The Winds of Change: Leadership Transition in a Jewish Family Agency

Publication Date: January 1993

Publisher: Jewish Communal Service Association of North America

Author(s): Miriam O. Smith; Melvin Moschel

Research Area: Social conditions

Keywords: Communal organization; Leadership; Social Services

Type: Report

Coverage: United States

Abstract:

This two-part article describes the leadership transition process in a medium-sized Jewish family agency from the perspective of the interim executive director and the executive director who succeeded her. It illustrates the importance of sensitivity to tradition and the family atmosphere of the agency, as well as an awareness of the effects of change. The substance and style of the new director's interventions must be matched to the agency's capacity to absorb those efforts or the transition will fail. Editor's Note: When the leadership of a medium-sized agency with a strong family atmosphere changes hands, how can the winds of change — propelled by strong emotional forces - best be harnessed to the service of productive change? This two-part article, written in the first person by the interim director and the executive who succeeded her, presents an unusually candid analysis of such a situation.