WES Blog — Interim Leader Hiring Process Update from the Board

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Interim Leader Hiring Process Update from the Board

Dear WES community,

We hope this message finds you safe and well.  Since our last email to the community on April 17, the Board has been hard at work preparing for the upcoming WES leadership transition.  Our focus has been on establishing the Interim Leader hiring process, understanding best practices and WES’s past experience, and engaging the community for your feedback on the interim period at WES.

We want to thank the 47+ members who joined us on April 23 for a Community Conversation about the search for an Interim Leader.  Several major themes emerged during the conversation.  Community members told us during the conversation, and in feedback emails, that we should be looking for someone who understands and supports WES’ Ethical Culture roots, including our language preferences and community traditions. If not an Ethical Culture Leader, the Interim Leader needs to identify as a humanist.  There was great interest in finding an Interim Leader with strong organizational development skills, especially staff leadership and financial management, who is committed to anti-racist, anti-oppression, multicultural (ARAOMC) and social justice work.  Attendees expressed an interest in an Interim Leader who is comfortable surfacing conflict and experienced in conflict transformation.  This person should have strong communications skills and a commitment to children and teens’ participation at WES.  Candidates should have experience with the unique role of Interim Leader, demonstrating an ability to support a community through a leadership transition.  

Another topic discussed at the Community Conversation, and one we have heard a range of feedback on via email, is how to engage the community during this period.  It is the Board’s responsibility to hire the Interim Leader, but we recognize the importance of ensuring that there is opportunity for substantive community engagement in the process. This has been an area of focus since we learned of Amanda’s upcoming transition, and something we prioritized over the last week.  

In addition to holding the Community Conversation on April 23, we have been and will continue to solicit input from as many people as possible in this short time.  We are reviewing and considering all of the feedback received to date, through the conversation and from member emails.  It directly informed the WES Congregational Profile, which will be used by Ethical Culture leaders and Unitarian Universalist ministers to determine if they want to apply for the Interim Leader position.  In response to suggestions at the Community Conversation and other feedback, we are also making the following additions to our hiring process so that as many members as possible have opportunities for input:

  • Members expressed interest in seeing the final Congregational Profile, which can be found here (member passcode required. Email Robyn if you need the password).
  • It was suggested that the Interim Leader hiring team provide the top two to three candidates for full Board review, as opposed to just one. This was the approach we were planning to take as the full Board makes the final hiring decision.
  • We are meeting with members of the last Interim Search and Senior Leader Search Committees this week to discuss their lessons learned: what went well and what they would have done differently. They have already shared a great deal of valuable information and documents over email, and we are very grateful for their support.
  • Lastly, the Board received a request to solicit interview questions from the community, which we think is a great idea! If you have suggestions for interview questions we should consider, please submit them using this Google Form by 8:00 PM on Saturday, May 2: https://forms.gle/W5GU3ZbjPNVhUEZa9. This will give the Board sufficient time to review all community suggestions, as well as the artifacts provided by the prior search committees, in advance of the interview period.

Many thanks to Robyn for helping us create a space to share information and resources related to the Interim Leader hiring process in the members section of the WES website (member passcode required. Email Robyn if you need the password): http://ethicalsociety.org/member-access/interim-leader-search/

There were a few questions about the process and adding more people to the team conducting the Interim Leader search.  Due to the extremely short timeline, as well as best practice recommendations from the UUA and AEU, we have decided to keep the team as it is.  The Interim Leader hiring team consists of three board trustees: Margaret Conway, Trang Duong, and Lauren Strange.  We take seriously our duty, as your elected representatives, to be informed and ready to make decisions for the benefit of the community.

We will continue to send email updates and expand the Frequently Asked Questions document.  We also hope you will continue to engage in the process.  We are eager to hear your interview question suggestions and any other feedback you would like to share on your hopes for the upcoming interim period.  

This is a time of uncertainty for all of us and not only because of Amanda’s departure.  The world is still trying to work out our “new normal” with COVID-19, and many of us have been personally affected by illness or financial strain.  These are unprecedented times full of stress and anxiety.  Still, we have so much hope for what is to come for the Washington Ethical Society–hope for what new leaders will bring and excitement for the evolving dreams and goals of our membership.  During the Community Conversation we heard from a longer-term member about the reality of the last transition period: “The last interim period, the last time we went through a transition, WES did much better than expected in maintaining income and retaining members.” In fact, the capital campaign took place during the Interim Leader’s time at WES, a testament to the power, commitment, and leadership of our members.  We also heard a deep desire to hold firm to what makes WES so special today: “I would love to see the community continue, as is:  welcoming, engaging, inspiring.” 

Thank you all for being a part of this welcoming, engaging, and inspiring community, and taking this journey of transition together.

Lauren Strange, President

On behalf of the 2019-2020 Board of Trustees

Josh Blinder, Margaret Conway, Trang Duong, Kristin Hunter, Kate Lang, Doug Miller, and Lauren Strange