Marc Pitman: Welcome to the Concord Leaders Podcast. I’m Marc Pitman, the CEO of the Concord Leadership Group. Today our guest is Madeleine McGee. She’s the president of Together SC. And for those of you who aren’t in the South Carolina area, that is the state association of nonprofits for South Carolina. Madeleine, it is such an honor to have you here. Thanks for joining us today.

Madeleine McGee: Thank you, Marc.

Marc Pitman: You must be one of the most connected people in the state, because I know when I first got here — I lived here a long time. Well, that’s why, because when we first moved here, we were connected, and you have been an amazing person at remembering the connections. I just watch you at events, and it seems like you know how to continue those relationships and connect people, and then move away so that they can stay connected, and you can keep doing what you do. It’s amazing to watch you in motion.

Madeleine McGee: Oh, well, thank you. It is something I love doing.

Marc Pitman: I can tell, it totally shows. So what do you enjoy about leadership, or what do you love about leading?

Madeleine McGee: What I love about leading is the people. It’s also what I find most challenging about leading. But we as nonprofits come into this world with more than our quota of the glass being half full. I think we’ve got our optimism, our vision, our ability to see change, to believe change is possible, to believe that a group of individuals can get together and make that change happen without much resources. That’s either insanity or true vision and optimism. That’s what excites me, the people. I’m a big believer in the servant leadership strategy — my goal is to be behind and lift up others. What’s been most exciting for me in my career is my colleagues that I have helped in small ways to advance their careers, and seeing where they’ve gone and what they’ve done. So after many decades in running an operating nonprofit, running a community foundation, being a consultant, landing at Together SC, whose very mission is about lifting up and enabling and supporting and strengthening nonprofit leaders, it was a perfect fit for what I find most exciting at this time in my life.

Marc Pitman: And how long have you been there now?

Madeleine McGee: I came in January of 2011, so right at nine years.

Marc Pitman: That is amazing. That’s really cool. Go ahead.

Madeleine McGee: I had a mentor way back in my life who had run a significant academic institution, a public one, and he said, “We as nonprofit leaders should not take a job we won’t keep for less than five years, because you just can’t get anything done in less than five years.” When it comes to year 10, you need to start looking and saying, “Am I truly the best leader for this organization going forward, or is it time to let this public asset, this community organization, be led by someone else?” We’ve got to acknowledge that we are not owners of our organizations.

Marc Pitman: That is so good.

Madeleine McGee: One of my pet peeves, Marc, is when we say “my board,” “my organization.” We as execs may passionately love the organizations that we run, and the people and the boards, but they are not ours — they are the community’s.

Marc Pitman: I resonate so much with that, that’s really interesting. As you know, part of my history involves pastoring a church, and I would really strenuously work to not say “my church” or “my congregation,” because it wasn’t mine. But I can totally see that in the nonprofit context too — it’s having that five and ten year plan window. Right now I’m coaching someone who’s finishing her fifth year in a position as a CEO and wondering — she’s right in that kind of retrospective — is the next five years… She must’ve had the same advisor, ’cause you’re right, you need to stay there long enough to make a difference.

Madeleine McGee: Well, and here’s what I would say to her, because we struggle — we oftentimes don’t really — there are many CEOs who will say, “Don’t give me a raise, I’ve got to get this organization going,” and they put themselves second financially to building the organization. And then they get to about year five, and things are looking well and wonderful, and they get ready to say, “Oh wait, maybe I need something that’s more challenging.” And they don’t take time to stay long enough to really lock things in and to benefit financially. Now, in this market that we’re in, that strategy no longer applies, but I do encourage CEOs to stay long enough to really make sure that their imprint on the organization is solid. And by that I mean core values. I think that is one of the most important things that we as CEOs instill upon our organizations — that culture, the core values, the way of doing things, that should continue beyond us if we do it well enough. And I will say I have not always done it well enough.

Marc Pitman: Well, and that leads to the part of these conversations that’s often the next part. When was the time that you were doing leadership and it didn’t work?

Madeleine McGee: Oh, so many times. Here’s a silly little example. My very first job out of college in the ’80s was to run a brand new downtown redevelopment program in Georgetown, South Carolina, a town of 10,000 on the Sampit River. I was working on Front Street, and a big part of what we were trying to do was to instill an appreciation for the historic built fabric of the downtown. I got there, and this was a time when Rainbow Row in Charleston was all vibrant, and that’s what tourism was in South Carolina. Many of the property owners wanted to stucco their brick 1880s buildings and paint them bright colors so it looked just like Rainbow Row. And I kept saying, “No, we need to be respectful of your history, our built history, and that architecture and what it says.” But oftentimes they’d say, “Just design it for us, get us through the approval” — we offered design services to the property owners and merchants. And after I left — I only stayed there two years, so I didn’t even listen to my own advice back then — I came back to visit, and I saw yet another building that had been stuccoed and painted a bright color. And it was clear that that core value around appreciation for the architectural history of the community had not been instilled well enough. It was very visible evidence of that. So it’s a simple example, but it’s an important indication of how we need to really educate people and have it become part of who they are, not just do it for them.

Marc Pitman: That is so hard. One of my favorite quotes in these conversations is from YNPN’s executive director, Jamie Smith, who said that you learn skills as an employee, and then you get promoted if you have skill proficiency. But as a manager, you need people skills — you find out skill proficiency isn’t enough. And then as a senior leader, you find out that even people skills and skill proficiency isn’t enough. But there are very few people who are teaching visioning and leading and strategy. So it’s so easy to default to, “I can just get this done for you,” as opposed to instilling it in the culture.

Madeleine McGee: That’s really interesting. Yeah, many life lessons when it comes to managing people. And we have so many wonderful young leaders right now, and this time we’re going through is going to challenge everything they’ve got. They are going to be making tougher decisions than I’ve ever had to make in my career — about who to keep, who to let go, how to pay this, how to pay that, what’s most important, how to take their organization virtual. I just can’t imagine doing that as a first-time exec, because of the insecurities you feel when you are placed in that kind of leadership position — the personal insecurities and uncertainties about whether you’re doing the right thing or not can be overwhelming. And that’s where having a coach like you can be so very helpful.

Marc Pitman: Well, thank you.

Madeleine McGee: Yeah, because leadership definitely pulls out all your insecurities anyway. So in a time like this — we’re talking at the end of March, and I think this will be released in a few weeks — but the amount of just sheer unknown… In most times you can find somebody who has been through something similar. People haven’t been through this for over 100 years. People are saying the closest parallel is the Spanish flu. So there’s not many of those people around to talk to and find out how they did it.

Marc Pitman: My father was born in 1929, and he’s still with us at almost 91. I said to him the other day, “You came in during a depression, and you may well go out in a depression, but you’ve had a pretty wonderful life in between.” And how lucky we as a country have been that it’s been that very long. My wife is also looking at our oldest daughter, who was born on 9/11 and is graduating during the COVID-19 pandemic. I’m just wondering what kind of shaping that’s done to her generation.

Madeleine McGee: Yeah, I think it’s promising. I think there’s going to be a can-do attitude that we’ve seen already hints of, but I think there’s going to be a “just get it done” sort of thing. But wow, that’s not the way we would have planned it as parents, or as a country, I don’t think. Before this — I mean, we as a state, in the eight or nine years I’ve been at Together SC, between the Mother Emanuel shooting, between the flooding and the hurricanes, we have had more community-wide, statewide disasters of all types than in my entire life before that. We’re getting good at it — we know how to hunker down, we’ve been hunkering down for the hurricanes now. I think what your question is going to say is, what’s a strategy you would want to share with people? It sort of relates to what we’re talking about. There is no such thing as the crystal ball, although we as execs would totally love to have one. And the closest thing I have found is something that I learned in business school — I was fortunate enough to go to the Darden School at the University of Virginia — and that is critical decision-making, that sort of decision-tree kind of structure of identifying all your possible options and evaluating each option, pros and cons. If we do this, what next? If we do this, what are the variations on whether it succeeds or fails? And that’s what I would say to leaders in this time — the ability to think creatively and just totally outside the box on what your options are. Nothing should be left unevaluated. Every program, every financing structure, every staffing structure, every way in which you engage the board needs to be evaluated and considered — how to do it more efficiently, more effectively, more streamlined. I think — what is the term — crisis is the mother of invention. I think this is going to have many of our organizations finally moving virtually, which is going to hopefully provide some savings in some of the staffing structures, around finances and other activities. But I would say, use as much of your brain power as a leader to explore all options for you and your people, and give them consideration. And then the final thing, Marc, I’d say is: do the right thing. When we as nonprofits make the decision that’s in the best interest of those we serve — our community, our clients — then the support will come. People will trust us to do what is needed and to be of help, and if we are of help and benefit, we will find the ways for our services to go forward.

Marc Pitman: Wow, I felt peace as you were saying that. Thanks so much. This has been such a rich conversation, I really appreciate it. Where can people find more about Together SC and your work?

Madeleine McGee: Oh, just Google South Carolina nonprofits, and we come up. We’re at togethersc.org. We are at the end of the phone, at the end of the email, on the Zoom call — we’ll be setting up regular calls for our colleagues to be able to connect. But our job is to help our nonprofit leaders succeed. And having been a CEO almost my entire life, a nonprofit CEO, I know there’s nothing that I can’t help talk through. We may not have the answers, but I can at least listen and point you in some directions. And so I would say to those out there: just please call on us. We’re here for you.

Marc Pitman: That’s wonderful. Well, thanks so much, Madeleine. I know people are going to want to listen to this over and over. So for anyone that’s listening to this episode, as with all the episodes of the Concord Leaders Podcast, it can be found at concordleadershipgroup.com/podcasts, with an S. And until next time, remember that healthy organizations start with healthy leaders.