I recently was speaking with Amanda Caffall, who helped start and currently leads the Commons Law Center, a relatively new nonprofit. The Center is clearly thriving, even with the challenges posed by 2020, and I asked her to what she attributed their success.
Among the various reasons cited, she used a phrase about herself that struck a chord in me: “naive optimism.”
The optimism part was straightforward. Basic personality matters when it comes to nonprofit leadership. People who see the world as “glass half empty” tend not to perform as well in Executive Director roles as those who see it as “glass half full.”
People whose instinct is to ask: “how do we get this done?” tend to perform better than those who instinctively think of all the reasons a program or project will fail.
Of course, people who are pessimistic and focused on what could go wrong play a really important role within nonprofits in keeping teams grounded, helping avoid problems, etc. They make awesome chief fiscal officers. But usually not Executive Director.
But what about the word “naive?” Why does it matter in this context?
The key insight is that some people have been “educated” by seeing or being told about failure in all its myriad of forms. And as their naivety is hammered out of them, they become more likely to inappropriately second-guess themself and they can become paralyzed by indecision and excess caution.
“Naive optimism” is that lucky place some leaders find themselves in where they’re inherently optimistic and they haven’t yet “learned” something can’t be done. So they go out and do it – often by leading a team.
As I reflect, I can think of a dozen Executive Directors (mostly younger) who really shined in their roles because they combined strong leadership skills with “naive optimism.”