Seeing (and Treating) Your Staff as Volunteers

I love simple groups of three key thoughts on a given subject. Eric Geiger never disappoints:

• Clarity
• Consistency
• Collective Care

Guest Post by Eric Geiger

In his book, Leadership Is an Art, Max De Pree said, “the best people working for any organization are like volunteers.” He meant that the best people on your team—the ones who bring their hearts, creativity, and full selves to the work—aren’t just trading time for a paycheck. They believe in the mission. They are motivated by offering themselves to a team and a purpose they believe in.

The best people working in any organization are truly volunteers, because they could choose to give their time and their gifts to any cause. A wise leader will treat the best leaders as volunteers, remembering that a paycheck does not have any power to hold people.

Here are three ways to honor your team, three gifts to give them, as you would honor volunteers. Wise leaders give their teams clarity, consistency, and collective care.

Clarity: so that people know what is important.

The greater the clarity, the greater the unity. Leaders must be continually clear on beliefs, mission, values, strategy, and vision. Beliefs being what we hold to as most important, mission being what we are committed to doing together, values being how we live around here, strategy being how we accomplish our mission, and vision being what we are focused on now. Clarity is a gift for everyone, even those who opt out. Beliefs and values on a team that are not strong enough to repel the wrong people are equally not strong enough to pull the right people.

Consistency: so that people can settle into rhythms.

People benefit from consistency. If every time the leader goes to a conference or away on vacation, and he or she comes home with a new vision, the people won’t be able to enjoy the fruit of consistent direction. Consistency helps people settle into rhythms of work and rest, eliminating the constant wondering about what is changing next. Consistency helps people settle into their best work and creates margin for creativity.

Collective Care: so that people know they are valued.

As an organization and team grow, this can be challenging as one leader can’t provide great care for each person. The care must be distributed through lots of leaders and wise structures, and those leaders and structures need to be built. Life and leadership are challenging, and people need others around them who care for them in the midst of painful seasons. Leaders must not only care about the work the person does, but also about the person who is doing the work.

Clarity, consistency, and collective care help people thrive in their lives and their roles. If you are leading a volunteer team, you know these are essential because you have no paycheck to give. If you are leading a staff, these are just as essential because your best staff are volunteers anyway.