Hello and welcome back. Board development and engagement depends on experience, skills, personality, motivation, and the members’ attitudes toward giving. Today we’re going to dive deeper into boardroom dynamics and how different personality traits impact everything from collaboration to pledge fulfillment.
We each have very unique personalities that determine a lot about how we make decisions, what kind of lifestyles we lead, our roles in work, and our approach to how we work in groups. Our personalities greatly influence communication. It’s especially evident in the dynamics of the boardroom.
You already know about the personality traits that go along with extroverts and introverts. We’re going to use the classic definitions of those groups. But have you heard of ambiverts? Simply put, these people display an adaptive ability to pull traits from introverts and extroverts as needed.
Depending on the situation or environment, their personality may favor certain traits over others. Candidly, most of us are ambiverts, as we tend to flex based on the environment, our comfort in that particular experience, and our lived experiences. In the boardroom, extroverted personalities tend to dominate decision-making and really drive the conversation.
That can be great in terms of leadership staying on task and getting to the end of the meeting. These more extroverted members are often asked to take leadership roles because of their comfort in leading and directing. They share their opinions freely, sometimes a little too quickly, and they’re good at making decisions under pressure. An example that I can share from my experience is working with a collection of schools where we really had to convince the high school leadership to adopt a supportive stance of the elementary and middle schools, and that meant the high schools needed to make a change in how they were communicating around admissions and enrollment.
We had everything approved, but putting it before that audience, one high school president disagreed very quickly without even getting through the rationale, the others quickly followed suit out of a pattern that had been formed long before we ever walked into the room.
We worked through that by actually engaging the introverts. They’re the ones that are sitting back, less likely to jump in, and more looking at the risks, the costs of change, and thinking through the connections from the question or the strategy and how that flows out. Now we know introverts and extroverts don’t cleanly fit in either of these categories. But to give you an example on the other end, when I was taking my first board position from one of those schools, I had what I thought was a far too obvious question about getting feedback from students who had taken their placement tests or been to shadow a current student or attend one of the events. I just assumed that information was known. It just hadn’t been shared at that meeting. Since I was new, I didn’t have that information. A few minutes later after that meeting, I asked the president about it. Candidly, they’d never thought about collecting that feedback, which would have changed the three months that followed, and the conversation around admissions, and what was living in the minds of the potential seventh and eighth graders that might come to this high school.
So as nonprofit directors, it’s your responsibility to manage the dynamics of introverts and extroverts and make sure that all voices are heard. It’s important to recognize that that is a diversity of thought and can really impact decision-making. We can’t let dominant voices overshadow the insights and expertise of our more quiet or reserved board members. Nor can we let the caution of introverts impede or create friction for really big ideas or discussions around big ideas and opportunities. Understanding the personalities on our board helps us create a more inclusive dynamic and draws on the strengths of everyone.
Managing this dynamic is very important. We can make better decisions, improve collaboration, and achieve your nonprofit’s goals more effectively. So thank you for joining today. Be sure to check out more mission multiplier videos at wearefieldtrip.com/nonprofit.
