What Do Nonprofit Leaders and Elephant Riders Have In Common?

"...If you've ever felt like an organizational schizophrenic, surrounded by people making vastly different meanings out of the same actions, you are right. Your staff is going to view you as a business manager; your board will want to see your actions in terms of their political savvy; and your volunteers will wonder any time you direct your attention toward anything but serving the best interest of your agency's clients...The best voluntary sector managers do find a way to ride their elephants - their flanks guiding the beast's direction, their eyes wary of the probing tusks, their hands alert to the waving trunk, their hearts remembering why they originally climbed on board, their voices speaking soothingly into the ears of their charges. Nothing to it, you say? Ride on!"