Money. Not the first thing we think about in schools, state agencies, or nonprofits, is it? But for leaders, money drives many things. Leaders manage budgets, make staffing decisions based on available resources, write grants, appear before state and national legislatures asking for funding, all in the name of having what they need to get the job done.
There are so many branches on the money tree that it is hard to choose a leadership stone among them. But here goes. I am setting out here to support the theory that you must pay well to get the best people on your team, and that the concept applies to ALL members of the team.
One of my greatest frustrations in an organization where top-tier leaders were paid well was the fact that those doing front-line work were drastically underpaid. We limped through the recession, a time when I was forced to trim $1.5 million from my department’s budget. Staff salaries remained nearly flat during those years. When the recession eased, I assumed we would play substantial catch-up with teachers and instructional assistants… but it did not happen. Instead, we continued with minimal yearly pay increases and no provision for mimicking our public school counterparts that implemented steady salary increases and step raises. The most important teacher-leaders and staff in our school seemed to be valued the least, if pay was any indicator.
Now don’t get me wrong—I am not one of those who complain when the CEO of a large nonprofit agency is paid well. Nonprofits are incredibly complex, and some of the best CEOs I have known are working 60-70 hours a week managing multiple departments. Fundraising, developing legislative relationships, and keeping the ship pointed in the right direction require great expertise and incredible effort, which should be appropriately compensated. Every position is important, however, and compensation is part of the formula that indicates a person’s value in an organization.
Since half of my career has been spent in leadership positions, I have been privy to a great deal of financial information from various organizations. And because I practice servant-leadership, I have tried to advocate for my own compensation in a way that keeps it in line with others providing similar services but also takes into consideration that any organization faces finite resources. The more I take as an administrator, the less there is for others on the front line.
The most disturbing phenomenon I noted both in schools and nonprofits is the pervasive attitude that educators and their counterpoints should be grateful for the pay they receive. A board member of a nonprofit stated that teachers in private settings should accept lower pay because they had a better working environment than their public school counterparts. A leader in that same organization stated that we needed to offer better pay in our development and communications departments so that we could attract the “best” people. See the irony? Me, too.
In addition, I have observed systems where top-tier employees were held to a lower accountability standard than others in the organization. Confidentiality keeps me from going into details, but I was surprised when percentage raises were regularly granted to top employees with no performance measures attached to those raises. And since percentage raises pay off, literally, more for top earners, shouldn’t they be based on performance?
I know—I’m mostly complaining here. Where’s the leadership stone, you ask? The stone I cling to is more of an “ought to” than an ism. Leaders ought to focus on pursuing excellent compensation for ALL employees whose work they value. And for me, that’s everyone who is working toward the organization’s mission and meeting mutually agreed upon accountability standards.
The concept of “socio-economic value” was invented to account for the social value of educators (and other front-line workers) who may not be compensated in accordance with their true value to society, but we should not ignore the economic side. We have lost many great staff because of low pay in this field. Let’s not do that any more.