The Chronicle
Fall 2011
Page 9
W
hen I first came to HUC-JIR as Interim
Director of the (then) School of Jewish
Communal Service, I was hired to develop
a new strategic plan, for which I had considerable
experience. In this context, I really did not
need to know much leadership theory.
However, I quickly discovered
that “leadership” training is the
holy grail of the Jewish profes-
sional arena, the paragon of
professional excellence, and
that in thinking about the val-
ues and direction of the
school going forward, it would
be necessary to incorporate it
into our self-definition. Leader-
ship training had long been a
component of our curriculum, both
directly in the coursework (e.g. “Leader-
ship in Jewish Communal Service” and
“
Organizational Development”), as well as implicitly in
the supervised fieldwork and the Mentorship Program.
The question was where and how to incorporate it into
our brand, the public representation of our values.
One of the clear messages from the strategic
planning process was that we had to change the name
of the school because it no longer accurately repre-
sented the brand. Here we were, having graduated
hundreds of professionals, many of whom were in
senior executive positions in major organizations, in
every sector of Jewish life, in America and around the
world… and yet few people when asked could accu-
rately describe what the degree represented. Master
of Arts in Jewish Communal Service. Was this a
branch of social work? Was this advanced training for
committed lay leaders? Was this a training ground for
people interested in social justice or social service in
the Jewish community? What did the name communi-
cate about the profession for which we were educating
our students?
The name worked in the late 1960’s and early
1970’
s when the school was founded and establishing
itself. At that time, there was a communitarian ethos
in American culture and a nobility to the concept of
“
service” as a vocation, in the sense of a professional
pursuit as well as in the sense of a “calling.”
The culture, both Jewish and general, is quite
different now. Individualism and professionalism are
paramount. During my Strategic Planning course that
summer, I was surprised at how strongly students dis-
liked the name of the school. When I asked why, they
said their fellow students in the University of Southern
Californai dual degree programs did not understand
what they were studying, and employers did not
understand it well enough to value it on a resumé. So I
asked: “What do you tell your USC colleagues that you
are doing?” And the students said, “We tell them that
we are studying Jewish nonprofit management.”
I think that was when I knew
that we had to rename the school.
We were in danger of turning
off our primary con-
stituency… our students
and, more importantly,
our prospective students.
Once we decided to
change the name, we then
had to determine what the
name would be. This was an
opportunity to re-present our-
selves, reposition ourselves,
re-brand ourselves… where the
name would elevate the brand, instead
of bringing it down. We tested out many possibili-
ties, but ultimately it devolved down to two contenders:
1.
School of Jewish Nonprofit Management (which
the students had themselves suggested)
2.
School of Jewish Professional Leadership (to which
Brandeis had recently changed its program).
The difference between management and leader-
ship is subtle. One of the senior professionals in the field
summed up the distinction very simply: “Management
is doing things right. Leadership is doing the right things.”
It is pretty clear
to me that an effective
professional needs to
do both. And it is also
pretty clear to me that
knowing how to do
things right is an essen-
tial pre-condition to
doing the right things.
Are we cultivating
management skills or
are we nurturing lead-
ers? I hope we are
doing both, but while
management can be
taught, all one can re-
ally do with leadership
is help clarify the indi-
viduals’ potential and
provide opportunities for them to exercise and refine
their capacities. Another one of the senior professionals
I interviewed said “It’s a disservice to the students to
pretend that they will be ‘leaders’ when they graduate,
since they won’t be in positions to exercise their lead-
ership for several years down the line.”
Yes, it’s true that someone does not need to have
a large platform or abundant resources in order to ex-
hibit leadership abilities. You can exercise leadership
from whatever position you are in. But that’s not what
is generally understood when we talk about the “lead-
ership gap” in the Jewish community. As it is commonly
understood, leadership implies a collective with com-
mon purpose, some serious executive authority, and
some resources to apply to the vision. This really is only
possible once a professional has reached some level of
success in the field, has had some significant experi-
ence, has achieved some position of responsibility, and
has come to understand the processes of the commu-
nity, the structure of organizations, and the complexities
of human behavior.
So we chose the name: School of Jewish Non-
profit Management. The name aligns with a recognized
professional field of practice: Nonprofit Management.
And it succinctly describes what our graduates do.
However, we do not want to imply that this is the
limit of their talents or the best that we anticipate from
them. We do expect that our future graduates will be-
come leaders in the Jewish community, just as so
many of our alumni have. In fact, leadership potential
is one of the key factors we look for in the admissions
process and interviews. So we’ve added a tag-line to
our name and use it wherever we can: “Excellence in
Professional Leadership.” This is not simply a conces-
sion to branding strategy, but an honest descriptor of
the underlying thrust and message of our program. Our
M.A.J.N.M. graduates are expected to become leaders
of the Jewish commu-
nity… because they are
skilled professionals, are
grounded in Jewish his-
tory and values, and
have the vision that will
help transform Jewish
life in the decades
ahead.
Truth in Advertising
or
What’s in a Name
Professor Richard Siegel,
Director, School of Jewish Nonprofit Management, HUC-JIR/Jack H. Skirball Campus/Los Angeles
(
Top)
Igor Khokhlov and Lisa Berney.
(
Center)
SJNM students participating in a
session on “Experience in Religious Expression.”
(
bottom)
Richard Siegel
(
center)
,
guiding
LuAnne Tyzzer and Sarah Bassin in their research.
