Creating the conditions for vital leadership-the appropriate people, roles, structures, styles, etc.-has been a continuous challenge for NGOs. Models based on individualism and hierarchy borrowed from the private sector rarely respond to their high human values of egalitarianism, empowerment and cooperation. Recently, the Wilgespruit Fellowship Centre (WFC) in South Africa has been turning on its head the contemporary notion of leadership as embodied in one person, by moving from one executive director to a "Team CEO."
WFC is an NGO "working for a transformed and democratic South Africa." Since its creation as an ecumenical, multi-racial training and development center in 1948-the year that Apartheid was formally instituted in South Africa-WFC has continuously organized with an inclusive and egalitarian spirit. The staff of WFC shares the determination to see a new South Africa emerge in which equal rights are equated with equal economic opportunities and appropriate access to community building and skills training.
Recently, the staff of WFC proposed to the board a radically new way of shaping the job of the CEO: the responsibilities of the position could be shared by a team of internal staff members.
WFC is exemplary in terms of "walking its egalitarian talk." For example, it is not uncommon to find a variety of staff -from head cooks to conference administrators-present at what could traditionally be considered senior management meetings. And today, as South Africa is freeing itself of the shackles of oppression and human rights violations, WFC has realized that it can not only play a heightened role in the integrated education of South Africans for building a civil society, but it can experiment with new organizational arrangements that more fully live out its shared core values.
Over the last three decades, one executive director, Rev. Dale White, has seen the Center through many challenges, successes and innovations. However, as the time has come for him to pass the baton and for the Board to choose a new CEO, difficulties have arisen in finding someone to match his combination of integrity, skills, spirituality, and knowledge of the organization's history that give the Centre great strength.
Recently the staff of WFC proposed to the Board a radically new way of shaping the job of the CEO: the responsibilities of the position could be shared by a team of internal staff members. This idea pertly reflects the staff's concern that someone new would not fully appreciate WFC's history and traditions; it too reflects the ethos of the new South Africa, where reconciliation and group-centered processes are gaining ascendancy. Among the many benefits, it was recognized that this innovation would allow WFC's leadership to embody multiple perspectives (e.g., functional, headquarters and field, gender and race) and access a wider range of information.
The Board returned with the mandate that the idea be fleshed out by charting the areas of responsibility for the leadership team. In working with the staff of GEM's Organizational Excellence Program, ten areas initially identified were consolidated into three: 1) Boundary Scanning, which involves interfacing with partners (financial and otherwise) as well as addressing internal relations; 2) Programs, which attends to the efficient functioning of educational programs and curricular innovations; and, 3) Finance and Administration. It was decided to experiment with a Team CEO for one year by choosing persons to fill these roles, someone in particular to coordinate the meetings, and to retain Rev. White as a consultant to help guide the process.
Today the Team CEO comprises five people chosen from the internal staff: one for boundary scanning, two for programs, and two for finance and administration. It includes four men and one woman, three of whom are black and two white. All have worked together before, but none on issues of such magnitude. The handover from Rev. White to the team is scheduled to be fully completed by June 1996. Excitement is high in the organization for the potential synergies that can result with such a mix of talents. Learnings from the unfolding of this new structure will continue to be shared as the story of this innovation unfolds.
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