Q3

Performance Evaluation

Performance evaluation is a strategic human resources management tool that organizations

should be using on a regular basis to determine what types of skills, knowledge and
characteristics are currently available in the organization. It is a method through which the
organization can obtain information that will be needed when making decisions about
employee advancement, retention and separation (Pynes, 1997). In making such decisions it
is vital that organizations review job performance in a way that benefits both the organization
and the employee. Through performance evaluation, an organization can provide the
feedback to employees that is necessary if employees are going to improve job performance,
strengthen employee-supervisor relationships, and maintain organization-wide morale. As
Craig R. Stevens (1996) remarks, “How well your organization measures and monitors job
performance is crucial not only to the competitiveness of the organization, but also to
employee productivity”.

Executive directors of nonprofit organizations are usually evaluated by the board of directors
or the personnel committee. The purpose of evaluating the executive director should be to
improve the way the organization is managed. To this end, executive directors should be told
in advance what issues and areas the board will be looking at when it does the evaluation,
and they should be given an opportunity to prepare a self-evaluation as well. A performance
evaluation of a management executive works strategically and benefits both the organization
and the executive when it serves to help the executive become aware of his/her strengths
and weaknesses and improve his/her job performance. The performance evaluation of a
management executive can take on a hostile tone, full of recriminations and criticisms,
especially if the evaluation takes place around the time of contract renewal. Rather than
serving as an exercise that increases tension and hostility, the performance evaluation of an
executive should be looked at as an opportunity for the board and the executive to strengthen
the organization by resolving any differences they might have regarding their roles and
responsibilities (Pynes, 1997).

Synagogues, like other organizations, should conduct performance evaluations of their

executives, the rabbi and executive director, on a regular basis. Due to the community
nature of the synagogue and the “spiritual leader” or “Symbolic Exemplar” position of the
rabbi, it is especially important that these performance evaluations are carried out in such a
way as to improve the relationship between the rabbi or executive director and the
congregation. As Rabbi Bloom (2002) notes, “other people are…valued in terms of what they
do. The rabbi is valued in terms of who he is perceived to be”. The Reconstructionist
Commission on the Role of the Rabbi (2001) remarks, “Evaluation can provide a continuous
loop in which successes are celebrated, mistakes identified, progress noted, tasks reviewed
and problems resolved”.

Evaluations of synagogue executive directors have become a common practice in modern

synagogues. Iris P. Henley (1997)) points out that “executive directors are in a unique
predicament, commanded to serve as well as lead” (p. 18), and therefore it is frequently not
clear who is the supervisor of the executive director and who should be conducting the
performance evaluation. Henley recommends that the synagogue establish a personnel
committee, and that each professional staff member be assigned a liaison from the personnel
committee. The liaison would take responsibility for reporting to the personnel committee any
issues or problems that arise with that staff member, and the liaison would conduct
performance evaluations of the staff member, with input from those who have regular contact
and interaction with that person. Henley advises synagogues and executive directors to
remember that while every nonprofit organization should use executive evaluation to improve
job performance and develop careers, synagogues have an even more important reason for
doing so, because their executives are Jewish professionals who are working for the “health
and well being of Judaism” (p. 17).
Despite the “unique predicament” of synagogue executive directors as both leaders,
followers, and Jewish professionals, it is not difficult for boards of directors and personnel
committees to place the executive director in a performance evaluation process that is
familiar from other organizations, both nonprofit and for-profit. Evaluating the rabbi, however,
brings up many more complicated issues and problems, and for this reason it is frequently
just not done, or it is done in such a way as to cause harm to the congregation-rabbi
relationship.

Traditionally, the rabbi was the spiritual leader of the community. He provided moral
guidance and taught Jewish values. As Jill Davidson Sklar (2001) points out, because some
synagogues today are beginning to adopt a corporate model of structure and behavior, one of
the important questions being asked by many synagogues is whether the rabbi is the spiritual
leader, the chief executive officer, or both. This is an important question because as Rabbi
Sam Joseph, professor of Jewish religious education at Hebrew Union College points out, “If
you move into formal evaluation systems…then the rabbi is put on more of a corporate
track…That is a double-edged sword. If you start to use the symbols of business, you will be
treated as a business and CEOs are fired” (qtd.in Sklar, p. 41). Treating the rabbi as CEO
may not lead to firing him/her in every case, but as Rabbi Allen I. Freehling (2002), Rabbi
Emeritus of University Synagogue in Los Angeles, has observed, it can cause serious
damage to the rabbi-congregation relationship. Rabbi Freehling remarks, “Under these
circumstances the contemporary Reform rabbi has come to be identified by many or even all
congregation members as just another one of the synagogue’s professional staff – just
another employee who is no different than everyone else listed in the personnel roster. This
is detrimental not only to the rabbi, but also to most congregants who eagerly look up to or
would like to look up to their Rabbi as a special person in their lives” (p. 21-22).

The Reconstructionist Commission on the Role of the Rabbi (2001) recommends that
synagogues avoid following the corporate model when evaluating the rabbi. They suggest
that an evaluation should be done that focuses “on how the entire congregational community
is fulfilling its goals, mission and vision”(p. 71). The rabbi could then be evaluated as part of
that larger evaluation process, along with synagogue leaders, board members, committee
chairs and other staff.

Rabbi Joseph, Rabbi Freehling, and other commentators have noted that it is important to
keep Jewish values in mind when operating a synagogue and when establishing relationships
between the professionals and the lay people. They remind us that, as Jill Davidson Sklar
(2001) remarks, relationships in synagogues should be built on trust, not on the “cutthroat
tactics seen in the secular corporate world” (p. 41).