occasionally this blogmistress as well as others in the LGBT community) is not surprising, given the volatile nature of dealing with civil rights issues of a still-oppressed, very diverse minority. Issues of race, gender, privilege — and the less discussed third rail of class — infuses much of the tension, when part of the constituency sees itself as under-represented (or worse, misrepresented) by an organization that is positioned to lobby and strategize with the powers that be (and vote) from the perspective of the President and its board with little transparency or perceived accountability.
Tensions of this kind not unique to HRC; perhaps it is more exacerbated because parts of our community are not necessarily in harmony regarding priorities related to our socioeconomic differences. the qualities that make it difficult to recruit top talent that can be effective on multiple levels, be it inside the organization or outside, raising funds to keep the financial engine going is not unique either.
I’ve participated in a number of search committees and recruitments as a senior manager at my current day job and over the years. Thankfully, I’ve not had to deal with a board; that adds a level of complexity that is fraught with conflict. Working boards of large orgs in many cases are moneyed people (and selected for their ability to raise funds), and they rarely deeply engage with mid- to lower-level staff who actually do the day-to-day work and will have to answer to the new leader. A board’s priorities can be miles away from what is the perceived needs of staff.
Trust me — recruitment war stories I’ve been privy to over the years (again, thankfully, none in my workplace), would make your hair curl.
It’s all about priorities. If a board wants to hire a controllable figurehead, and a smooth operator with media or potential donors, and a great administrator/supervisor, that’s a tall order. It’s hard to get the whole package — at large or high-profile orgs, you’re going to get a certain level of, um, egocentrism in a pool of candidates that flock to the idea of heading up a non-profit that may be great for fundraising and hobnobbing in places of political power and access, but they could have core incompetencies that are deadly for morale in an organization — poor handling of administrative detail, poor (or no) supervisory skills that are quite apparent to those who will report to him/her.
More about competencies below the fold.
The Human Rights Campaign’s Position Specification document is well-written, and the competencies as outlined are again, qualities any large organization would want in a leader. I’ve numbered them, but they are in the order as presented in the original document, my commentary is after each element in ital.
1. Strategic Vision: The successful candidate will have a demonstrated record of setting priorities and leading organizations to success. S/he will be a strategic thinker who will work with HRC’s senior Staff and Board leadership team and Board of Directors to establish plans and methods to achieve its mission while providing the strategic direction necessary to evolve the organization. S/he will be capable of working with others to develop differentiated strategies with multifaceted approaches to address disparate audiences, cultures, and political contexts.
This competency relies heavily on past achievements by a candidate; if they’ve handled a past org successfully, it will be self-evident this person as vision and goal-setting skills at a high level. Besides, any new person is going to have the benefit of the board and leadership to get up to speed – any good candidate knows how to do their homework of an organization they want to lead.
2. Communication and Development Skills: The successful candidate will be an inspiring and persuasive communicator who can articulate HRC’s vision and direction effectively through mass media, debate, lobbying, public speaking, writing, networking, fundraising and one-on-one discussions. S/he will have the ability to connect with and secure results from world leaders, government policy makers, corporate leaders, partners, donors, Board Members and staff.
Star power. Finding a personality type that is dynamic, outgoing and tireless, no matter whether the camera is on or off them is always a challenge. Can this person handle tough questions from reporters/new media on the fly? It’s likely at this level that you’ll find plenty of candidates who are camera ready with experience these days. If you short-shrift on this, it’s possible to boost the hire through media training, but it’s always a gamble if the person doesn’t have some innate extrovert talent.
3. Leadership: In addition to the critical, externally-focused competencies, the successful candidate must also possess outstanding leadership skills that will enable him/her to oversee the management of a complex, member-focused organization. S/he must be an involved and inclusive manager, who will ensure HRC functions in an orderly and fiscally responsible manner. The President will have a track record of recruiting, retaining and motivating a professional and highly performing staff. The successful candidate must be able to set strategic direction for the organization, prioritize and define clear goals for staff, and manage performance toward achievement of those goals. The candidate will be an inspirational leader to the staff, and encourage openness, transparency and mutual respect. Further, the candidate must have the executive skills to manage various Board and membership. constituencies as well as leverage the energy of a dedicated, diverse, and growing membership.
OY. Finding a personality type that is dynamic, outgoing and tireless, no matter whether the camera is on or off them is always a challenge. Can this person handle tough questions from reporters/new media on the fly? It’s likely at this level that you’ll find plenty of candidates who are camera ready with experience these days. If you short-shrift on this, it’s possible to boost the hire through media training, but it’s always a gamble if the person doesn’t have that natural extrovert talent and the lines I outlined in bold tell the story — you don’t want to lose trained, talented staff on board. A leader doesn’t have to know the details of every person’s daily work, but they sure as hell better be interested in the role they play in the organization’s hierarchy. Staff need to see that the selection committee and the board have the entire organization’s interests at heart — and that is an emphasis on the candidate’s ability to develop a visible relationship with staff that engenders trust. Lots of #FAIL potential exists in this aspect of the selection process.
4. Interpersonal Acumen: The successful candidate must be a person of the utmost personal and professional integrity with a high level of energy. Candidates must possess the right combination of self-confidence balanced with humility and a healthy sense of humor. The successful candidate needs to be gracious in manner and comfortable in any situation. S/he will be confident enough to hire and retain strong, smart people, and possess an understanding of his/her own strengths and weaknesses.
Good grief, I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen this emerge as a #FAIL. And the sad truth is, you cannot always suss this out in an interview, and certainly not during reference checks (where those you call for many reasons, including legal/HR ones, aren’t going to be forthcoming). But the bottom line is if you can’t recruit someone that you want to work with, all the other skills in the world are meaningless. Part of the problem here is that some “leaders” don’t have any self-awareness, and thus are oblivious to their weaknesses; all they see is how great they are. And worse, the board does nothing to correct the situation, particularly if the lack of interpersonal skills results in frequent conflicts/altercations/abusive behavior by the hire with lower-level staff. Leadership, be it senior level staff or a board, requires accountability. That’s why a realistic, accurate, frank performance review process is so essential. If a candidate is selected and continually falls short in this area without any improvement, it’s the fault of the board or other senior staff for neglecting their responsibilities to the organization’s overall health.
5. Judgment: The successful candidate will have the demonstrated ability to make timely and clearly communicated decisions and take appropriate risks to achieve results. Likewise, s/he will be thoughtful about deploying the organization’s budget in a way that maximizes outcomes aligned with HRC’s strategic plan and core institutional values while managing risk. S/he will listen to and learn from key stakeholders inside and outside of the organization and will be an inclusive and independent thinker, who can manage ambiguity and devise solutions even when a clear path is not evident.
A candidate’s track record should tell a search committee a lot about this competency. It’s pretty black and white – can they handle a budget and strategic plan sensibly? Do they make decisions that are in alignment with the organization’s mission? Is this person a “high burn rate” administrator, who spends way too much on that expense account for their position as people down the food chain don’t have the resources they need to do their jobs effectively? That stuff can be looked up; it will be pretty clear if they are a lone-wolf in decision making, or a collaborative individual.
6. Passion and Shared Values: The successful candidate will have a passion for ending discrimination against LGBT Americans and an absolute commitment towards realizing a nation that achieves fundamental fairness and equality for all. At its heart, HRC is about making a difference in the lives of everyday people. The successful candidate will not only have earned the appropriate leadership credentials across their career, but be implicitly anchored by HRC’s core values.
This is about a candidate having the savvy to know their target organization well, to be a quick study if not coming from the same sphere of interest, a person who knows how to adopt the mission as part of their core being in order to excel. Generally, you’re going to see people in the non-profit activist world who are very devoted to mission-oriented work at all levels of an organization. If they wanted a real payday, they’d be out in the corporate world. In the recruiting phase, this is where the committee has to feel out whether this person wants this job as a professional stepping stone to something else (meaning a short tenure), or is committed to leading and growing with the organization, especially if it is a non-profit in transition and change management of some kind. It takes a special kind of leadership when the times are tough — and when in a growth phase.
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So, you really can’t narrow it down to any one of these as deal-breakers if a candidate has weaknesses; they are all important. A well-written CV/resume with all the right experience on paper is only part of the story. HRC has its hands full with selecting its next president. There are a lot of expectations out there (many fair, some not-so-much), and how this person handles the job does have an impact on the entire LGBT community.
After all, HRC reminds us on its communications that it “is America’s largest civil rights organization working to achieve lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender equality.” A lot of people will be interested in the outcome of this search.
10 Comments
Terrific, well-thought-out analysis, Pam. I hope every HRC Search Committee member gets a printout of this post in their orientation packet.
For me, I’d rather see the ED Search Budget spent on a wind-down operation and to hire a commercial realtor to sell the Mausoleum. Give the hard-working staff some well-deserved severance, dissolve the Board, and provide the donor lists to the other, newer (hint hint), more effective, specific-issue organizations.
We don’t need Big Gay Inc anymore — we need donors to choose issues and agencies that are effective. All these orgs will be more effective without BigFoot eager to step in when their issue becomes too hot for HRC to ignore any longer.
It’s a national, and local, resource suck. Just disband it.
LOL, Teddy. I’m sure your idea would solve a lot of the institutional rot problems, but I decided on the more likely premise that HRC/Big Gay Inc. will be around a while. I hope a few people read this and take it in the spirit in which it was written — select someone who can be a well-rounded leader in touch with those who support the work of the mission — and come home with a much smaller paycheck. Humility, and the ability to supervise well is a lost art.
While it’s certainly related to the whole media/ answering questions on the fly thing, I think that HRC adds an additional level of complexity, because there are at least three wildly different media realities to deal with – the news media, which is often clueless, sensational, or both, the virulently anti-gay media like FRC and NOM, and the gay media, which often has a tendency to eat our allies alive and take almost any ambiguous or preliminary reporting in the worst possible light and then run with that rather than with later clarifications.
And any missteps in any of these arenas get leapt on and blown up in the others.
Some organizations can get by with spokespeople who are glib and assured on camera while being vague about details. HRC really can’t.
Good luck to them. Everything you listed makes filling this position a tall order.
They wouldn’t want me to go in front of the board, because I’d be telling them in plain, ordinary language what’s wrong with HRC! Not only that, they wouldn’t listen to what I would do to reform HRC, either.
1) No more elitist bullshit. TLBGI folks are in *every* social class, and this $300/plate dinners need to be a thing of the past, not to mention turning their nose up at local groups begging for financial and logistical support.
2) Realize that there’s a world beyond the beltway, and the fact that we don’t all live on the coasts. There are *millions* of TLBGIs living all over “flyover” country, and *our* lives are just as important as the circuit parties boys of Fire Island, the professional fags in NYC and DC, and The Castro.
3) If it wasn’t for the street queens, my dear boys, *you* wouldn’t be here with your $1,000 suits, your six-figure incomes, your $30,000 cars, or the jobs you think are secure. We transfolk are NOT your red-headed bastard stepchildren! Don’t give us this “wait your turn” bullshit, because all that does is cause resentment and division. When Dr. King was fighting for civil rights, it was for ALL people of color, not just Africans! He *never* told the Latinos “just wait your turn, we’ll get to your cause later.
That’s just three things I’d tell the elitists at HRC… but I highly doubt they’d want to listen to an ordinary person like me, let alone a transsexual lesbian!
HRC, as other community organizations, have a focus that is consistent with interests of their members. If that focus is not what one wants, people are free to join or start up another organization with like-minded individuals. Denigrating their activities and costs of events makes no sense, especially if one does not like the organization and the goals, so don’t be involved with HRC.
Is HRC perfect, no, but nothing is–they have accomplished many worthwhile goals, politically and legally. And, like it or not–and I do like–our community needs a national organization that has a seat at the table.
I had been involved in politics since high school and gay/lesbian politics over 25 years and we were able to do many positive things educating politicians and making coalitions with other progressive and not-so-progressive groups. We were able to pass the first Deep South Human Rights Ordinance and the first hate crimes state law with sexual orientation with a Republican governor. I am a pragmatist and feel we achieve rights and benefits incrementally and build on that foundation.
While I understand people wanting everything at once, because it is the right thing to do, that is simply unrealistic and naive.
As with most controversial matters, we will not get it all immediately. It takes time to educate and lay a foundation. Progress comes in increments. HRC, in my opinion, has done a great job and deserves the support it receives from the community and elsewhere.
I continue to maintain my membership and attend the annual Dinner Gala here and occasionally in D.C. I was once active in HRC on the local steering committee and the national Board of Governors, but resigned in 2008 when I was appointed to a federal position. I keep in touch with local HRC friends and other community activists and support the community here in New Orleans (neither West nor East coast). My partner and I celebrated our 20th anniversary in September and were married in Massachusetts in 2009. I do not believe in GL ghettoization/isolation and work with and socialize with a diverse set of friends.
HRC, as other community organizations, have a focus that is consistent with interests of their members. If that focus is not what one wants, people are free to join or start up another organization with like-minded individuals. Denigrating their activities and costs of events makes no sense, especially if one does not like the organization and the goals, so don’t be involved with HRC.
The problem with this response is that there is no other organization of the size or magnitude that is the go-to org recognized outside of the LGBT community inside the Beltway. So starting another group that will have equal influence is a false choice.
Therefore, the HRC is reasonably subject to criticism and praise since it is in that position of influence and power. It’s also reasonable that as a group that professes to represent the entire LGBT community, its leadership should be more representative of the community than it is — race, class, gender, etc. Saying this deserves a better response than “go find/start another group.” Opening up honest conversation about this (and I don’t mean bashing) is absolutely necessary when an org of this size purports to strategize for and represent us to lawmakers and the media.
Exactly, Pam! When you have this behemoth organization that has spend millions on a temple to largesse, paying their president and board members six-figure incomes, spending tens of thousands on media and developing snazzy publications, and the group proclaiming they’re *the* premiere gay rights lobby, you damn betcha they’re going to get rightfully scrutinized.
What galls us transfolk the most is that stab in the back “Uncle Joe” gave us in regards to ENDA some years back. To swear to a banquet hall full of transfolk, loved ones and alles during Southern Comfort that the HRC would *never* endorse ENDA *without* the addition of gender identity and expression, then scant weeks or months later went back on his word because Barney Frank claimed it wouldn’t pass the House (even though it had NO chance of passage in the Senate or Little Georgie signing it!), forever damaged HRC’s image.
Had the HRC Board immediately fired Uncle Joe, apologized profusely, and begged us to reconsider, then *maybe* we transfolk would’ve forgiven the group. But that didn’t happen. The HRC continues to try and throw crumbs back our way by adding tidbits like including GI/GE and transitional health care in their annual Corporate Index. It’s still not going to get one thin dime from my pocket.
I could win the Ohio Lottery, the Mega Millions, and the Powerball all in the same year, and HRC won’t get a cent. That’s how much I despise those running this group, which had so much potential, yet wasted it for their own selfish interests.
F*uck HRC, f*ck Uncle Joe, and f*ck the HRC Boards.
It must be nice just to sit back and castigate and curse those who are attempting to bring about equality. I have better things to do in my life without focusing so much negative energy on matters to which I am not a part.
HRC is certainly subject to citicism from members, religious fanatics, politicians in general, and those whose viewpoints it does not espouse sufficiently. Frankly, I am only concerned with its image among lesbian and gay community, but particular dues-paying members and not so much those that decry its activities and only offer criticism, and the political groups and people with whom it must work to seek equality. They are doing a great job and as stated earlier progress moves slower than what we would like or expect. 20 years ago I would not have thought marriage would be anything but a pipedream but here we are with improving propspects every day.
Some people will not be satisfied unless all their desires are catered to but there are realistic solutions, albeit incrementally at times, that are passed upon which to build further forward movement in the future. Absolutists will never be happy. Well, welcome to the real world. It is not going to happen the way you want it to and the community will do much better if we supported those that are striving to achieve equality in a mature and realistic manner. You need to lay a foundation before construction of the edifice of your dreams.
We are not speaking of the fundamental right to marry, or the fundamental right to serve your country. An even more fundamental right is the ability to work and not be discriminated against in daily life. This would be important to every member of the GLBT community, yet the push for this is relegated to “later” or “eventually. Neither one of those seems to have changed, I submit, due to the issues (perceived) by adding trans people to the equation. I agree, there have been some good things accomplished by the HRC. Why not achieve the most important things? This attitude is equivalent to doing the easiest jobs first and saving the harder jobs ’til later. The problem with this procrastination is that one never gets around to doing the “harder” jobs, yet there are plenty that are suffering everyday because of it. How much longer should we wait? Five years? 20 years? Oh, we’ll get to it, be patient……RIGHT!!
Great analysis, Pam. It’ll be interesting to see who they consider and eventually choose.