NASW Social Work Talks - EP 117: Why Social Workers Make Great Leaders

Episode Date: July 3, 2024

Dr. Michael Kaufman, MSW, PhD., author of the new book, Doing Good & Doing Well: Inspiring Helping Professionals to Become Leaders in Their Organizations, has managed countless crises that have needed quick, level-headed thinking and tough decisions delivered with empathy and heart. Board chair of Premier Education Partners he has seen other helping professionals, including social workers, do the same thing. In his book, Dr. Kaufman shares the lessons he has learned throughout his 30-year career and uses anecdotes to illustrate the pointed discussions to inspire social workers by realizing that their specific characteristics, distinct aptitudes, and mindsets as servant leaders have already prepared them to work in the C-Suite.  

This is Social Work Talks, and I'm your host, Aaliyah Wright. Joining us today is Dr. Michael Kaufman, MSW PhD, author of the new book, Doing Good and Doing Well, inspiring helping professionals to become leaders in their organizations. Having launched his career as an in-the-field social worker, he rose to teach as an adjunct professor at the Rutgers School of Social Work. He has managed countless crises that have needed quick, level-headed thinking and tough decisions delivered with empathy and heart. He has seen other helping professionals from teachers and healthcare workers to mental health and social workers do the same thing. In his book, Dr. Kaufman shares the lessons he has learned throughout his 30-year career and uses anecdotes

to illustrate the pointed discussions to inspire social workers by realizing that their specific characteristics, distinct aptitudes, and mindsets as servant leaders have already prepared them to work in the C-suite. Thank you for joining us, Mike. Oh gosh, Aaliyah, thank you so much for having me. You know, I've done a bunch of podcasts for this book, but I have to admit, and this is truthful, this is the one I'm the most excited for. I love being a social worker. It's what I identify with. It's what I'm most proud of being, probably outside of being a dad, I would say social work too, and that you have me on here. I just feel really lucky and honored. So thank you. Thank you for joining us. We're excited to have you on our show today.

So let's start by asking you a little bit about your background in social work. Can you tell us why you became a social worker and how you made the leap to leadership? Yeah, absolutely. So I was going undergrad at Rutgers University, and believe it or not, I was getting my degree in accounting at the Rutgers Business School, loving it. And I got a job at Ernst & Young, this big accounting firm, and you get the job in January of your senior year. So, you know, you'll start in July. I found that I started getting a stomach ache because it just didn't feel right. At the same time, I was working at the Center for Cognitive Rehabilitation, working with those with head injuries. And I loved it. I was passionate about it. And my boss there

had an MSW. I didn't even know what that meant. MSW, what's that? Her name was Sorrel. She was so inspiring. And I could just tell she loved what she did. And her passion for social work, my passion for it, it just made me realize, oh, my God, like, this is what I should be doing. And what happened was, if money wasn't an object, I was like, I would be a social worker. But then I really thought this through and said, should I go for what makes sense, accounting, law, you know, medicine, where all my family wanted me to? Or should I do something where the passion was there. And I knew when I was growing up, I always volunteered and helped people, but I never saw a way to operationalize that into a career. So this led to my foray into going into the MSW.

And what really helped is while I was at Rutgers as an undergrad, I was an RA. So I knew I could be a resident director, which would help pay for school. So I ended up going for my MSW and loved it. The internships that an MSW brings are incredible. You get to roll up your sleeves and do something. I think the whole world has realized now how important internships are. One of my internships was the VA Hospital in Lyons. And I learned so much about the Vietnam War and what those in World War II went through. And also what led me to my next year's internship was working in a school, which is what led me to my career of working with children and families. So I've always loved working with kids and families. And I got my first job at Newark

Boys and Girls Clubs in Newark, New Jersey. Then I was a crisis counselor for Keensburg schools, went back for my PhD and was teaching graduate school, the Rutgers School of Social Work. And then I found this little company called SESI, Specialized Education Services. And they offered me to be a director in training of a small school in Baltimore with students with behavioral disabilities. And I started as a director in training and ended up running that company. We grew it into a hundred million dollar company with 2,500 employees. And I became the CEO there. But, you know, all those jobs on the way led me and some of that business experience

helped me, but just loving social work and loving working with kids and families. And what made you want to make the leap to leadership? You know, I, you know, there was a great thing that somebody said to me is somebody believing in you before you believe in yourself is one of the greatest gifts you can give. And why I love social workers. What do social workers do? We advocate for others. So somebody advocated for me. Somebody saw in me, wow, Mike, you could be a leader. You have what it takes. I wasn't sure that I could be it. I think I was a little bit scared by that concept, but I was just really excited to do. And when I was given an opportunity to run a school, the way I looked at it was this

is, and I love practice. So when I was a school social worker, I had a caseload of, let's say, 30 students. And I said in my head, Mike, you can have a caseload of 30 students or you could have the whole school and then the caseload is your entire school. So I can make a bigger impact. So if you really want to make a bigger impact, that's what drew me to it was like, okay, I can keep my caseload, which I love, or I can jump and do the whole thing and have all the kids and I can help them all and help all the families. So it was just a natural transition to jump and do it. That's wonderful. So you write that as helping professionals or for our purpose as social workers, you don't have to be either someone who does good in the world for others or someone who makes a good living running a company or managing others. You can do both. How does that work for those who are so used to serving instead of leading?

Yeah, great question. So for all of us that are in social workers, it's a calling, right? it's something that's in our blood. And because something is a calling and we're passionate about it, should that mean we have to take an oath of poverty? I don't think so. So I think that we're human. We want to do well. And I think that, you know, one thing I really learned, so when I was at this company, Sessi, and we grew it, we sold to private equity. And I walked into my first board meeting. So it was me, this social worker running this company, we grew. And my board meeting was full of folks with Ivy League educations, Princeton, Yale, Harvard. They had a lot more money than me. They knew financial statements better than me. But when I looked around the

room, they weren't a better leader than me. They definitely had some skills that I respected and I learned from them. But I was like, you know what? I think I lead by inspiration and passion where they led a little bit through fear of, you know, Mike, how are our financials looking? And I just saw how the way I was leading was different than them. And I started to say, you know what? I can do it as good as they can. And it just really made me realize that you can do both. But you know, the one thing is, is that you have to do as a social worker is yes, hone your craft, you know, serve and help people. You know, the book with Malcolm Gladwell, where he says the 10,000 hours, I like to say social workers do their 20,000 hours, right? We do

everything. We roll up our sleeves. We do home visits. We face and look at everything. And then get that, learn everything, you know, everything that you can learn in this field. One of my jobs, I was on call if anyone was suicidal at Rutgers College when I was going for my PhD. And I got a call three in the morning, all times of the night where I had to go out and make assessments. Does this person need to be hospitalized? Can they wait the next morning to see someone at the counseling center. But we all do that. That wasn't special to me. All of us as social workers do that. So we have this. We have this in this. We're a lot tougher than people think we are. And we can help and do all these things. But once you've done that and you've honed

your craft, why not advocate for ourselves? We're so amazing at advocating for our clients. But why not advocate for ourselves? And if we have that ability to lead, let's go for it. So I was going to ask this question toward the end, but I'm moving it up because we're having this conversation about this now. So during our Social Work Month campaign in March, whose theme centered around empowering social workers, we led conversations, including a Facebook Live event that's archived on our Facebook page. And you can go back and listen to that, listeners. It was about how social workers can earn more money and how they should advocate for themselves to improve their salaries. I want us to talk a little bit about advocating for yourself when it comes to salaries. And

How can a higher salary deepen the impact of the difference that you're making? Yeah, and I recommend to all your listeners to listen to that Facebook Live event. It was incredible. And I love that, yes. And I love that you opened the door to talk about this. Money is not a bad word. We are human. All of us are human.

Whether you're a social worker or you're a private equity person, we all want a home. We want that picket fence. We want to pay our bills. We're going to have kids. We want to send them to college. One of the greatest analogies I ever got was what happens on an airplane. Don't you know when you're sitting there and a lot of us are listening to our music, but if you take your headphones out and you see when the oxygen drops.

Okay, what would every social worker do if there was no air? We would run around and put the oxygen on everyone's face. But what do they tell you? Put the oxygen on yourself first, then run around and put the oxygen on everyone else. If you don't take care of you first, you can't help everyone. And as a young social worker, that was so powerful for me. I was just trying to help everybody and not thinking of myself. So we need to take care of ourselves, right?

When we feel happy and safe, we can provide more, and we deserve it, don't we? I mean, what we're doing is some of the most important work in the world. We are out there. What was something that came from COVID and corona was that the world started to see those of us in the helping professions, especially social workers, as heroes. Okay, we watch Batman and Iron Man. They're not real. We are real.

We didn't have an opportunity to work from home and do everything via Zoom. We had to go out there and do these things. If we didn't do it, who was? We put our lives on the line. We put our family's lives on the line. We didn't know that much about Corona. We were going out there and we served our clients.

We are some of the strongest people in our society. And why should we not embrace that more and say, hey, if we can do this, why can't we lead organizations? You know what? we also have incredible skills in fundraising. A lot of us are in not-for-profits. To go out and ask people for money and donate is an incredible skill. And I just feel that we deserve it. So why should we be trying to ask for more money? Because we've earned it. We deserve it. And like I said before, we've advocated for our clients and we should be advocating for ourselves just

as strongly. Dr. Kaufman, what qualities and abilities do social workers possess that can make them natural leaders? So social workers are really adept in crisis intervention. And that is something that's really, really needed in today's world. Just the ability to walk into a room, not overreact, not lose it in the face of adversity. When you run an organization, you're going to see everything coming at you. And we are trained to not overreact. We also are proactive. So yes, we can respond to a crisis, but we're great at creating a scenario and situations that will avoid the crisis. We're calm. You know, who have we been our whole lives? Most of us who are social workers, we're confidants. Our friends talk to us. Being a guy, especially

growing up, I found that a lot of my male friends would, when they're anxious or they have issues, many times some of them would self-medicate, let's drink or do something like that, instead of just talking about it. And I found that a lot, especially my male friends, would want to talk to me like, gosh, Mike, you're a guy that listens. You're not judgmental. I can just say who I am and my weaknesses. And we possess this, all of us. So our friends come to us. We also see the whole picture. Remember we were in school and with the echogram, we were all getting our MSWs. And what did we do? We looked at the full circle of people. Why I love social work, and I love psychology, but what I really love about social work is it looks at not just the individual,

It looks at the friends, the family, your job, your community. So we see the whole picture. That's what's vital in leading an organization. You need to see the whole organization, all the results that are out there. One thing I think also that's interesting is what other field does something called a process recording? So when we are all getting our MSW, we would do therapy sessions. And what we would do is write down what we said, what the client said, and we would give

it to our mentor. And they would look at that and say, wow, you said this great. you could do this better. So as social workers, we were always looking at ourselves and how we can do better. Most people in training don't have that opportunity. And as social workers, we would write down our mistakes and we would hear that from everyone. One thing also was we respect people. We respect everyone. We are trained to not be judgmental. We are trained to love everybody. We are the human race first and foremost, and we get that. We promote people. We advocate. We care about ethics. You know, what other field really focuses on ethics?

We champion others. And one thing that I that I love in business is sometimes folks in business that don't come from the healthy backgrounds can be tough on people and tough on results. Where I feel social workers are tough on results and soft on people. So what does that mean? What I mean is when you're leading an organization, there's results. We all have to get certain things done, no doubt about it. But be tough on the result. Be kind to the person that you lead. So I care about you. I want to be there for you.

We got these results to get. How can we get them? So when you are like that with people, they respond better to it. So I just feel that social workers are ready to lead. And a lot of them don't even know it, that they're just, it's sitting right there. They just get scared of the financial piece. They're scared to death of, oh my God, a profit and loss statement. And that sort of can can cripple them a little bit to want to take that next leap.

So is this something that how can they overcome that fear? I'm just just to follow up. How can they overcome that fear? What what tools or skills do they need to learn in order to be able to handle something like a profit loss statement? yeah so what i love to say to people is this is i can't do everything i just mentioned i can't teach you to be compassionate and and strong i can't teach you to be empathetic and accountable i um you know those things are innate in you what i you can teach is how to look at a profit and loss statement and what i always say to people is any business in the world has about three to five financial indicators that are important understand those three to five financial indicators. So here's an example. I run schools for students with special needs. There's three indicators of schools when you run schools. The amount of students that come in, that's our

tuition. So that's the top line, the revenue. More students that come in, more revenue, less students, less revenue. So now we got the revenue line. What are the expenses? The two major expenses in running a school are payroll and rent. So you have to watch your payroll, make sure that it matches the revenue that's coming in. You can't pay everything out. You have to watch and manage that and also understand your rent. Now, are there a few other things that are relevant? They sure are. But if you just understand those three things, you can run a strong school. So make it simple for people. And sure, can you take a class? Can you understand how to use QuickBooks? All these kind of things are not hard to learn, but don't run from it. Try to find a mentor. Try to get a

strong CFO, if you're going to be the CEO of the organization or COO, if the CFO in that organization is willing to work with you and spend some time with you, take advantage of that. You know, there's I also say to a lot of people is that there's our whole country is full of people 70 years old and older that are retired, that are former CFOs, MBAs, that would love to mentor you because they have so much to offer and they live this great career. And they would love if you reached out and said, hey, you're retired, but I'd love to learn from you, is just don't be afraid of it and find somebody that will have your back and help you with it, because that stuff you can learn. Michael, this is really fascinating information. And listeners, I hope that you're taking notes,

because I am. So, Mike, despite their invaluable contributions, social workers face challenges, including limited resources, burnout, and systemic barriers. Can you share with our listeners the top three reasons social workers are already leaders, whether they know it or not? Yeah. So again, what I stated a little bit, you're a natural. It's in your DNA. You were born to do this. You were born to be there for people, to care about people, to advocate for them and lead them. Number two is we have grid. Social workers can take a hit and we get back up. Again, I think a lot of times when people think of social workers, they think of the soft leadership skills.

I heard this all the time from the private equity folks. Like, Mike, you're great at the soft leadership stuff. And I don't know if that was a strength or a weakness, but I think it's a strength. But we are just great at the soft leadership skills. We're great at the hard leadership skills. You put a social worker, do a home visit. All of us that are social workers

that have done a home visit, imagine saying this to one of your friends. And look how their eyes get so wide when I talk about the home visits I used to do. I remember when I started in Keensburg School, public schools and i did a home visit and a and um a daughter didn't come home the night before and i showed up at the house and i was right after i got my master's so i was in my early 20s and the father didn't know who i was and thought maybe i was her daughter's boyfriend chased me

down the street with a gun um you know what i mean so we this is the kind of stuff we face when we walk into home but we're willing to do it we're willing to walk into buildings we're willing to go into homes we are strong we have grit a lot of leadership books are now talking about grit And I think social workers have that in spades. And we have it so much. We're just incredible at it. And what's great about us is a passion and a calling drives us. We love the organization that we're in.

We're not self-focused. We're selfless. We look at the organization first. What happens a lot in leadership when you're not a social worker helper is you sometimes get into where do I stand? Where's my power and my control? Social workers don't desire power and control. They desire to give power and control to those they lead. So we just have all this in us.

You know, we're really kind. One of my friends said this as a social worker. Don't mistake my kindness for weakness. And that's us as social workers. Just because we're kind, don't think that we're weak. And we also want another thing that's incredible. Social workers know how to follow. You have to know how to follow first before you know how to lead people.

We know how to take direction. we're humble enough to look at ourselves. We look at our demons. We conquer those demons. Most leaders don't do that. So for instance, Aaliyah, I know I can be insecure and I have a lot of trouble giving tough feedback. If I need to tell somebody how great they are, I'm amazing at that. When I have to say something tough, I don't do it great. I sometimes put it off and I learned that that wasn't helpful. But the strong thing is that I recognize that in myself. So knowing that I can also be sensitive. So I needed to get stronger. And if people can't give you feedback, they're not going to come to you anymore. But as social workers, we see the demons and we tackle

them. Wow, this is really great. So you just mentioned that social workers are great at hard leadership skills. So one thing I want to ask too is what can social workers teach leaders everywhere about crisis management. Yeah, I think, you know, we have so much to offer on, you know, crisis management, crisis leadership. It's what we were trained to do, right? So we all understand Lindemann and Kaplan and the crisis theory that's out there. And we were trained in that. You know, we get it. We studied it. And what is crisis theory? It's a disturbed equilibrium, you go through some grief and pain, you work through the problem, and then you restore equilibrium. And we get that. So we understand that. So we're not going to fall apart. We get

that this is a part of life. Crisis is a part of life. And what social workers also get, and what crisis theory taught us, and if you read it, is that after a crisis, you usually come out a little above where you were even before the crisis. So what's great about us is social workers get into action. We don't get stuck. So since we're so comfortable in crisis and since we're so comfortable in what other people would feel uncomfortable in, we get right into action. And we, as I've said before, roll up our sleeves and do things. And what also we get is Maslow's hierarchy of needs, right? When there is a crisis, you need to make sure there's a roof over someone's head, they can buy food, they have what they have, their medications. So a social worker is going

to make sure that those, that the people that we're working with have those things first. So we're not going to just go willy nilly all over the place and run all, we're going to deal with Maslow's needs first. What, what does my client need first and foremost? And also what we realize as social workers, which is huge in a crisis, a lot of people get angry, they get frustrated, but as social workers, we realize that anger and frustration and anxiety a lot of times is a mask for fear so we understand that it's fear that's there that's the cause of the anger and the frustration so let's get we'll get right down to your fear in a crisis and talk to you about it instead of just so if you're yelling and screaming one of our clients we don't freak out

we're fine we'll deal with it because we know you're not really mad at us you're mad at the situation and we'll we're going to cut right through all that and get right down to what your fear is and let's deal with your fear and what's the worst thing that can happen well the worst thing that could happen is I may not have a place to sleep tonight. Okay, let's call a shelter for you. I'm not going to leave tonight until we have a place for you to live. So we're going to get through the ranting and the raving that some people do in a crisis where others could get lost in that and get almost scared when they see people do that. So we're nearing towards the end of the podcast. I have so many more questions, but I do want to ask you this one final question.

Why do you think the world needs more social workers in leadership roles? Yeah, what a great question. I mean, look at our world right now. A lot of people are angry, right? There's a lot of anger. There's frustration. There's fear. We're all a little bit scared when we look and watch the news. And you can't even really discuss politics with folks anymore because if you're on one side or the other, someone may yell at you. But that's not, a social worker won't do that. What a social worker will do is we'll listen to both sides. When you're doing therapy, people will bring anything and everything to you. We're trained to be nonjudgmental. We're trained to listen. Could you imagine a Congress or a Senate where everyone listened to both sides?

I think if there were more social workers as politicians, I think people would, there'd be a little bit more harmony. I think there would be a little bit more, let's work together. There would be a little just more of that. um we are trained to listen and be active listeners we aren't just thinking about being profound and coming up with the next great line to say no we would rather really listen to you where you're coming from um like i think i mentioned before we combine empathy and accountability we combine strength and compassion um you know we we just have a level head we make plans we're

used to treatment plans, right? Social workers create treatment plans. We are proactive and reactive people. So I think that the world needs a little bit more kindness, a little bit more openness. But again, I want to make clear, but that doesn't mean that we'd be weak. So yeah, sure, we would listen better, I think. We would get people together more, but we would get the job done. We're not going to leave. There is no let's go home on a Friday. Social workers will stay. They'll stay overnight until a problem is solved. And I think that a little bit of who we are should be sprinkled into all the professions. Mike, are there any final thoughts you'd like to share with us? Yeah, you know, for everybody out there who is a social worker and making a

difference, I just wanted to thank you and thank everybody for all that they've done, again, through corona and beyond. Social workers, nurses, all of, you know, these folks were here and got everything done. And also remember, if you want to be a leader, start early. When you go on a job interview, ask, is there room for growth for me here? Ask about promotions. If you see a promotion out there, look for mentors out there that will promote you and look for people that see greatness in you before maybe you see it in yourself. And again, if you're afraid of the business side, take a business course, go to networking, go to that conference. When you're at home and you see, oh gosh, there's a social work networking conference, or I don't know that

I want to go. I'm a little bit on the shy side. Take yourself out of the comfort zone and go and just don't let the fear of the financial side of running something get in your way. Go for it. We need you more than ever in this world right now. Mike, thank you so much for taking this time to talk with us today. It's been fascinating and wonderful, and I've certainly learned a whole lot. And I know that our listeners have too. Thank you, listeners, for tuning into this episode of Social Work Talks. As we embarked on an enlightening journey into the world of social work leadership, we hope you enjoyed our conversation. A link to Dr. Michael Kaufman's new book, Doing Good and Doing Well, can be found in the show notes section of our website.

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