The Authentic Organization

In his comment on emotional skills, Michael Soper wrote:
I’ve always been fascinated with the power of “institutional stories” that flow from the emotions of leaders. Examples are many. Consider the leader who reminds managers in the midst listening of their explanations about why they can’t do something, “just test it, try it, and refine it.” [...]

Leaders set the tone for an organization, serve as its public face, and through their power, set in motion all sorts of dynamics. When a leader acts out their own fears and denial in the context of their role in an organization, it can poison everything.
One of my readers wrote with an example (edited [...]

As I embarked on this project, I invited readers of Nonprofit Online News to share stories of authenticity and it absence. In most cases, I will obscure the identifying information about the people or the organizations involved.
Although it’s not my favorite perspective, the conventional definition of a “social enterprise” is an organization or a program [...]

How long to hold on to an idea is a wonderfully tricky question. I can’t help but write in fairly personal terms about it.
Early on in the life of an idea, my own preference is to give it room to grow. That means I will expose the idea to supportive criticism, but not to a [...]

With a working definition at hand, I want to spend a couple of days looking at real world examples submitted by my readers and collaborators, both here and at Nonprofit Online News. My objectives for this include (1) identifying core concepts upon which I should expand, (2) grounding this conversation in real world case studies, [...]