By Donald C. Collins
We generally think of association leadership as assigning power, elected power and the power to garner the best assignments (which presumably is linked to ability). That traditional power can translate into economic power — the power to run camps, give clinics, etc. It can translate into power to be a trainer in your association — a power that gives one access to all the new officials, which should reinforce one’s power to assign, be elected and garner future good assignments when the best of the new officials move into future leadership positions. Traditional power can translate into a lot. However, that traditional power isn’t the only source of leadership within an association.
Associations have many potential leaders. Those potential leaders are often just sitting there waiting for the association to empower them by asking them to exercise leadership.
Associations need to allow their members to use their professional skills on behalf of the association. Associations have members who are insurance agents, actuaries, police officers, firefighters, teachers, attorneys, marketing people, website designers, dentists and store owners, among others.
Those professionals should be used! An association should ask the attorney, the actuary and the insurance agent to work on improving game contracts and association bylaws. The website designer can work on the group’s website. The teachers may not be able to solve the problem at a school, but they can provide valuable insight. The marketing person may be able to help you recruit by getting you radio air time or a piece in the newspaper. The police officers may be able to work with the tough schools to enhance game security and to ensure the security of the association members at games.
Almost all associations are willing to use those professionals once they rise to an acceptable level of association leadership. Associations are generally more than happy to ask the marketing person for help once she’s become a playoff official even if she’s not yet a state championship official. The challenge for associations is to find a way to use the second-year, non-playoff official who is also a marketing person. That person may have leadership skills to offer the association, too. That potential leader needs to be empowered for the good of the association.
An association faces some challenges in empowering leaders who do not hold traditional leadership roles in an association. After all, associations are comfortable with the people who hold traditional leadership positions. They know that the association assigner has been around 40 years and just isn’t going to give himself the big games. They know that the president is respected in his real job. Those people are safe. Nothing crazy or awful is going to happen.
An association has to take a number of steps to protect itself before it tries to empower its non-traditional leaders. First, an association needs to do a little research to make sure that the people are good in their professions. After all, you wouldn’t want an association to empower someone who isn’t respected within their field. The disbarred attorney or suspended dentist are probably not the guys your group wants to empower. The local businessman who just embezzled company funds is not the guy you want to empower to help with contracts.
At the same time, an association needs to make sure that inexperienced officials don’t expect some quid pro quo when an association empowers them to use their business skills to help the association. The radio DJ who got your association a radio spot that led to a 75 percent increase in recruits shouldn’t expect the state finals when she’s only a third-year official with no playoff experience.
To ensure there is no “I’ll scratch your back, you scratch mine” dealing going on, it should do what associations should always be doing — have strong evaluations systems; provide the evaluations to the members; have an appeal process in case someone disagrees with an evaluation; link assigning to evaluations; have training that allows officials to get better; and provide some mechanism by which officials can be reevaluated after their training.
So, the more things change the more they stay the change. An association can’t empower potential leaders who aren’t traditional association leaders until the association has its house in order.
Donald C. Collins is the executive director of the San Francisco Section of the California Interscholastic Federation. He is a longtime basketball official and lawyer. This article is for informational purposes and is not legal advice.
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