Leading any enterprise is a challenge, especially for nonprofits that are growing in size and complexity. The job readily expands beyond the capacity of any single leader. That’s why CEOs of many nonprofits establish executive teams—groups of senior leaders who work together to chart the organization’s direction and keep it on track toward its goals.

At the same time, shaping a high-performing executive team is no easy task. Bridgespan's research reveals that when it comes to executive team effectiveness, most nonprofits falter. Nonprofit leaders consistently elevate challenges. (You can read more in our full article and collection.)

Recognizing this, Bridgespan developed its Leadership Accelerator program to help unlock the full potential of executive teams.

In the second half of 2023, the Girl Scouts of Northeast Texas (GSNETX) enrolled in Strengthening the Executive Team. Here, Chief Executive Officer Jennifer Bartkowski and Vice President Kristin Neel share their perspectives on how the program helped improve the ability of their Strategy Team, the senior-most leadership team at GSNETX, to execute a plan that would strengthen awareness, trust, and engagement with the communities it serves.

What made it seem like this Leadership Accelerator program on Strengthening the Executive Team would be a good fit for Girl Scouts of Northeast Texas?

Jennifer Bartkowski: We are currently in the midst of a four-year strategic plan. We started by focusing on investing in our team through leadership training and intensive work around DEI, we then provided our staff with a unique leadership development program to build trust within the organization. When we learned about Strengthening the Executive Team, we realized it was a great opportunity to invest in our most senior leaders on the Strategy Team.

We had recently broadened the Strategy Team to 10 people to bring more diverse perspectives to the top of our organization, and this seemed like a good opportunity to build trust among the Strategy Team and figure out how to best use our time together.

One of the things we learned from the Leadership Accelerator early on was that, as our team meetings represented the most expensive time we would spend together as an organization, we had a responsibility to spend it on the most important decisions and discussions. This made us think differently about how we would use said time. We agreed not to do report-outs or talk about things that only mattered to three people in the group. Whatever topics we discussed had to be relevant to the entire team and only be covered in these meetings rather than any other format.

We developed a 2024 Strategy Team Playbook that specified all the major imperatives that our senior leaders would work on during the year. And that helped clarify how people should spend their time. The Playbook created additional work for our leadership team—but it was necessary work to enable us to reach our organizational goals. If Kristin, for example, needs to prioritize her work on change management, that means she must delegate some other decision-making tasks.

The Leadership Accelerator helped us realize that our top leaders did not have time to micromanage everything. That sort of delegation was challenging for my C-suite team, who did not like letting go of control. On the flip side, our middle management had to learn to pick up that control and make their own decisions. There’s been a lot of back and forth as both sides get comfortable with the new paradigm. We use Bridgespan’s recommended agenda template to plan and lead all our Strategy Team meetings. Since it’s not possible to juggle 47 top priorities, our senior leaders should focus their time on the most strategic tasks at hand.

What are some of the major insights or developments that came out of the Leadership Accelerator program?

Bartkowski: The Leadership Accelerator program fed into conversations we’ve had around strategic imperatives, how we define success, and the responsibilities that each of us on the leadership team has in terms of delivering that success – both as members of the Strategy Team and in our day-to-day work with our own teams.  

We came into the program already aligned on our organizational vision and strategy, so, Strengthening the Executive Team helped us figure out what to prioritize as Strategy Team members in terms of implementing that vision and realizing that strategy.

Kristin Neel: Strengthening the Executive Team helped us realize that people show up to these meetings differently. Some people are quick processors and others are long-term processors. Sometimes team members don’t speak up because they need time to reflect and think. The program reminded us that people don’t need to have the first, best idea to participate and be present in the conversation.

During the program, I appreciated the opportunities to connect with other organizations in our cohort so we could hear about some of the strategic tactics and approaches that worked best for them.

From a process standpoint, it was incredibly helpful to block time for the Leadership Accelerator sessions well in advance. That was a big thing I heard from people in other organizations who struggled to find the time for the meetings, so I was so grateful that we all committed to completing the program by a specific date and had the time blocked off on everyone’s calendar well in advance.

Another major insight from the program was about making sure that every member of the Strategy Team knows the role they are supposed to play. For example, my role as a member of the Strategy Team is very different from my personal job description and day-to-day work. That was a big mind shift for us but being structured and intentional about defining those roles has helped us become a successful team.  

What have been the biggest positive outcomes or changes to your Strategy Team or the broader organization since you completed the program?  

Bartkowski: The Leadership Accelerator program helped us get better at celebrating success. As an achievement-oriented person, my natural inclination is to complete a task or reach a goal and immediately move on toward the next milestone, but the program encouraged us to take a pause, reflect on our accomplishments, and deliberately add celebrations to our agenda.

I think it’s easy to take for granted the time you spend together as a leadership team. The Leadership Accelerator program forced us to stop and ask, “Are we satisfied with how we spend our time together? Are we starting the meeting with a moment of mindfulness? Are we celebrating each other’s successes?”

In terms of other practical improvements, I’ve noticed that we are being a lot more deliberate about our meetings and time together. We always assign team members to act as timekeeper, check-in person, and scribe. I think all of that is working really well for us. I also think the program has increased trust among our Strategy Team so that some of our team members who might have been reluctant to speak freely before are speaking up now.

We have had a lot of strategic plans over the years where we kept saying that we wanted to show up differently in the community, but the Leadership Accelerator helped us realize that we first had to work on ourselves as leaders.

The Leadership Accelerator allowed us to figure out how we can show up differently and create our own unique Strategy Team playbook.  A playbook that would not work for anyone else; not even the Strategy Team at the Girl Scouts of Northeast Texas ten years from now because it is specific to us and where we are right now in our journey.