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How to Lead With Courage in Difficult Times - The Chronicle of Philanthropy

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As the two-year anniversary of the pandemic-induced shutdown approaches, nonprofit leaders may be feeling that uncertainty is only constant.

Despite the ongoing strain of economic challenges and health and social-justice crises, leaders must continue to guide their staffs and supporters. To help leaders recharge and gear up for 2022, the Chronicle held the online briefing, Leading Courageously in Unparalleled Times.

Chronicle editor Stacy Palmer moderated the one-hour session, which features Nancy Koehn, historian and James E. Robison Chair of Business Administration at the Harvard School of Business, and Phil Buchanan, president of the Center for Effective Philanthropy.

As Palmer says at the start of the session, many nonprofit executives are wondering how to keep going courageously, how to keep moving forward. The panelists acknowledge that everyone is under stress these days. “What I hear is a deep exhaustion,” says Buchanan. “People are on the verge of burnout, if they’re not there already.” They are looking for tools to “manage the enormous ambiguity we’re all holding in these uncertain times, and they need hope and optimism that things will get better.”

Koehn — who studies how leaders make decisions and recently looked at how social-change leaders have dealt with unprecedented challenges since March 2020 — drew from her research to offer executives advice on how to maintain momentum.

Read on for highlights of the discussion or watch the video to get all the insights Koehn and Buchanan shared.

There is no separation between home and work anymore; use that to your advantage as a leader. With so many people working remotely, managers have gained a much deeper understanding of people’s personal lives, and how things that happen in the home affect their work, says Koehn.

“You’re all discovering as leaders a new sense of the fullness of your people’s lives. Some of this is because we’re living on zoom and the kids are staggering into the zoom studio saying, ‘Johnny just hit me.’ And the dogs are barking,” says Koehn.

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“We’re connecting to people on a very different and fuller plane than we did before.” Good managers will use that knowledge to their advantage to reach out to their employees and help them manage the current crisis, she says.

Your role as a leader has never been more important, and that role is suddenly more complicated. “People are thirsty for guidance,” says Koehn. “They’re thirsty for competence. They’re thirsty for people of integrity with worthy missions that engage them.”

Strike a balance between showing strength and admitting your own vulnerabilities, says Koehn. Thoughtful leaders, she says, “intentionally decide when they’re going to reveal their vulnerabilities and in what context. That can be very important, because it humanizes you. It helps your people connect with you.”

However, Koehn cautions against taking it too far; don’t use your coworkers or supporters as “release valves” for all the stress you’re feeling. You don’t want to damage your followers’ faith in your ability to inspire and guide them through a difficult period, she says.

When you need a release valve, Koehn suggests, identify a small group of trusted advisors with whom “you can do your primal screaming” in a private way that won’t damage your standing as a leader.

It can be tricky, but strive to strike a balance between offering support and motivating staff to execute your nonprofit’s mission. There is a tension between being understanding and compassionate with employees who are struggling amid the pandemic and making sure your nonprofit continues to deliver its services, notes Buchanan. But in some cases those services can mean the difference between life or death for people.

Koehn agrees, stating, “You don’t offer compassion and then compassion becomes some kind of get-out-of-jail-free card, where you can just let go of the mission.”

Use your knowledge of each individual’s circumstances to strike that balance and call on staff members to help make sure everyone feels supported and is contributing to the mission.

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Paraphrasing the American writer, David Foster Wallace, Koehn said “Leaders help us push through the limitations of our own weaknesses, selfishness, laziness, and fears and get us to do harder, better things than we can get ourselves to do on our own.”

Err on the side of communicating too much and keep your promises. In times of uncertainty, people want to know what the plan is, and how your organization is executing it. Even small changes in course can unnerve people if those changes aren’t effectively communicated.

It can be difficult to know how much communicating is right. It is not enough, Koehn says with a touch of hyperbole, unless you are “so tired of talking about why we’re doing what we’re doing, or what our way forward is in the midst of all this grinding uncertainty, that you want to vomit at the end of the day before you turn off zoom.”

Once you lay out your plans, make sure you follow through on your promises, says Koehn. “If there isn’t there isn’t credible evidence that you mean what you say, people will desert you,” she says.

Don’t take the idea of dismantling leadership structures too far or too literally. While democratizing decision making can be empowering for employees, some decisions still must come from the top. Be careful not to devolve into a situation where it’s unclear who will make important decisions. says Buchanan.

“Hierarchies are with us,” says Koehn. “They’ve been, in many cases, flattened and rearranged in the crisis, but we still have hierarchies. We still have certain decisions that certain people are responsible for.”

There are people in organizations who have the resources and expertise to make decisions that others don’t have, says Koehn, and it’s important to explain that to your staff, “otherwise they’re going to be on Twitter saying there shouldn’t be any hierarchy,” says Koehn.

Plus, as the pandemic subsides, Buchanan says, leaders should be the ones to “keep the rubber band from snapping back” to old, less effective and efficient ways of doing things — approaches that were upended by the pandemic. “Certain things we were defaulting to just don’t work as well as these new practices,” says Buchanan.

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Take care of yourself. It’s a cliche, but it’s true, and it’s never been more important. Eat healthy and get a good night’s sleep, says Koehn. Don’t overload yourself with overly ambitious goals: Each week, focus on no more than three mission-critical things that you can realistically achieve, she says.

“Give yourself access to joy, and recover from the pounding pressures of yesterday, or the pounding pressures that await you in half an hour,” Koehn says. Take stock each day of small joys and possibilities and connections with other people who are “filling your tank.”

“Maintaining a buoyant hope and credible optimism is ultimately an act of defiance against the zeitgeist right now. It’s an act of courage.”

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