“I value asking questions because they reveal others’ inspirations and perspectives, often offering insights better than my own.” -Dianne Ogle
[00:00:00] Dianne Ogle: I love creativity. It’s one of my favorite things. So that’s why I like questions, because even if I think I know the answer, if I ask the question, it’s just beautiful to hear what inspires somebody or what was bubbling in them or how they see it, quite frankly. It isn’t the way I always see things or think it might play out. So, you give people a door for their own strengths, their own creativity, to participate and join in. And most of the time it’s so much better than when we could do it alone.
[00:00:32] Tommy Thomas: Today, we’re continuing the discussion we began last week with Dianne Ogle. In this episode, Dianne shares her extensive leadership journey focusing on the importance of authenticity, community and resilience. She discusses the danger of pride and leadership and emphasizes the need for leaders to rely on their teams and build strong, supportive networks. Dianne also reflects on the power of prayer and how it has shaped her leadership approach, particularly in empowering women leaders. Her insights offer valuable lessons for anyone looking to navigate the complexities of leadership with integrity and faith. This episode is a rich resource for leaders at any stage of their career. Let’s pick up where we left off last week.
[00:01:25] Tommy Thomas: I’m sure you’ve observed this in both men and women, but give me your thoughts on the dangerous traits that can derail a leader’s career.
[00:01:35] Dianne Ogle: Pride, absolute pride. And thinking that you can do it alone. And you don’t need anybody else, because what got you here won’t get you there, as one of the books says that I use a lot. Because we need each other. We were built for community, and we need each other. And as soon as we think that we have arrived in that corner office, we don’t grow.
We don’t desire. We don’t let people in to speak truth to us and have iron sharpens. Iron is when we start digressing, and regressing, we’ve all seen it. We’ve all known people. They think they’re all there. Even Christians. We’re flesh, we’re sinful, and we start moving backwards. So that’s probably the greatest.
[00:02:25] Tommy Thomas: I know, all this is broached in a blanket of confidentiality, and I won’t ask you to go there, but does it take the women a while to get used to sharing everything and trusting that their cohorts, that’s not what you call it, but their peer, not anymore.
[00:02:43] Dianne Ogle: I think originally, initially the first group that was called into it, but they were in need of a group like this that I think they were willing. And when they saw that I was doing a confidentiality statement that they all signed and that it was going to be a safe place. Then they started testing it.
Now our foundation is so strong that women will either understand what we’ve got and be ready to jump in. As soon as they come and join I take them through an onboarding program, and I also have them start meeting with the women one on one, but they immediately come to a meeting after they’ve joined, and they start seeing how honest, authentic, just real. And the prayer requests that we share, we’ve really grown in the power of prayer together. And that is authentic because they’re sharing every aspect of their lives, not just their work.
[00:03:42] Tommy Thomas: So how do they work together from the four pillars, you’re bringing people from the nonprofit sector. You’ve got executive women from Fortune 500 companies.
[00:03:53] Dianne Ogle: Now Tommy, the cool thing is we call it repurpose. We don’t call it retirement. And some of them, like we had one who was the chief diversity officer at Coca Cola. And she’d been with Coke for 20 years and in her career and near the end of her career, she started being tapped for a paid board of director role.
So, she’s now repurposed and now she’s a board director and still highly engaged with us in linking arms. We have another one who repurposed and now she’s helping one of our other members who is the president of the National Day of Prayer, helping her with grant writing and supporting ministry of the National Day of Prayer.
[00:04:34] Dianne Ogle: It is beautiful.
[00:04:36] Dianne Ogle: We believe we don’t compete. We complete. And so there are times where some will work together or we will have an opportunity to like this next National Day of Prayer in May. Kathy Brent sells the President, and she’s opened the invitation for all of us to come to the Capitol and to all the festivities to help pray over the nation and all the pillars that involve.
[00:05:03] So yes, we are highly diverse, Tommy, both in skin color and political views and career pathing and titles and positions. The beauty is in the foundation we love Jesus. And yes, we’ve worked through the weathers.
[00:05:21] Dianne Ogle: I would say our women are even diverse in age. We’ve got some in their late thirties to the mid to late sixties. And all my nonprofit or ministry women, that’s what shocked me because initially when I saw that pillar of nonprofit, I’m thinking, oh, it’d be like an exec with the Red Cross.
And I just assumed it would be those kinds of women coming towards us. And it has been. There have been high level executive women in ministry work. So that’s been beautiful. Andrea, who you had on your show before, she was my first one in that category. And I went to her after four months with us.
[00:06:01] Dianne Ogle: And I said, I consider her Sage. She is the most amazing woman. I said, Andrea, are we meeting your needs? That was just important for me. And she goes, she’s so thoughtful in the way she answers. She goes I come from a big family. I have a big donor base. I’ve been well supported at Cru since I became a Christian in college.
And she goes, but this is so beautiful for me to have a safe place with true peers in other sectors and see the commonality or the similar pain or listen to maybe a different perspective outside of ministry that I can glean from, or I could speak into. And I’m like, okay, Lord, here we go. That’s it.
[00:06:46] Tommy Thomas: That was going to be a question, and, yeah, I would probably have assumed that, but you say that, regardless of what sector you’re in, there probably arises a pattern of issues that you’re going to face regardless if you’re a private sector or government service or public service, and so y’all are able to work with the whole person.
[00:07:10] Dianne Ogle: Absolutely. In and out of season. We’ve lost a member to death, which was really hard on the group, and it was very sudden. We have walked through lots of personal pain together. And there are groups out there for just professionals, but we work on emotional, spiritual, financial, relational issues. Some of our women are single, some are divorced, some are married, some have children, some do not.
And so, you can imagine we all step into this place, but to see the love and the respect and the camaraderie, it always brings tears to my eyes. Just to go, Lord, these are your girls. You’ve risen us up for such a time as this and we are better together and we need to encourage one another as long as it’s called today like scripture says, because it’s tough out there. And we need each other.
[00:08:10] Dianne Ogle: I tell my coaching clients. Part of my core purpose is to be the Hur, like in Exodus 17. I’m the Hur of Moses and we need people to come by our side to speak into, to give us rest, to help raise our hands. Because these battles that we’re in spiritually, professionally, personally, they’re weary. It’s tough. So, we all need each other.
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[00:08:39] Tommy Thomas: If you’re writing a book on the burdens of leadership that only the CEO can bear, what are some of the topics you would address?
[00:08:51] Dianne Ogle: This loneliness is a big one that I hear consistently. Whether I’m talking to a brand new high level woman or talking to one of our Arete’ women, even though they’re in the group, they will remember how lonely it can be and misunderstood because our churches a lot of times don’t understand us or get our giftedness.
A lot of times the other peers, like if they’re in childbearing age and they’re going to the school, a lot of those mothers don’t get them. So, it’s hard for them to have community. And then when you’re at that senior level, as a CEO, as a board director, just the level of confidentiality and all that you have to take in and feel responsible for is unbelievable pressure.
[00:09:41] Dianne Ogle: And so, where do they have their safe place, their place, just to be them authentically, have a place, a table, they could just lay an issue out like an advisor we call, like our own personal advisory council. Here’s my issue, help me with this. Or let me just speak it through so I can hear my own voice talking about it in a safe place where it’s not gonna go to the media, it’s not gonna go to my board directors.
It’s just something I need to wrestle through to make sure that I’ve got the wisdom, discernment, knowledge, and understanding for this role. Each and every day I’ve been called to it.
[00:10:24] Tommy Thomas: You mentioned early on, you came out of an athletic family and have done the statistics and all that. So, you’ll appreciate a couple of these athletic kind of questions.
[00:10:33] Tommy Thomas: David Chadwick, a pastor in Charlotte has written a book on Dean Smith’s life: It’s How You Play the Game. The 12 Leadership Principles of Dean Smith.
[00:10:42] Tommy Thomas: And he says the concept of team may be Coach Smith’s greatest contribution to basketball leadership and society. Your thoughts on that.
[00:10:53] Dianne Ogle: Amen, brother. Amen. Like I said earlier, we are not called alone, and we need our teams, both in our organizations and outside of that, because that’s when … I tell people I have one brain, like I just have one. And so I gather even my women say, okay, let’s talk about our content.
Let’s talk about our annual retreat. And even though I might come to the table with my own ideas, I want to have an open heart and ask questions. I feel really strong about the power of questions to gain others’ ideas and inspiration, and God uses us all so uniquely with the way he wired us with our personalities and our strengths and the way our stories have unfolded.
[00:11:38] Dianne Ogle: We do a lot of assessments in Arete too, over the years, not all it wants to beat us up, but so that we can not only know ourselves better, but the people that we work with in our different teams. And we have deeper understanding and appreciation, and we know who to tap for what assignment.
[00:11:56] Tommy Thomas: Here’s a quote from Mother Teresa and I like to contextualize this. In the context of Arete’, I’m not called to be successful, but to be faithful. And so is there a tension there between the context in which the women you’re working with that’s their existence.
[00:12:18] Dianne Ogle: And a lot of my women, as you can imagine, are high achievers. They’re highly responsible. When you do these assessments on Strength Finders, they’re big-time learners.
They’re always insatiable to continue to grow and learn. And there is this tension, from the world’s expectations and definitions of success and what God sees as success. And sometimes that’s not the same. And are you okay with that? In different seasons, sometimes you’re more front facing and other times he might have you in a prayer closet.
[00:12:51] Dianne Ogle: Or going through a tougher season to sharpen you and to get the dross off of us so that he can use us again. Yeah, that’s just really important.
[00:13:03] Tommy Thomas: Here’s one from General George Patton. Never tell people how to do things. Tell them what to do and they will surprise you with their ingenuity.
[00:13:13] Dianne Ogle: Yes, I love creativity. It’s one of my favorite things. So that’s why I like questions, because even if I think I know the answer, if I ask the question, it’s just beautiful to hear what inspires somebody or what was bubbling in them or how they see it, quite frankly. It isn’t the way I always see things or think it might play out.
So, you give people a door for their own strengths, their own creativity to participate and join in. And most of the time it’s so much better than when we could do it alone or to your point, overreach and over lead and overmanage, then it’s all about me, versus it’s about us and how we’re perfect, how we’re navigating and pressing forward.
[00:14:01] Tommy Thomas: Here’s another one. The best bosses aren’t usually those who boost the bottom line as much as it is those who make you a better person and better at your job.
[00:14:13] Dianne Ogle: And that’s called development, leadership development, and the organizations that get the value, and that’s what my husband does. That’s his sweet spot with large organizations.
[00:14:26] Dianne Ogle: And the organizations who believe that, whether it’s coaching like what I do, whether it’s the big-time strategies of leadership development, if we miss or you start pulling those budget dollars back from really pouring into your people, it will negatively impact your bottom line when you’re too focused on the money and not the people.
[00:14:47] Dianne Ogle: And then you lose your legacy. When we’re focused on the people and where they’re going and have a true sense of wanting to see them succeed and learn and grow and step into their authentic, strong self and grow every stage and step of the way. That’s part of our legacy, isn’t it?
[00:15:10] Tommy Thomas: We talked about creativity and innovation a few minutes ago. Here’s another quote. If you never color outside the lines, the picture will never change.
[00:15:21] Dianne Ogle: And then it gets dull and boring and antiquated. It’s then we’re no earthly good, and we serve a creative God Elohim who all we have to do is step outside and see the ocean, like where you live or the beautiful flowers that my husband’s planted in the trees that I live around here in Georgia.
And we see his beauty in and out of season. So, creativity and innovation is like water to the soul. It should be that fresh flowing spring for any individual and organization to continue to thrive and strive for each season.
[00:16:05] Tommy Thomas: Here’s another one from Coach Smith. What do you do with the mistake? Recognize it, learn from it, admit it, forget it.
[00:16:14] Dianne Ogle: Confess it. Yeah. You got to confess it and go, Lord, help me. If I have a blind spot, am I not seeing this? Did I know it? Is there sin here? Do I need to apologize to somebody or the team or the organization? Learn from it. Have a humble heart. There’s nothing more beautiful about a leader who has a cloak of humility that can admit and model when they’ve made a mistake.
And then how are they learning from it? Doesn’t mean we have to be perfect. And that’s the air that so many leaders believe, is that, oh, I’m in this position, so, I’ve got to be perfect. No, we should all be learning. And part of what we learn is to model when we have failed or made a mistake and that it’s not the end of the world.
[00:17:06] Dianne Ogle: We’ll pick ourselves back up. Hopefully, the consequences aren’t too great, and we can keep navigating forward and we can shift and learn from it quite frankly, and model it to others to learn from.
[00:17:19] Tommy Thomas: No matter what job you have in life, your success will be determined 5 percent by your academic credentials, 15 percent by your professional experience and 80 percent by your communication skills.
[00:17:34] Dianne Ogle: Well, communication is critical, isn’t it? Whether it’s in writing, whether it’s oral, whether it’s your prayers to the Lord, having that grounded and rooted time where you have the vertical in line so that you can do the horizontal for all that he has called you to do. Not what your talents tend to want to take us up, take over.
No, he gave us our threading and our talents and our strengths, but we have to align it to his pace, his cadence, his work and his will every step of the way.
[00:18:12] Tommy Thomas: Peter Drucker, the most important thing in communication is to hear what isn’t being said.
[00:18:19] Dianne Ogle: And that’s called discernment, leaning in. I think if leaders talk too much, they really miss out on pressing in and seeing and hearing using those languages in hearing beyond what is physically said or heard. And sometimes then a strong question can elevate and illuminate something brand new. Or a way to go in and comfort somebody or encourage them or help them out of an area where they might be stuck.
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[00:18:56] Tommy Thomas: Let’s go back to staff leadership for a minute before we bring this to a close.
[00:18:59] Tommy Thomas: What would go into a decision you might make to give somebody a second chance who had of course, I guess the degree of egregiousness would factor into that, but we all would like to have a second chance.
[00:19:11] Dianne Ogle: Absolutely. And God’s a giver of second chances every day, right? None of us are perfect.
We’ve all sinned and fallen short of his glory. So why wouldn’t we model that as Christ followers and Christ leaders? If we’re truly being cloaked with his spirit and his power through us, we should be modeling second chances. Now, does that mean we’re fools? No, sometimes we have to do the hard thing and fire people.
[00:19:38] Dianne Ogle: Nobody likes doing it that I’ve ever met, but sometimes it might be in the best interest of the institutional organization that you are entrusted with. Sometimes God’s not done writing their story either. And it may be the best thing so that he can continue to do his work in and through them apart from the organization.
But yes, he’s always in the business of second chances. Thank you, Lord.
[00:20:06] Tommy Thomas: If you were creating a dashboard to get at the health of a nonprofit organization, what would some of your dials measure?
[00:20:15] Dianne Ogle: Just the health of your people and where are your priorities? What’s that vision, mission, values that hopefully you’ve aligned with what the Lord wants you to do in that nonprofit and having the metrics.
So many times, I find nonprofits not wanting to have measurements and metrics. I don’t really understand that because it’s just in the spirit of excellence. It’s not to shame you or to say you’re a failure. But if we don’t know where we’re going, how are we going to know we ever got there? And so just having those benchmarks on a dashboard and in a visual way, which they make so beautifully these days, it can use it to help us to renavigate, to encourage, to inspire, to help make sure maybe we need to hire somebody we don’t have on our team that needs different skill sets to contribute to where we’re going.
[00:21:11] Tommy Thomas: If you were a judge on a non-profit version of Shark Tank where nonprofits were coming to you for early-stage investment, what questions would you need to have solid answers for before you would open your checkbook?
[00:21:26] Dianne Ogle: I’d want to know their viewpoint and their philosophy on leadership right from the beginning.
[00:21:33] Dianne Ogle: And you hear that on Shark Tank, it seems like they get invested if they believe that person has the passion and that they will lead well through every stage of those businesses. Same thing with non-profits. You can say you can have all these ideas, and a lot of people start opening for nonprofits because they are visionaries.
[00:21:52] Dianne Ogle: They might have a vision. They may not be great executors. So, can I hear from that senior leader that they would have the wisdom to know that they need to put a team into place? To be able to get that momentum going. The name of our business is business momentum group but getting that ministry momentum going is to make sure that you’ve got the people, you’ve got the willingness to get the people and resources and talent in place.
[00:22:18] Tommy Thomas: Let’s bring this to a close. I have some lightning round questions. Some of them sometimes don’t seem to lend themselves to lightning round answers , but I’ll let you do that. What’s one small act of kindness that you were once shown that you’ll never forget?
[00:22:37] Dianne Ogle: I’m a cook and I have a gift of hospitality, but when I was having the boys, people brought me a meal or hosted me in their home, which doesn’t happen a lot these days. That’s just very sweet to me because I’m usually the one going, oh, I’ll bring it. Dianne, have you in her home? And I love doing that, but it’s really nice when it’s done for you.
[00:23:03] Tommy Thomas: What’s the best piece of advice anyone’s ever given you?
[00:23:09] Dianne Ogle: To stay authentic and to stay in the game so that God can use me all my days.
[00:23:18] Tommy Thomas: If you could go back in life or go back in time and tell a younger version of yourself one thing, what would you tell her?
[00:23:26] Dianne Ogle: Hold on loosely. It’s going to be a ride through the ups and downs and that you will weather through it with God by your side. He never leaves us. He never forsakes us. This great pain that you might think you’re going through now is for greater good later. So stay encouraged, my daughter.
[00:23:50] Tommy Thomas: What do you understand about your life today that you didn’t understand a year ago?
[00:23:56] Tommy Thomas: A year ago, or five years ago?
[00:23:59] Dianne Ogle: That he continues to amaze me with what he raises me up to do. I had the joy of praying at the National Day of Prayer. They asked me to pray over the sphere of business. And I said, are you sure? Because I pray privately. So I had never been asked to pray publicly in that kind of context.
And I knew how important our words are, talking about communication earlier, but if I’m going to speak, I’m like, Lord, then you need to write that prayer because it needs to not be Dianne at all. But just the surprise of what he taps us to do in different seasons is just beyond what we could ask or imagine.
[00:24:44] Tommy Thomas: If you could get a do over in life, what would it be?
[00:24:50] Dianne Ogle: I don’t think anything because I think he uses it all. I just think, whether he’s moved us, whether we’ve had hurts, he uses pain to make us greater. And makes us deeper in his rootedness of our lives. I used to have this, I had this vision one time and I had a friend say, if you had it to do over, would you just get rid of that pain?
I’m like, no, because it’s a gift no one can take from me. It’s part of my threading and it makes me who I am today. If we let him use it. So there is such a gift of pain.
[00:25:28] Tommy Thomas: Thank you for joining us today. If you are a first-time listener, I hope you will subscribe and become a regular. You can find links to all the episodes at our website: www.jobfitmatters.com/podcast.
If there are topics you’d like for me to explore, my email address is [email protected]. Word of mouth has been identified as the most valuable form of marketing. Surveys tell us that consumers believe recommendations from friends and family over all other forms of advertising.
If you’ve heard something today that’s worth passing on, please share it with others. You’re already helping me make something special for the next generation of nonprofit leaders. I’ll be back next week with a new episode. Until then, stay the course on our journey to help make the nonprofit sector more effective and sustainable.
“Nonprofits often resist setting metrics and benchmarks, but these tools are vital for guiding progress and ensuring excellence. Without clear goals, how can we track our success and course-correct as needed?” -Dianne Ogle
Links and Resources
Next Gen Nonprofit Leadership with Tommy Thomas
The Perfect Search – What every board needs to know about hiring their next CEO
Areté – Executive Women of Influence
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