Most Important Skills for an Executive Director at Los Angeles Coalition for Public Schools
Joni, an Executive Director focused on advocacy, identifies collaboration, project management, and relationship building as crucial skills. The ability to "show up as your true authentic self" and cultivate genuine relationships, rather than transactional ones, proves especially vital for navigating the complexities of their work and achieving goals within a small nonprofit setting.
Collaboration, Project Management, Relationship Building, Networking, Leadership
Advizer Information
Name
Job Title
Company
Undergrad
Grad Programs
Majors
Industries
Job Functions
Traits
Joni Angel
Executive Director
Los Angeles Coalition for Excellent Public Schools
University of Michigan 2003
Harvard Kennedy School, Master in Public Policy, 2010. Pace University, Master in the Science of Teaching, 2005.
Ethnic & Related Studies
Education, Government & Public Sector
Strategic Management and Executive
Honors Student
Video Highlights
1. Collaboration: Working effectively with diverse groups, understanding each member's strengths, and bringing them together to achieve shared goals.
2. Project Management: Defining project goals, creating timelines and resource allocation plans, assigning tasks, and maintaining project structure and scope.
3. Relationship Building: Cultivating genuine connections with individuals in other organizations through consistent interaction and mutual respect to foster trust and cooperation for effective teamwork.
Transcript
What sort of skills are most important for a job like yours?
I think there are three key skills you need in a job like this. This might apply to most executive directors, but it may be even more particular to somebody who works in advocacy, like I do.
I think about collaboration, project management, and relationship building. I am the executive director of a small nonprofit. This means I need to work with people from a lot of other organizations.
Working with people at other organizations can't just be one-way. There's a lot of back and forth and bringing together different groups to get the work done. Being a good collaborator means thinking about the strengths and skills of the people you're working with and bringing them together to achieve goals.
Similar to that, the second skill is project management. I think of project management as the ability to set goals, a timeline, and resources for a project. It's also about thinking about who will do what.
Being able to think about the work in a relatively linear fashion and map it out at the beginning of a project is very helpful. You also need to continue to think about that structure and scope throughout.
The third skill is relationship building. I'm in a small organization, and I need to work with people to get things done. A lot of that means going out to lunch or coffee, or doing a school visit with a charter school leader. It means making friends with people at other organizations and maintaining those relationships.
Relationship building is really important in lots of jobs, and maybe isn't talked about enough as a specific skill. It's the ability to show up as your true, authentic self and build human relationships with people. You can then count on those people as you're working with them.
Sometimes this can be mistaken as something transactional, like taking someone to coffee so they will do something for you. But it's really not like that. Relationship building has to happen genuinely over time.
Then you're actually building work together, and there's a give and take, like in any relationship.
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