Category: Leadership
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The Year-End Goals That Can Actually Wait
December arrives, and suddenly everything feels urgent. Projects that have been progressing steadily for months now “must” be completed by December 31st. Teams work unsustainably to hit arbitrary year-end targets. We know intellectually that January 1st is just another day. Nothing fundamental changes when the calendar flips. Yet we feel compelled to close everything out,…
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Supporting Your Team Through Year-End Giving Season
December brings the giving season to nonprofits. For many organizations, a significant portion of annual funding arrives in these final weeks of the year. Some nonprofits receive 30 to 50 percent of their annual donations between Thanksgiving and December 31st. This creates genuine pressure, especially on fundraising teams. Development staff navigate intense workloads, time-sensitive donor…
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How Gratitude Builds Leadership Resilience
When most people hear “gratitude practice,” they picture journaling about sunshine and rainbows while pretending everything is fine. They think of forced cheerfulness, performative thankfulness, and the pressure to be positive even when things are genuinely hard. That’s not gratitude. That’s toxic positivity masquerading as self-help language. Real gratitude practice looks different. It acknowledges difficulty…
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Why Letting Go of Control Is the Hardest Leadership Skill to Master
“To move from a ‘power over’ to a ‘power with’ approach means redefining power as shared, collaborative, and grounded in partnership rather than control.”– Organizing for Impact I’ve worked with many leaders who intellectually understand that controlling everything is unsustainable. They know that micromanagement stifles creativity, that centralizing decisions creates bottlenecks, and that their teams…
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Five Corporate Beliefs That Block Distributed Leadership (And What to Believe Instead)
Most leaders I work with genuinely want to create more collaborative, empowering workplaces. They’re drawn to the idea of distributed leadership, where authority and decision-making aren’t concentrated at the top but spread throughout the organization based on expertise and proximity to the work. However, when it comes time to actually let go of control and…
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Why Good Leaders Unknowingly Create Toxic Workplaces
A recent Monster survey revealed that 80 percent of American workers now describe their work environments as toxic workplaces, up from 67 percent just a year ago. Even more alarming, 93 percent say their employers aren’t supporting their mental health needs, and more than half would consider quitting over workplace toxicity. These numbers are staggering.…
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From Hierarchy to Agreements: What It Really Means to Distribute Power
The shift from hierarchy to agreements is one of the most fundamental transformations an organization can make. Picture this: You’re in a meeting, and your team has spent weeks researching a solution to a persistent problem. The data is clear, the approach is sound, and everyone who will be affected by the decision is aligned.…
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From Firefighting to Foresight: Escaping the Reaction Trap
Leaders in nonprofits know the rhythm of change and uncertainty all too well. Another funding crisis. Another unexpected staff departure. Another policy change, community need, or board priority dropped in your lap with a demand for an immediate response. It’s one fire after another, and before you know it, firefighting is the job. The problem…
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Transforming Anger into Fuel for Change
Few emotions grab hold of us as forcefully as anger. It rises quickly in moments of injustice, discrimination, or when the world feels hostile to what we value. Many of us were taught to view anger as something to control, something to suppress. Yet anger is also a signpost. It tells us that something matters…
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Meeting Our Self-Saboteurs, Reclaiming Our Strengths
When the heat is on, when the pressure is mounting, and the future looks uncertain, fear has a way of tightening its grip. It whispers caution, questions our abilities, and convinces us to avoid exactly the things that would help us grow stronger. Fear is sneaky that way. It feels protective, but more often than…