The Jewish coaching imperative
The Jewish coaching imperative
How channeling the demand for post 10/7 volunteerism into hands-on coaching could help shape the future of Jewish leadership
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While much has been made of the move away from Jewish institutions, the reality is that most substantive forms of Jewish engagement are heavily influenced by professional Jewish leadership. Whether it’s social services agencies, camps, JCCs, day schools, or on-campus institutions it is Jewish leaders who are culling ideas, crafting strategies, designing programs, marketing programs, and staffing them. In no small way the evolution of most forms of Jewish engagement are driven by individuals who have dedicated their professional lives to them.
The challenge with the wide array of Jewish leadership paths is that they are typically very non linear and tend to thrust individuals into situations of trial by fire without the benefit of a gradual process of appropriate skill building.
Due to the lack of any form of track definition, it can be hard for junior level Jewish professionals to figure out how to skill-build in the right way to prepare themselves for the critical leadership roles of the future. There are some exceptions like the process of rabbinical training that turn junior Rabbis into senior Rabbis through years of mentorship. On the other hand, most Jewish leadership roles from synagogue executive directors to federation leaders to hillel leaders to JCC executives are challenging multi-faceted leadership roles with a wide variety of skills that are hard to come by in the wide variety of career tracks that thrust leaders into these positions.
This contrasts heavily with how careers are built in the corporate world. While careers are always a jagged line and very infrequently linear, most disciplines offer rich exposure to the wide variety of skills necessary to succeed in future positions of leadership. Taking my own career as an example, my early years were shaped by managers who not only possessed the root skills of analysis and communication that would be pre-requisites for success in any sub-field I joined, but they were individuals who themselves had benefited from a corporate infrastructure that taught them those skills in the right way. As I latched onto a more specific path, the skills for success were defined and I could look around me in the organization I was part of to seed positive examples of these skills from others who had navigated that path.
Even if we accept the reality that Jewish leadership career paths will inevitably be very jagged we need another way of making sure our leaders possess the necessary skills for success. Hands-on lay leader coaching is one path in the right direction. Our Jewish communities are filled with accomplished lay leaders who have engaged in skill building in a variety of disciplines. Given the events of 10/7 and everything that has happened since this is now a group that wants to give back more than ever.
A less used paradigm for lay leader volunteering
The typical way to engage lay leaders is through board service and perhaps through hands-on work on a board committee. This is critical work and there is no doubt functional boards shape the future trajectory of our organizations, but the truth is that the format value delivery for sub-committees is typically advice through meetings with 4-8 people. Further, these group advice sessions are typically scripted meetings where the Jewish professionals put on a show for board members they may feel like they ‘report to’ to some degree.
What if in addition to sub-committees a lay leader with pinpoint expertise in a necessary area of development was paired with a Jewish professional? What if the Jewish professional didn’t view that lay leader as their supervisor, but instead brought them real world situations to garner their advice? What if the lay leader was willing to jump into the details - Comment on the presentation, dive into the excel, ask for the nitty gritty details to help assess individual situations?
Mindset shifts to enable productive coaching
In order for coaching of this type to be successful there are 4 prerequisite mindset shifts we need to adopt:
Lay leaders need to be on call and willing to roll their sleeves up
Hands-on coaching is different from board service. It requires establishing context on topics that delve into operating details that would be inappropriate for a board to comment on. This in turn requires asking a lot of questions to establish context. It likely involves reviewing documents, meeting notes, and diving into the problem solving process itself. It involves doing all of this sometimes on an impromptu basis with the coach jumping into the fold as-needed to provide on demand feedback so the learning can hit harder. These are the same characteristics of critique of those provided by a manager, where it’s well documented that in the moment feedback is more effective than staged periodic feedback.
Jewish professionals need to get vulnerable
If the coach is willing to put in the time, the professional needs to put in the time themselves and be vulnerable. They need to be open to a sharp critique that goes well beyond what they would typically get from a board member. They need to adopt the mindset that this coach’s feedback will not be used against them with their manager and will not directly influence their career trajectory.
Coaching is not just for the CEO
If any function typically takes advantage of coaching it’s typically its leader. It’s somewhat common, especially for new CEOs, to take on a professional coach as a mechanism for compensating for skills that are known to be gaps. The truth is the narrative described above of non traditional career paths applies just as much or more to other functional leaders inside of organizations. More leaders need earlier interventions to give them time to evolve skills over the arch of their careers. Greater volunteer supply will bring resources to help a wider variety of organizational leaders.
Jewish organizations need to seek out volunteers
If there is willingness from Jewish professionals and lay coaches we need mechanisms to make matches. CJP’s Hineni system is one such program that solicits interest from volunteers and makes connections with organizations. These matches often result in board opportunities and other traditional lay leader opportunities. If the Jewish organization was willing to open up this entirely different kind of volunteer opportunity one could imagine a marketplace like this purposefully filling this gap.
Conclusion
It’s not an exaggeration to suggest that Jewish leadership might be the single biggest opportunity to ensure the Jewish future. While our traditional response of leadership programs, internal mentorship, and board service are critical components of our response, we need to add another layer that is more hands-on and transparent in its approach. Volunteers who want to give back might consider slicing off substantial portions of time and mindshare to service this key need with the same or greater level of self sacrifice they have traditionally given in their philanthropy and board service. While our measures of success on an effort like this may take years to come, the fulfillment that lay leaders can get from these efforts is immediate, and we can use the feedback of our professionals to discern whether we’re on the right track.
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The Business of Jewish is a free bi-weekly newsletter written by Boston based Jewish non profit consultant Ari Sussman.
Read his other articles here:
A digital solution at the center of Boston’s Israel crisis response
Collective purpose: Lessons from Jewish organizations during crisis
Day camps: The trickle down impact of Judaism’s most profitable business
The art of hospitality: What Jewish organizations can learn from fine dining
Deriving productive insight from Jewish organizational benchmarking
How price transparency could spur demand for Jewish institutions