Leadership in Rotary International and the future

Twenty years ago anyone who raised the subject of management in Rotary could be seen as committing a sacrilege, trying to compare our organization to a business: “Rotary do not have inferior levels that require to be managed”, some of them would say. During the latest years it has been growing the consciousness of the need of non conventional management levels in Rotary, without an oppressive posture to apply it. It is the consent management, of the convincement and motivation. It is the kind of management that Rotary has applied for a long time and that recently is being used by big corporations. It is called administration by subsidiary responsibility which means that the decisions are taken by the lowest possible level.

This non conventional management allows Rotary leaders to concentrate on their mission and not on themselves.

There was also on the recent years a concentration of actions in developing leaderships, starting with the District Leadership Plan, followed by the Club Leadership Plan.

More than the developing of a sense of multilevel and multiyear planning in an integrated manner, the implicit content of these plans are the structuring and formation of Rotary leadership.

Let us take a look on the needs of leadership in Rotary.

Even taking into account that some club presidents will become district governors and that some past governors will occupy positions

of leadership in Rotary and in the Rotary Foundation, in their various Committees or as Regional Coordinators, Rotary will need to qualify some 350,000 leaders in the next 10 years. And we hope that they pave the way for those who come after them.

What can we do in relation to this? It looks to me that we have two main alternatives:

The first would be to ask every district governor and every club president to serve for a period of 5 years. Would anyone accept this?

The other would be to identify as early as possible between Rotarians those who have potential to take over leadership positions in Rotary and provide to them the best level of competent knowledge for them to be capable to occupy the positions they would be asked to take or been invited to.

The emphasis then in leadership development must be faced with objectivity, competence and intensity that the magnitude of the theme requires.

Leadership is surely the most studied topic in social sciences and the less understood.

What happens in Rotary?

There are some obstacles to the continuing Rotary’s leadership development:

 A growing number of NGOs  The early “retirement” of older leaders  The high rotation of new members

We observe a lack of leadership in the club level, up to a point that Past President Bill Boyd stated to DGEs on an International

Assembly that: “New Rotarians leave their clubs because of lack of leadership, cost of affiliation and lack of opportunities to serve.” On this same Assembly PDG Steve Wilcox stated: “On a recent inquiry made by the Membership Development Division of RI it was demonstrated that the lack of leadership was the main reason why members leave the clubs.”

What are we doing in Rotary to shape new leaders?

We can be sure that we do not shape a club president on a PETS during a weekend. Likewise we do not shape club board members in a District Assembly. We have then to start early. We have to do something more to prepare these leaders as early as possible, so they are prepared when their time comes.

Several mechanism are in use to prepare Rotarians in their clubs and districts: “Rotary Schools”, Mentoring Programs, Leadership Seminars, Pre-PETS and a systematic methodology already in use in more than 300 districts, the Rotary Leadership Institute.

The success and reach of this methodology is based on a progressive and systematic formation of Rotarians that did not yet occupied positions on their club’s Board and prepare them. They receive instructions and motivation on many current themes (Club Administration, District Administration, Membership Development, Rotary Foundation, Leadership in Rotary, how to conduct service projects, public speaking, Public relations, Public Image and many others) with growing complexity, with presentation to them by expert Rotarians of theirs or other district. Conducted in 3 levels with a span of 6 months between them, during which the trainee has the opportunity to go back to his (her) club and apply what was experienced during the preceding period.

The emphasis on leadership development constitutes on an adjustment of these leaders vision to higher and challenging postures. This implies also to the leader in formation, that he will be chosen to occupy a position of leadership which will be consented by those who will recognize on him or her, the conditions to contribute, so that those he or she will lead, develop themselves to reach their goals in their voluntary life. After all we are a nation of volunteers.

In Rotary we develop people not positions. The positions they occupy are useful to their development, not the contrary. This leadership development consists in adding something better to what these persons already are. We have the tendency to put a great emphasis to goal reaching, but while we are developing people, our objective must be higher than that. We must have in mind the growth of the potential to serve of that leader. To reach goals is important, but only reaching goals may take away the focus from the realization of the personal and organizational potential. The leader in the development process, starts with what he have now as a person and improve himself to transform his or her strong points and qualities into performance skills.

In the administration of organizations like Rotary, the various positions of leadership occupied, no matter in which level of complexity or importance, requires that the person who occupies this position assumes a posture of compromise with the organization and attitudes of equivalent responsibility that the position requires.

These needed attitudes are:

1. Be in contact wit the reality and define it (in each level) 2. Transmit a vision of the future, developed with the analysis of the reality in your area of action;

3. Define measurable accomplishments needed to the reach of the Object of Rotary, and their priority; 4. Discover and develop new talents; 5. Collect the necessary funds to fulfill the goals and allocate them properly; 6. Express and practice the core values of Rotary;

No Rotary position of leadership is reached by chance neither without dedication.

The leader must have with the followers a relationship that allows them to also reach their potential to render service and also their purpose to serve the organization.

Rotary exists to make the difference in our society and in the life of individuals. It exists to fulfill a mission. We should never forget this.

Rotary was successful all these years through its leaders, because they had the capacity to understand where they were needed, looking to the outside world to recognize the opportunities to serve beyond ourselves and looking inside to shape and transform for the better those that believing in its principles and core values, try to give a useful sense to their lives.

Within this context we should not forget youth, the next generation of Rotarians, to which we must give opportunities to reach a steady state of equilibrium between the past to which we belong, lived and represent and the future which do not belong to us but that we wish to see come though.

Leadership in Rotary like in our professional or private life, is the way to use with wisdom the position that was consented to us to occupy. It is the leadership that promotes the necessary changes. It is

The Transformation Leadership.

These Transformation Leaderships must overcome the resistances to changes, creating visions of a viable future that can give answers to the tormentor times that we are living with.

It is not by chance that leadership was included between the core values of our organization.

Optimizing, developing and utilizing our leadership is also a strategic priority. We foresee and must incentivize and encourage the opening of opportunities to lead to all Rotarians, from the club level and up. We are eager to use the talents and capacities of all Rotarians and find ways to maximize the use of these talents. Rotary do not only

choose the capable but capacitate the chosen.

Leadership in Rotary represents also the guided development of the principles of the culture of our organization and the non negotiable core values of Service, Fellowship, Diversity, Integrity and Leader-

ship.

It is essential to recognize the enormous importance of Leadership Development, impute its priority and ACT.

And…by acting with integrity, serving with love and working for peace, the future of Rotary is in our hands.