Over the last ten years, I’ve seen the inside of a lot of struggling organizations, as an interim exec and as an advisor to other leaders and boards. … and while there are many factors that come into play when it comes to org decline and dysfunction, the one contributing most often is bad design.

Organizational design is the set of decisions that determine how work gets done in your business: what each role is responsible for, who and how you go about filling that role, and how those roles connect to each other through reporting lines and decision rights. It’s not the org chart itself (that’s just the output). Design is the thinking that produces it.

Good design creates a reality where work moves along smoothly, decisions get made at the right level, and people are clear on accountability. Bad design, on the other hand, drives up costs, slows performance, and leads to conflict, confusion, and bottlenecks. It’s usually the real driver behind whatever the org is calling a ‘people problem’ or ‘execution problem.’

Few leaders get to build a structure from scratch. Most inherit what someone else built, or are promoted into making these calls without anyone showing them what good looks like versus bad. That’s how the same mistakes keep showing up across otherwise very different organizations.

The good news is that these pitfalls are learnable, and, once you know what to look for, avoidable. So here are the three things I think you should pay attention to when designing your organization.

1 | How You Design Roles

Role design is the decision of what a job covers and what it’s called: the title, responsibilities, and required qualifications that define a position. It’s the starting point, and thus, the first place things go wrong. A poorly designed role creates a host of issues downstream: wasted talent, roles nobody can backfill, and people set up to fail before they’ve even started.

🚩The Pitfalls

Here are ways I see leaders get role design wrong most often:

Frankensteining - You stitched together unrelated responsibilities, often spanning entirely different domains of expertise. Perhaps you have a top performer who wants to grow so you pile on disconnected work, or maybe you've got a handful of functions that don't each need a full-time person, so you bundle them into one catch-all role in order to hire a single FTE instead of finding a fractional or outsourced fit for each piece. Either way, you end up with a role nobody can backfill, doing several jobs poorly instead of one well.

Title Inflation. Someone valuable asks for growth, and instead of giving it to them, you give them a label: a bigger title with no change in pay or responsibility… which cheapens it for everyone else who holds the same title and operates at that level.

Title Invention. A manager asks to be a Director, so you make them one, not because the org needs a Director, but to keep them happy. Now you're paying director-level cost for work that hasn't materially changed, and you've set a precedent for what it takes to get promoted that has nothing to do with actual scope or impact.

The Equality Trap. Everyone gets the same title or comp in the name of fairness, regardless of actual scope or impact. The head of a 3-person team ends up with the same title as someone running a team of 20, and now titles stop meaning anything: nobody can tell who owns what, and you've lost the ability to differentiate pay or promotion based on real impact.

“We’ve Always Had This Role”. A position made sense years ago and nobody's revisited it since. Your Director of Major Gifts is still around even though your funding model has shifted almost entirely to grants. They find things to do, everyone does, but the role doesn't ladder up to where the organization is going.

✅ The Solutions

• Annually audit roles against strategy. If this role didn’t exist today, would you create it? If the answer is no, then it’s time to change the position into something the business needs now.

• Design growth paths that build depth, not breadth. When someone asks for growth, promote them into bigger responsibility within their domain, move them to a new function with clear boundaries, or invest in their development, … but only if the business needs it.

• Separate the title from the reward. If someone deserves recognition but the role isnt there yet, use a bonus, comp adjustment, or development investment instead of a title that outpaces the job.

• Be honest about career ceilings. If someone has outgrown their role and there’s no next level for them in your organization, tell them directly, give them runway to look elsewhere, and don’t punish them for wanting more.

• Differentiate based on scope, not fairness. Tie titles and comp to a clear rubric, team size, budget owned, decision rights, so the difference between roles is defendable.

• Fix Frankenstein roles before they become urgent. Once a frankestien role vacates, you will struggle to backfill it because you’re now hiring for a job that combines unrelated skill sets, and that person rarely exists in the market. Ask whether each bundled function is strategic enough to justify its own hire, even fractional. If yes, split it out now; if not, consider the cut.

2 | How you hire people

Staffing decisions are about who fills a role and when (hiring, promoting, and adding headcount). Even a well-designed role can add no value, or work against you, if you poorly timed or considered. Worse, while hiring decisions are easy to make, they are hard to reverse. Plus, a bad hire costs more than a salary…. it can erode culture, slow down teams around them, and set a precedent for what your organization thinks is acceptable.

🚩The Pitfalls

If you’re ramping up to add headcount or hire for a vacant role, try to avoid these traps:

Automatic Backfilling - Someone leaves, and you post the exact same role without asking whether you still need it, or need it in that form. The org has likely changed since that person was hired but refilling the seat as-is is easier than re-evaluating it.

The Counteroffer Trap - Someone gives notice, you scramble to keep them with a raise or promotion, and they stay …for now. Often they leave within a year anyway, because whatever made them look elsewhere didn’t get fixed. You’ve also just told everyone else on the team that resignation letters get results. Yikes.

Promoting Your Top IC to Management. Your best associate becomes a people manager, now handling forecasts and one-on-ones instead of the work they were great at. Theyre not particularly good at coaching, which is creating people problems, and you’ve lost your top performer in the process.

Hiring for a resume, without consideration to context - You picked the candidate with the most impressive background or fancy title over the person who fits what the role requires right now. Think: a former VP from a 500-person team joins your 15-person team and either gets bored, tries to build infrastructure you don’t need yet, or leaves within a year because the job is smaller than their ego expected.

Hiring to Relieve Pressure - You say yes to every request for more staffing, without digging into the real why. Sometimes this happens slowly: a team says they’re underwater, you approve headcount, and a year later they’re still underwater, just with more people and higher costs. Sometimes it’s a spike: a team drowns after a launch, you hire a few extra hands for the work, and the headcount stays long after the crisis passes.

Hiring for a Fantasy Future - You hire the team you’ll need in three years before you have the strategy or revenue to support it. It feels like investing in growth, but the money is really going toward capacity you can’t use yet.

✅ The Solutions

• Before you approve headcount, spend two weeks watching where time goes. Look for the bottleneck: is it bandwidth? Or is it messy scope, weak systems, or a manager who’s in over their head? If it’s any of the last three, more people won’t fix it, they’ll just spread the same problem across more headcount.

• Ask if this is a spike or the new normal. Has the team been underwater for a few months, or did this start right after a launch, a departure, a busy season? If it’s a spike, bring in a contractor or temp help… and only make it permanent once you’ve watched the need hold steady for a full quarter.

• Give your best individual contributors somewhere to go besides management. Build an IC track that pays as well as management does (if possible), so people don’t have to become managers just to get paid more. And if someone does move into management, train them for it, don’t just hand them a title and a calendar full of one-on-ones.

• Score candidates against a rubric. Write down what the role needs, and the context, then hold every candidate up against it. If you can’t explain why this specific person fits this specific scope, on paper, not vibes, then you might be getting into hot water.

3 | How You Draw Lines (Reporting lines)

Reporting structure is how roles connect to each other: who reports to whom, how many layers exist, where decisions get made. Get this wrong and decisions slow down, ownership gets blurry, conflict grows, and people spend more time managing politics than doing their jobs. Layers pile up that don’t need to exist, work gets duplicated across teams that don’t know who’s accountable, and managers end up stretched across more people than they can support. It is usually a symptom of problems upstream, poorly defined roles or headcount added for the wrong reasons, but the structure itself can compound the damage on its own.

🚩The Pitfalls

Vanity Hierarchy -You build layers to justify a title. Your Director wants to be a Senior Director, which means you need more Directors, which means you need Managers. Now you have many more layers where fewer would do… costs skyrocket and decisions crawl.

Autonomy Creep - You give a senior leader room to spot opportunities and run with them… and run they do! They pick up projects outside their scope because they’re capable and engaged, but over time, their role expands into adjacent territory, creates problems with other teams, and department lines blur.

Matrix Madness - You can’t decide whether your communication associate reports to Development or Marketing, so you make it report to both. Roles have dotted lines everywhere. It feels sophisticated, but nothing is owned. You’ve built accountability soup.

Too Many Direct Reports - One leader has 15 direct reports because you’re trying to stay flat or avoid adding a layer. But execution slows down, people can’t get time with their manager because they’re too busy, and the leader burns out trying to support everyone.

✅ The Solutions

• Map the critical path first. Before you design structure, understand the processes that create value and revenue, and design around those workflows.

• Design hierarchy based on work. Add a layer only when decision-making complexity or scope requires it. If someone has outgrown their role but you don’t need another layer, expand their scope horizontally or help them find the right level elsewhere (aka help them move on.)

• Set explicit boundaries on scope. When you give someone autonomy, be clear about where it stops. Review scope expansion regularly, and pull it back when it crosses into someone elses domain.

• Minimize matrix structures. Every role should have one clear manager who owns their development, priorities, and performance. Build cross-functional collaboration through process and shared goals, not reporting lines. If you must use a matrix, be precise about who owns which decisions.

• Respect span-of-control limits. Most managers can effectively support 5 to 8 direct reports, stretching to 10 to 12 on high-performing, low-touch teams. Past that, you’re likely setting people up to fail.

• Fix the real problem before the org chart. Before you reorganize, ask whether you have a structure problem or an execution problem. If teams aren’t communicating, build better systems. If there’s no trust, address it directly. If accountability is unclear, clarify it through goals and decision rights. Save reorgs for when the work itself has changed.

Share

The Takeaway

As an interim leader, I’ve had to unwind these decisions more times than I can count. The fixing is hard because it usually hurts people: de-Frankensteining a role feels like a demotion, solving headcount bloat usually means terminations or salary adjustments, untangling a matrix creates political fallout and frustration. It’s pain, start to finish.

But leaving things as they are is worse: your organization can’t scale, can’t adapt, and can’t execute, because its fundamental architecture is broken... and every shortcut you take today becomes someone else’s nightmare tomorrow, and that someone might be you (or me).

💡What’s the org design mistake I didn’t cover here? Tell me and I’ll add to this list!

Leave a comment

Here’s the big lesson learned over the course of nine executive assignments: How I build trust, how fast I move, who I talk to first, how I collect information all depends on the situation I’m walking into. Showing up the same way in a turnaround as I would in a healthy, growing organization isn’t only less effective, it would be damaging.

Any executive leader stepping into a new role needs to assess the business situation before they can determine the right strategy. The problem is that most people don’t make enough transitions in their career to develop strong instincts for it… so they default to what worked for them last time. And that's often where the struggling starts, or worse, where leaders fail and find themselves out the door.

So this is exactly where a good framework can be of help. Today I’m sharing with you the STARS model, which I first came across in Michael Watkins’ book The First 90 Days. Though that was almost ten years ago, I still pull it out every time I step into a new role. It helps me get my bearings and start acting quickly and confidently.

🔖(This is a long one, so bookmark it and come back when you’re ready to dive in!)

The Five STARS Situations

STARS stands for Startup, Turnaround, Accelerated Growth, Realignment, and Sustaining Success. These are five fundamentally different business situations, and thus require fundamentally different approaches to leadership. The model isn’t about neat lines and tidy boxes. Every situation you walk into will be unique… But the five situations here will give you a common language and a starting point. They help you find patterns more quickly, anticipate common challenges, and make better decisions before you have the full picture.

I’m not going to go deep-dive into each, but here is a high level overview.

Startup

If you’re in a startup situation, you’re building from scratch. On the upside, teams here usually bring high energy and enthusiasm for the mission, and you’ll get to take action without having to navigate legacy or bad habits. On the other side, structure will likely be weak, processes manual, resources tight, and culture? While full of potential, it can quickly spiral into misalignment if you’re not deliberate about it early. Expect to be hands-on and all-in.

⭐Leadership Tips

• Be decisive about what matters, and flexible about everything else. Save conviction for the things that are truly foundational in these early stages.

• Establish the fundamentals early. Culture, priorities, ways of working will form whether you shape them or not. Set your expectations clearly and hold people to them from the start.

• Own hiring and onboarding. Culture-setting begins during recruitment, and ripples out. A bad hire in a small team does big damage, so you’ll want your attention here.

• Stay focused on your core opportunities and problems. There will be an endless number of doors you could walk through. Be discerning about which ones you open. Losing the plot in the frenetic energy of a startup is easier than it sounds.

• Pilot before you commit. Early decisions have a way of becoming foundational, for better or worse. Take smaller bites, test ideas before scaling them, and don’t get attached to anything that doesn’t have the data to back it up.

• Know yourself. A startup will test your stamina and your ego. Set realistic boundaries around your energy, own your strengths and weaknesses, and ask for help before you need it.

• Delegate early, even when it’s uncomfortable. You cannot be everywhere, and trying to be will slow the most important things down.

Turnaround

The organization is in crisis and something has to change, and it has to change fast. Maybe funding has been pulled or a program failed or your leadership team collapsed. The pressure is intense, the timeline is short, and the stakes are high. Paradoxically, this can actually be one of the more straightforward situations to lead into. When things are clearly broken, people are primed to be led. They want direction and even small wins generate momentum. But make no mistake…. hard calls will have to be made, and quickly.

⭐Leadership Tips

• Triage! Deal with critical survival issues before anything else. Do you have enough cash? Can you make payroll? Are there a major grant or donor about to walk? Is there an accelerating staff exodus? Don’t take up large-scale, long-term transformation projects, such as launching a new programming or strategic planning, until the foundation is stable.

• Get consensus on the diagnosis before you reach for solutions. Don’t assume shared understanding just because there’s shared panic. Deep dive into the data, talk to staff at every level, and determine whether the problem is strategic, structural, cultural, or some combination. You don’t have time to treat the wrong problem.

• Secure early wins, as you need credibility and momentum in order to be effective. If there are obvious pain points you can resolve with a quick decision, make it… and then advertise it. (As Stephen Covey says about building trust: say what you’ll do, do what you’ll say, and advertise!)

• Learn your ‘power grid’. Figure out who actually influences the team… both directly and softly. I’m talking staff culture-keepers, board leaders, major donors, key stakeholders. You’ll need them on your side because formal authority only gets you so far.

• Get the right team in place fast. Identify your strong leaders and change champions early, ally with them, and position them where they can have the most impact. Where you find serious, entrenched resistance… move them on. If left in place, resisters will undermine everything you’re trying to do.

• Over-communicate. Silence breeds panic in a turnaround. Be transparent about what you’re doing and why. Test ideas with a small trusted group, but communicate broadly and often.

• Manage your energy. Turnaround environments are exhausting. Closed doors, time pressure, high emotion — it accumulates fast. You cannot lead well on empty. Protect yourself.

📌PS. I wrote about leading through crisis a little while back, with more detailed advice.

Accelerated Growth

Things are working … and working well! The organization is growing fast, demand is strong, and there’s real momentum behind the mission. This is an exciting place to lead. The challenge isn’t fixing anything, but to build the infrastructure and team that can support ongoing growth

⭐Leadership Tips

• Build ahead of the growth. Systems and structures need to be in place before you need them, not after. Anticipate what the next stage requires and start building toward it now… and don't fall into the trap of holding onto ways of working just because they're familiar. What got you here won't always get you there.

• Tend to your culture. As you bring people on, it becomes more important than ever to ensure new team members are really integrated… and that your values are consistent universally across the org.

• Shift from operator to orchestrator. As the organization grows, your job changes. You can no longer be close to everything… and you shouldn’t be. Build systems and develop leaders who can make good decisions without you in the room.

• Put the right people in the right roles. Growth creates new roles and new demands. Assess honestly whether your team has what the next chapter requires, and invest in developing them or bringing in new talent where needed.

• Over-communicate. Alignment happens naturally on small teams. It doesn’t at scale. You need to be consistent, and you need good downline discipline.

Realignment

This is a sneaky one, and in my experience, the most underestimated. Things aren’t on fire… but they’re drifting. The organization was successful, maybe still looks successful on the surface, but the signs are there if you look closely. Donor retention is slipping or financials are trending negative. Program participation is flattening. Staff turnover is increasing. The mission is starting to feel tired. This is the stage before a turnaround, and the defining challenge isn’t fixing a crisis, it’s convincing people one is coming. You’re fighting complacency, and sometimes willful blindness.

⭐Leadership Tips

• Lead with facts. People won’t accept a problem they can’t see. Use data, benchmarks, and external assessments to make the case objectively of the current situation.

• Create urgency without creating panic. Your job is to shift people from things are fine to we need to act … without triggering fear. Name the moment as an opportunity, use data, and avoid over dramatization.

• Shore up culture, systems, and skills. Unlike a turnaround, the strategy here is often still sound. What needs attention is how people and systems are working together or what capabilities are missing.

• Bring in outside voices. External perspectives, consultants, advisors, peer benchmarks, can help you say things you can’t. Use them to validate and amplify your case for change.

• Rebuild the top team where needed. Surround yourself with people who can see the drift and are willing to fight to correct it. Resistance at the leadership level will kill your efforts.

• Be patient but persistent. Realignment takes longer than a turnaround. Change here is deliberate and gradual. Don’t mistake slowness for failure… but don’t let patience become an excuse for inaction either.

Sustaining Success.

You’re inheriting something that is really working! The mission is clear, the team is strong, the funders are giving and happy, and your predecessor left big shoes to fill. This might sound like the easiest situation to walk into… but it comes with its own kind of pressure. With high expectations from all sides, many leaders are tempted to make their mark by changing things. But that instinct can be dangerous. The organization doesn’t need (or want) disruption. It wants continuity and steady leadership.

⭐Leadership Tips

• Resist the urge to change things for the sake of it. You were brought in because something is working, so be sure to understand what that is before you touch it.

• Honor what came before. By acknowledging the legacy of your predecessor, you can build trust and signal that you’re a steward (not a bulldozer).

• Listen before you lead. Your credibility here will be built through curiosity. Take time to understand why things are done the way they are before deciding what should be different.

• Keep the team motivated. Success can breed complacency, so your job will be to keep people energized and connected to the mission.

• Invest in what’s next. Sustaining success doesn’t mean standing still. Start looking for the next evolution, including new opportunities, emerging risks, the question of what this organization needs to become in 5-10 years.

• Develop your people. A healthy organization is the right moment to invest in leadership development and succession planning. Build the bench while you have the runway to do it well.

Using the STARS Model as a New Executive

As I said, I keep this model in mind whenever I start a new executive role. Here is some of my advice:

First of all, the diagnosis process starts before your first day. In fact, it begins when you’re interviewing for the role! You should research what’s publicly available, and make sure to ask targeted questions to the board of directors to get an early read on the organization. Some I like to use are:

• What does the financial picture look like over the next 12 months, and are there any significant risks or pressures on the horizon?

• How would you describe the organization’s culture right now, and how has it changed in the last few years?

• Are there any major strategic decisions either on the horizon, or have been delayed?

• Where do you think the organization is falling short of its potential?

• How aligned is the leadership team and board around priorities and direction?

• What has to go well in the next 90 days for this to be considered a successful transition?

• If you’re being completely honest… what’s the one thing you’re most worried about?

Second, take those answers with appropriate skepticism. Everyone has a perspective, and no single conversation gives you the full picture. Especially if you’re interviewing with a Board, where their visibility into the organizations day to day can be limited. So be sure, when you walk in through the door, to further validate, pressure-test, and fill in the gaps.

Finally, I also think its important to know yourself. Not every leader is built for every business situation. Turnarounds require a different kind of leadership skillset than a start-up . Some people thrive in chaos and grow bored in stability. Others are masterful stewards of success but freeze up when hard calls need to be made. The leaders who are honest about the situations where they thrive and where they don’t, tend to be the ones who do their best work. You need to know when to walk away from a role simply isn’t the right fit.

A final thought…

The biggest trap in any leadership transition is assuming what worked last time will work this time. Maybe it will. But you shouldn’t assume. Every situation is different, and the leaders who struggle most are usually the ones who never stop to ask what this moment actually requires of them.

STARS doesn’t give you all the answers but it can get you started in the right direction, faster.

🔗Read more! An HBR article by Michael Watkins can be found here, and you can of course pick up a favorite book of mine, The First 90 Days where he talks about it, and other transition strategies, too!

🔗You might also enjoy: People Work in Nonprofits Because They Can’t Cut It in ‘Real’ Business and Nonprofit Means No Profit!

After a decade-plus serving in top leadership, there is only one thing that really keeps me up at night. It’s not the budget deficit. Or the looming board meeting. Or figuring out our next strategic move.

It’s when things aren’t right with people.

When I sense someone is struggling and I haven’t checked in. When a hard conversation is coming and I’m dreading it. When I replay a meeting and wonder if I made someone feel unheard. When something didn’t land right and I can’t shake it.

That’s what I think about at 2 a.m.

I’ve had my fair share of not-so-great bosses, dysfunctional boards, and toxic coworkers. I’ve seen bad behavior ruin teams and really hurt people (sometimes irreparably) while leaders just stood by. Or worse, took part. Some didn’t care. Some didn’t know how to support their people and never bothered to learn. Others never had good leadership modeled for them, so they just replicated the cycle of hurt they knew. Things that could have been avoided with a little more compassion and competence and care.

If you’re like me… hoping to be the kind of leader worth following, one who can hold both humanity and accountability… this is for you. Below are some of the practices that I follow, but first, we need to talk about fundamental assumptions. Because that’s where real change starts.

Fundamental Assumptions

Fundamental Assumptions are deeply held beliefs about how the world and people work and influence how you show up.

For example, if you think people are not trustworthy, you’ll be looking for ways to control them. If you believe people are lazy, you’ll micromanage their time. If you assume people don’t care about quality, you’ll build systems around catching their mistakes instead of empowering their growth.

I’ve worked years to undo all the toxic mindsets around people that emerge from capitalism, and have aligned with these transformative assumptions.

• People are creative, thoughtful, trustworthy adults capable of making important decisions.

• People are comfortable being held accountable for their decisions if given the capacity and autonomy to take action.

• People are fallible; mistakes and failure are a normal part of life, and also necessary for innovation.

• People are unique, and both their lived and professional experiences have value.

• People want to use their talents and skills to make a positive contribution to the organization, and the world.

What I do to do right by people

With those beliefs as my foundation, here are some of the things I do to try and show up at my best for the people I lead. It’s a living list I’m constantly fixing and adding to.

• 1️⃣Trust people out the gate.
  I don’t care that some might think this is naive I think that the idea that you have to ‘earn my respect’ is outdated and toxic. You have my respect and my trust on day one, and it’s yours to lose. I’d much rather start from a place of belief in people than from suspicion. It’s how I would want to be treated and sets the right tone from the start.

• 2️⃣Don’t dodge the hard conversations.
  Radical candor means challenging directly: being willing to shine light on what’s not working. But here’s where most people mess up: you also have to care personally. It’s not just about delivering the feedback. It’s about demonstrating care by actually helping them get better. When there’s an area of growth, we keep talking about it. I try to find resources or mentors. I stay invested in their growth. Balanced with real gratitude for what people bring every day, my highest goal is simple: make sure people are actually happy where they are, and if they’re not, help them move on.

• 3️⃣Fiercely protect and respect work-life balance. Theirs and mine.
  That means setting clear expectations about on-site vs remote work and working hours, and then honoring that agreement until it’s explicitly altered. No texts on weekends or late at night. No praising people for working themselves into the ground. I audit time off records and making sure people are actually taking time off. I’ve said it before, rest is a leadership responsibility and boundaries necessary for longevity in our field.

• 4️⃣Advocate for people behind closed doors.
  I fight for their promotions, raises, resources, and recognition in rooms they’re not in… and let them know I’m doing it.

• 5️⃣Make time for the conversation, not just the transaction.

  I get to know the people I work with, up and down the organization, beyond their role or what they deliver. I ask about their lives, their interests, what matters to them. And I try to share the bits about myself that make me more human too. When someone needs to talk through a challenge, they get my full attention rather than me rushing to solutions or trying to resolve it in a Slack message. Work is relational, and relationships need more than status updates to thrive.

• 6️⃣Admit when you’re wrong & Create space for failure.
  I try to model vulnerability and accountability by owning my mistakes openly, apologizing when needed, and showing that leadership doesn’t mean being infallible. If mistakes are necessary for innovation, then we can’t punish people for taking smart risks that don’t pan out. When things go wrong, I focus on what we learned, not who to blame. Plus, more often I have found that it is systems or supports that failed, not people themselves.

• 7️⃣Give people authority and autonomy, especially if they’re the ones accountable.
  You can't hold someone accountable if they don't have the authority to make decisions or the autonomy to execute. So I trust them to own their work, make calls in their domain, and I support those decisions (even when I might have done it differently) as long as the results are there. This doesn't mean they operate in isolation; collaboration is real. But ownership has to be meaningful or burnout and frustration will be right around the corner.

• 8️⃣Default to transparency.
  If people are trustworthy adults, they deserve context for decisions, even difficult ones. I share what I can about the "why" behind changes, constraints, and trade-offs. Not making promises I can’t keep

And when the hard calls come…

And then there are the moments I dread most: when I have to make a decision I know will hurt someone. Letting someone go. Restructuring a team. Delivering news that will change someone’s life.

It would be easier to distance myself, hide behind process, defer to HR, retreat into business-speak. But that’s exactly when humanity matters most. People remember how you treated them in their hardest moments far longer than they remember the rationale. So I try to show up fully: deliver the message myself, with honesty and compassion, and do whatever I can to help them land somewhere good.

A final thought

I don’t have this all figured out.

I’m still reflecting, still learning, still catching myself when I fall short. But I keep working at it…. because I want to be worthy of the respect and trust people place in me. I want to set a model worth copying. And more than anything, I want to break the cycle of workplace harm that I myself have been subjected to.

So yes, that’s what keeps me up. Not spreadsheets. People. Always people.

💡Question: What’s a practice you follow to show up better for your team?

Keep Reading…

I want to talk about something that's been weighing on me, and I suspect it's weighing on you too… this painful feeling that you’re not doing enough (or not doing the right thing) when it comes to everything happening in the world. As someone with a strong sense of morality, its been hard not to feel like I’m falling short in a time where showing up is so important.

So, as I was reflecting on this, I came across a video where someone said something to the effect of: ⭐“We’re allies, but we’re not on the same team.”

Think about Lord of the Rings (bear with me here, you non-LOTR fans). Think about the Fellowship and all the players in Middle-earth. Their collective mission was to see the fall of Sauron and the Ring destroyed…. but for that to happen, each person had their own quest to complete.

• Frodo and Sam had to carry the Ring to Mount Doom.

• Aragorn had to reclaim his throne and unite the forces of men.

• Gandalf had to rally the free peoples and face the enemy’s power.

• Legolas, Gimli, Merry, and Pippin started with one quest and rose to meet it as it changed… bringing together different forces across ancient divides.

• Even Boromir, who faltered and fell, played his part in protecting the hobbits and buying them time.

• And then there was Théoden, who told Éowyn to stay behind in Rohan to look after those who couldn’t fight, understood that someone had to keep hope alive within the community and hold things together while others went to battle.

They were all allies working toward the same end, but each had their own specific quest that made the larger victory possible.

We can find examples of this all throughout history.

In every great struggle, there are many battles to be fought, small and big. Some are fought with weapons… but many more are fought by people harboring refugees, spreading information, keeping farms running so others can eat, caring for the injured, maintaining the networks of communication and supply. Every time, in different ways, each person has their own quest… their own way to push the fight forward from wherever they are, with whatever capacity they have.

So what does this mean for you and I, right now?

⭐It means figuring out what quest you’re part of and how you can help move the world toward a better place.

• For those on the front lines, it’s direct resistance.

• For those with time and capacity, it’s protest and organizing.

• For parents, the quest is raising your children to be thoughtful, compassionate human beings in a world that often rewards cruelty and othering.

• For students, it’s learning to think critically, to question, to stay engaged with the world even when it feels overwhelming. To learn now to speak up.

• For seniors who may not be able to march, it’s sharing your wisdom and lived experience from other difficult times.

• For those with wealth, it’s donating to organizations that strengthen and uplift your community.

• For those of you in leadership, running an organization, managing a team… it's using your platform to speak up, to protect your people, and to make decisions that prioritize humanity over convenience.

• For those with family members and friends who are isolated or radicalized, it’s not giving up on the difficult conversations.

• For people trapped in a crushing job with little time left over, it’s staying informed and having small conversations where you can.

• For people struggling with their own health and survival, who might feel like they have nothing left to offer, it’s simply still being here, still holding on, still part of the community that tyranny is trying to break apart.

And, for those of us in the space in-between, it’s community building…. finding times to come together and care for one another. It’s being the one to take initiative and check in on that friend. It’s cooking a meal for someone who is struggling. It’s showing up to that community meeting. It’s creating spaces where people can gather, share resources, and remember they’re not alone.

It’s the potluck, the book club, the mutual aid network, the group chat that becomes a lifeline.

These small actions of care and connection are not secondary to the fight…. they are essential to it. Because community and joy are one of the antidotes to tyranny. Where tyranny seeks to isolate you and make you feel hopeless, and every act of coming together is an act of resistance.

However, it is important to understand that there’s a difference between finding your quest and rationalizing inaction.

Rationalizing inaction is when you can realistically be doing more.

✖️When you choose not to stay informed.
✖️When you pass up a conversation when you have the capacity to have it.
✖️When you have extra wealth and are not helping your communities.
✖️When you have space and you are not bringing together community.
✖️When you have extra time and you’re not volunteering or organizing or showing up.

This is not about forgoing rest or the necessities you need to be a whole human being. This is about recognizing that comfort and convenience are not the same as necessity.

Sometimes I think as a society we have become very good at rebranding convenience as boundary-setting and avoidance as protection. The person with time and resources who avoids the news because it’s ‘too depressing’ or skips difficult conversations because they’re awkward?

You’ve failed the quest. That’s choosing comfort over contribution.

So test yourself: If the main reason you’re not doing something is that it would be uncomfortable, awkward, or inconvenient… but you actually have the capacity or the resources or the ability… that’s probably rationalization. If the reason is that you genuinely don’t have the time, energy, money, or mental bandwidth after meeting your basic needs and maintaining your humanity, that’s a real limit. And real limits deserve respect.

So what is your responsibility?

It’s your responsibility to be informed about what’s going on in the world. Speak with those around you and find support and provide support. If you’re running an organization, it’s your responsibility to speak up. And if you can’t speak up publicly, do it in private spaces. Check in on people. Show up where you can.

Your quest might not look like someone else’s quest.

Sam couldn’t carry the Ring for Frodo, but he could carry Frodo. He didn’t pretend he was too tired when he wasn’t. He went to the edge of his actual capacity, not the edge of his comfort zone.

So I’m asking you… asking all of us, myself included… to be honest. What is your quest? What can you actually do with the capacity you actually have? Not the capacity you wish you had, not the capacity that would be convenient, but the real capacity you have right now.

And then, do it. Do your part. Not someone else’s part. Yours.

Martin Luther King Jr. said that the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice. I believe that’s true…. but the arc doesn’t bend on its own. It bends because we push it, each from our own place, each with our own strength, each doing our own part.

I want justice and peace.

I love my neighbor if only for the fact that we are both going through this wonderful and painful thing together called human life. And… I believe that love and recognition of our shared humanity is what makes all of this matter.

So for now, for me, I will continue donating to organizations that strengthen and uplift my community. I will continue building community and finding opportunities for commiseration and joy and mutual aid. I will be ready to stand up if the fight comes to my proverbial door here in Seattle.

I will vote.

I will write.

I will speak up.

I will resist.

Because we are allies. We want the same world. And we need as many quests completed if we’re going to get there.

Find your quest. Do your part. Keep pushing.

With hope and solidarity,

Cp

“I wish it need not have happened in my time,” said Frodo.

“So do I,” said Gandalf, “and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.”

―J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring

There’s a condescending assumption that floats around boardrooms and business schools: people work in the nonprofit sector because they couldn’t make it in “real” business.

For this next round of mythbusting… Let’s put that to rest.

Nonprofits Are Real Businesses

Nonprofits are as diverse as for-profits and are businesses in their own right. As I’ve written before, nonprofit doesn’t mean no profit. We just use our profits to better the community instead of deepening the pockets of investors.

In most cases, nonprofit leaders manage the same complexity as their for-profit counterparts: revenue generation, strategic planning, talent management, operations, compliance, risk, and growth. The difference is that we do it without equity compensation, often with tighter margins, and under the constant scrutiny of donors, grantors, regulators, and the public.

If anything, nonprofit leadership requires more skill, not less.

Billion-Dollar Missions, not Bake Sales

First, let’s consider the operations of some of the top players:

• The American Red Cross operates on roughly $3.8 billion in annual revenue and served on 389 deployment sites in 2024.

• The International Rescue Committee reported over $1.3 billion and reached 36.5 million people across 40 countries in 2024.

• Doctors Without Borders (MSF International) runs on approximately €2.36 billion (about $2.5 billion USD), with 16M medical consultations provided and 1.6 million admitted patients.

• The Metropolitan Museum of Art? Nearly $700 million in revenue and over $6 billion in assets. This includes 1.5 million objects from over 5,000 years of human creativity,

These are not hobby shops or community side projects. These are complex, global enterprises that demand sophisticated governance and leadership to match.

….And I can list more. In fact, there are about 1,000 organizations that report revenues over $50 million a year.

But I won’t let the giants make up the whole story considering small nonprofits, those with budgets under $5 million, make up 97% of the sector. Even at that scale, yep, nonprofits are still full-fledged businesses. They manage facilities, human resources, information technology, logistics, compliance, and public accountability. They file the same 990s, answer to the same regulators, and carry similar fiduciary responsibilities as the billion-dollar organizations. They just do it with fewer resources and less margin for error.

The Third Largest Workforce in America

Shifting from one set of numbers to the next… The nonprofit sector accounted for 12.8 million jobs in the USA in 2022. This represents nearly 10% percent of all private-sector employment in the United States. It is a major job creator and component of local economies, and even outpaced all branches of manufacturing, all construction, and all finance and insurance.

In some areas, nonprofit employment makes up an even greater share of the pie. Washington D.C. reports 25.2% employment in the nonprofit sector. Vermont, Massachusetts, Maine, New York, and Rhode Island each reported 17%.

This is a pillar of the American workforce, not a fringe subsector.

Welcome to The Real World

The myth that nonprofit professionals “couldn’t cut it” in business is lazy thinking at best, insulting at worst. The sector employs nearly 13 million people, manages billions in revenue, and delivers services that for-profit markets can’t or won’t provide.

…All while operating under much higher scrutiny and public involvement.

Running a nonprofit isn’t easier than running a business. It is running a business, with mission accountability layered on top.

So the next time someone suggests nonprofit work is for people who can’t hack it in the “real world,” remind them: the nonprofit sector is the real world for millions of Americans and the communities they serve.

💡 Next in the series:

Additional Resources & References

“Nonprofits Accounted for 12.8 Million Jobs, 9.9 Percent of Private-Sector Employment, in 2022.” Bureau of Labor Statistics, 16 Aug. 2024, www.bls.gov/opub/ted/2024/nonprofits-accounted-for-12-8-million-jobs-9-9-percent-of-private-sector-employment-in-2022.htm.

Dear Outgoing Executive,

You’re leaving! Maybe you’ve known for months, maybe you just decided last week, but either way… the clock is now ticking and your mind is probably racing in a dozen directions. What happens to this organization when I’m gone? Will the board handle this well? Have I built something that can survive without me?

These are natural questions. But I want to gently redirect your attention, because there’s one question that matters more than you might realize: How do I take care of my people through this?

I’ve watched a lot of executives walk out the door. Some were graceful departures and thoughtful hand offs, but more often, it was rougher. As an interim, I’ve had to pick up the aftermath of exits where communication broke down and staff felt left behind. I’ve made my own transitions too, not all of them well, and learned hard lessons along the way.

What I’ve learned is this: leadership transitions are hard on everyone, but hardest on staff. While boards focus on the search for who is next and you process your own complicated mix of grief, relief, and anxiety, your employees are navigating shifting workloads, changing expectations, and the uncertainty about their own futures. They’re wondering things they won’t say out loud: Will the new person like me? Is my job safe? Is this the beginning of the end?

This is the final test of your leadership… and it starts with realizing that staff are taking emotional cues from you. If you seem ambivalent, they’ll feel unstable. If you’re checked out, they’ll disengage. If you’re clinging too tightly, they’ll resent it. How you show up in these final moments matter more than you think.

While this advice is written with less urgent transitions in mind (where you may have 8 to 12+ weeks to manage the change) most of it applies regardless of circumstance. Whether you’re leaving on your own terms or navigating something messier, the principles hold: communicate early, care for your people, and resist the urge to disappear before you’re actually gone.

Here are eight things you could do to set your staff up for success, and in doing so, leave with integrity while protecting the organization you’ve worked so hard to build.

1. Have a Unified Plan Before Announcing

The instinct, once you’ve decided to leave, is to tell people. You want to be transparent. You don’t want anyone to feel blindsided. But jumping the gun and announcing the change before you have a plan only leads to increased anxiety, speculation, and confusion.

Before saying anything to staff, work with your board to align on the basics:

• Review (or create) the board succession plan

• Clarify the transition timeline, including committing to your final day

• Determine if interim leadership is required and first steps

• Agree upon core transition message points and audiences that need communication

After finalizing these details, the Executive Director should meet personally with senior staff to officially share the news and get feedback on the proposed leadership plan, timeline, and messaging.

With these details settled, it’s time to meet with your senior staff before you release the bigger announcement. This isn’t just a courtesy, its strategic team management. Your senior staff need to be ready to field questions from their teams and provide emotional support, so they need time to absorb the news first and understand the plan. Ask for their feedback on timeline and messaging. Make sure there aren’t any concerns you missed… and make sure you make space for their feelings.

2. Communicate (A Lot! Probably more than you think.)

The single most important thing an organization can do to ease change is maintaining healthy, frequent communication. The fear of change is deeply intertwined with the fear of the unknown. For this reason, access to information and decision makers will be critical to maintaining trust and morale.

• Share the news in person (if at all possible). Don’t let them hear it second hand or through an email.

• Follow up in writing, recapping the plan. People absorb news differently, so this ensures people can reference back to what you said once their emotions clear.

• Create space on your calendar/agendas. Build in updates about your transition in your regular 1-1s and all-staff meetings, or carve out specific time to give updates on the transition process.

• Give people permission to ask what they’re actually worried about. “Will there be layoffs?” “Is this because of the board?” “Should I be looking for another job?” You might be surprised what staff are thinking. You may not have answers to everything, but acknowledging the question matters more than you think, and can help your senior staff & board navigate the transition better..

The reality is, when people don’t have information, their imaginations fill it in. That’s human nature. In the absence of clarity, your staff will fill the void with speculation, worst-case scenarios, and whispered conversations at the water cooler, so to speak.

So, one final piece of advice on communication is to get ahead of the rumor mill. Staff will talk. They’ll speculate about why you’re leaving, whats going on with the board, who in senior leadership will move into the power vacuum you leave behind.... This is inevitable. You can’t control it. What you can control is how much oxygen rumors get. Be transparent about what you don’t know yet. Name the speculation you’re hearing and address it directly, even if the answer is “I can’t speak to that yet, but here’s when I expect to know more.” Silence feeds anxiety, whereas Candor, even incomplete, can help sustain trust.

Your job in a transition is to out-communicate the anxiety.

3. Mind the Gap - Use an Interim!

Organizations often try to save money or time by asking a board member or internal candidate to “just cover things” during the transition. Sometimes that works. Often it doesn’t. If the organization is navigating any real complexity (strategic uncertainty, internal tension, financial pressure), there’s a strong case for bringing in a professional interim.

• Offering a critical neutral space for healing conflicts and structural issues

• Serving as an impartial party to facilitate difficult conversations with the board and staff

• Minimizing the impact of crisis or challenges

• Steadying the organization for the next leader

• Prioritizing projects and workload over the short-term

• Minimizing chance of staff burnout

• Preparing for effective onboarding and integration of a new leader

While hiring the right long term leader can take months, getting a capable interim is possible in a matter of days, and minimally disrupts the execution of other essential senior leadership responsibilities.

If you’re curious about this, you can read more in my article ‘what is an interim ceo/executive director?‘ :)

4. Create a Transition Memo

During your tenure, you accumulated an enormous about of knowledge and context that will walk out the door with you. A transition memo is your chance to capture what matters most before you go.

This isn’t an operational document. Rather, it is, in many ways, a letter to the new executive that orients them to the state of the organization from you vantage point. Some sections to include:

• Strategic context: Where is the organization in its lifecycle? What’s the current strategic plan, and how is it actually going?

• Organizational structure: Who does what, and how do decisions really get made? Include the informal dynamics, not just the org chart.

• Key relationships: Who are the critical funders, partners, and stakeholders? What should the new leader know about those relationships?

• Open issues: What’s unresolved? What landmines exist? What did you never get around to fixing?

• Opportunities: What’s possible that you didn’t have the capacity or tenure to pursue?

• Cultural norms: How does this team work? What do people value? What will the new leader need to understand to earn trust?

The goal isn’t go hand over an overly polished doc… it’s to give your successor an honest picture of what they’re inheriting, just in case you aren’t so available once you start your next gig.

5. Thoughtfully Involve Staff in the Search

How staff experience the search process shapes whether trust is waiting for them on day one…. or whether they’re starting from a deficit.

That said, the board holds fiduciary responsibility for the hire, and staff don’t get a vote on candidates. But there’s a middle ground between shutting staff out entirely and over-involving them in ways that create false expectations.

A few ways to engage staff meaningfully without muddying governance:

• Send out a survey. Ask staff what challenges they see the organization facing, what opportunities they’d prioritize, and what qualities matter in organizational culture. This gives the board valuable ground-level perspective and signals that staff experience counts.

• Tap their networks. Staff can help identify sector-specific job boards or share the posting with contacts.

• Create space for senior staff to meet finalists. I’m not talking about an interview. Rather, a facilitated opportunity for candidates to experience the team and for senior staff to form impressions. Be clear about the purpose: exposure, not selection. The board still decides.

Whatever you do, communicate the boundaries early. As an outgoing executive who holds the trust of staff, your voice in this advocacy can help the message land. Be explicit about what staff input will and won’t influence. Most people can accept a limited role… it its clear up front. What they can’t accept is feeling like they were asked for input that was never really wanted.

6. Acknowledge & Mourn Outgoing Leadership

How an organization says goodbye reflects its culture as much as how it says hello. Departures like this deserve a real moment… a chance for the community to say thank you, for the outgoing leader to say goodbye, and for everyone to acknowledge that something is ending before something new begins.

With your board, organize a farewell that fits your culture. Invite staff, board, key donors, volunteers, beneficiaries and the people whose lives this leader touched. Celebrate what was accomplished, not just by the Executive Director, but by the team during their tenure. If you’ve hired interim leadership, this also serves as a natural moment to introduce them.

7. Teach & Empower Staff in the Transition

A transition doesn’t have to be something that happens to staff… it also can be something they can shape. As the outgoing leader, you can help them see that. Coach them on the conversations they’ll need to have with the new leader: revisiting expectations, sharing communication preferences, clarifying department goals and needs. The more prepared they are to advocate for themselves, the smoother the handoff.

For senior staff, this period can also be an opportunity. With you stepping back, there’s room for them to take on more independence, make decisions they might normally defer, and build leadership muscle. .

And be honest about what’s coming. New leadership means knowledge gaps, different management styles, and the low-grade friction of learning someone new. Normalize those frustrations in advance so staff don’t interpret them as failure (theirs or the new leader’s.)

8. Hype the Future

Finally, remember that you can honor the past while generating excitement for what’s next… and as the outgoing leader, your voice matters more than you think in setting that tone.

Trust isn’t fully transferable. Your staff’s relationship with the new leader will be their own to build. But it gets a serious head start when you offer a genuine endorsement… not corporate boilerplate, but a real statement of confidence. Why you believe this person is right for the role. What excites you about what they’ll bring.

Make personal introductions where you can. If there’s an opportunity to appear together, take it. Your presence signals continuity. Your enthusiasm gives people permission to feel hopeful instead of just bracing for change.

Final Thoughts

I know this is one of my longer guides, but for good reason. I’ve stepped into too many organizations where both board and staff were struggling in the transition. And truthfully, that’s unavoidable. Change is hard. But in most cases, there were things the prior leader could have done to ease some of that pain.

Sure, you won’t get everything right. But if you leave your team feeling informed, respected, and hopeful about what’s ahead, you’ve done the most important work.

Today, the nonprofit sector is facing immense uncertainty. Many organizations are staring down financial cliffs, struggling with cultural and operational strain, and feeling a kind of pressure that is borderline existential. If you’re in leadership right now, you’re likely navigating one of the hardest chapters of your career.

As I’ve reflected on what it means to lead well in this moment, I realized that the most powerful lessons I’ve learned came from watching my partner’s work in disaster response and finding the parallels to my own.

My partner, Don Beeson, works and volunteers with Team Rubicon, supporting responses to some of the most devastating crises of our time: leading the organizational response to Hurricane Helene’s floods in North Carolina, conducting on-the-ground risk assessments in Poland/Ukraine, planning long-term recovery for Hawaii after the wildfires. As I write this, he’s flying to Jamaica to lead a medical team delivering relief after Hurricane Melissa.

In each of these moments, he steps into high-stakes, emotionally challenging circumstances that would overwhelm many leaders. Yet again and again, his teams show up with compassion to support people facing some of the hardest days of their lives.

The crises I face as an interim executive look different. I step into organizations during executive transitions (mostly unplanned ones). Buildings may not be collapsing, but trust often is. Culture may be fracturing. Staff hurting. Systems struggling. The stakes are high in a different but no less real way: people’s livelihoods and the communities who depend on these organizations are on the line.

The external stakes are different, but the leadership demands? Shockingly similar.

I didn’t expect his work to inform mine. But watching him lead through disaster after disaster revealed something powerful: we’re doing the same work. We’re both leading people through profound uncertainty. We’re both making high-stakes decisions with incomplete information. We’re both holding space for grief and loss while moving toward recovery.

Here are the five lessons that have shaped both of us, that I carry into every leadership moment. Things I think could help you lead at your best when you’re standing in the thick of the worst.

1 | The Tone is set at the Top

In crisis, people don’t look at a strategic plan first… they look at you.

One of Don’s first tasks in any disaster response operation is deceptively simple: walk into the room and be steady. Crisis triggers our survival instincts. People stop processing words and start processing signals such as your tone, posture, and the pace of your breathing. Teams typically assume the leader has the most information and thus the clearest read on the situation. So if you look panicked, the group absorbs that panic. If you move with frantic urgency, the team escalates. If frustration shows, everyone starts reading danger signals where none exist.

In crisis, emotional discipline is the foundation upon which every other leadership action rests.

I see the same thing when I step into an interim role during a leadership transition. Staff are already on edge, uncertain about the future, worried about their jobs, bracing for what might come next. If I walk in frantic or overwhelmed, I pour fuel on that fire. But if I stay grounded and even, it can help people start to settle.

Bad behaviors

I’ve seen many well-intentioned leaders make things worse… not by making bad decisions but through bad presence. Certain behaviors can can amplify crisis, including:

• Treating everything as urgent. Then nothing is prioritized.

• Micromanaging to feel in control, which slows the team and erodes trust.

• Reacting harshly or emotionally, signaling danger where none exists.

• Going silent or withdrawing, which amps up confusion/fear.

• Sending rushed or inconsistent messages, fueling speculation.

These aren’t character behaviors, mind you. They’re stress responses. But left unchecked, they just make a crisis harder.

How to Get it Right

• Get Grounded. Taking a 10-second reset, whether it’s breathing exercises, a centering phrase, or a little ritual you create, can shift your nervous system and ready you to meet the room you’re about to walk into with calm.

• Slow down. Your body language and vocal cadence can communicate more than your actual words. Rapid talking and rush movement can trigger feelings of alarm in others, whereas using a slower speech and controlled movements can signal safety/calm and help with regulation.

• Use Clarity to Prevent Panic. Calm requires clarity. You don’t need all the answers to communicate well. Phrases like “Here’s what we know right now” or “Here’s what’s true, and here’s what we’re still learning” create transparency without feeding speculation.

• Deliver Bad News in Person. Showing up signals that you own the decision or the moment, and are willing to face its impact alongside your team. It also gives you immediate feedback, allowing you to read the room, answer questions, and address concerns before speculation takes hold.

• Find an Anchor. Every strong crisis leader needs a trusted partner (a colleague, mentor, or external peer) who can absorb their venting, hear their fears, offer perspective, and most importantly, help bring them back to center and remind them where hope still lives. Just because you have to be the face of calm doesn’t mean you are expected to feel that way all the time.

• 

2 | A Time for Discussion and a Time for Decision

Good crisis leadership is not command-and-control styled. But it isnt consensus-seeking either. It is an art of knowing when to do each…. Too much discussion, and critical decisions stall. Too much unilateral action, and you risk misalignment, resistance, or harmful choices.

Don often describes disaster leadership as “a constant dance between listening, discussing, and deciding.” In the field, he gathers information from local leaders, aid partners, neighbors, elders, medical teams, and logistics officers…and then there’s a moment when he has to say:

“This is the plan, let’s move.”

Crisis narrows the available time window to act, but it doesn’t eliminate the need for conversation. In fact, the quality of your conversations will ultimately determine the quality of your decisions. The challenge is managing those conversations so they inform action rather than delay it.

I’ve learned this in my own work. When I step into an organization mid-crisis, there’s often a backlog of unmade decisions (things that have been circling for weeks because no one wanted to be the one to call it or own it). Part of my job is breaking through and moving the team forward.

Dodge these Dynamics

Under stress, I see teams fall into predictable patterns:

• Circular debate, where conversation continues long after it stops adding value.

• Decision deferral, due to fear of being wrong or upsetting people.

• Over-reliance on consensus, especially when clarity is lacking and no one wants to own the call.

• Authoritarian swings, where overwhelmed leaders make isolated decisions without input.

How to get it right

Your job as a leader is to shift the team between dialogue and direction while maintaining tempo.

• Timebox Conversations. Not every issue can afford prolonged dialogue. Set boundaries: “We have an hour for input,” can help people focus. Adding a brief pause for reflection (“Take one minute to think before we share”) can dramatically improve the quality of contributions.

• Define Decision Making Authority up Front. Teams need clarity on how the decision is being made and who is making it. Tell them explicitly which mode you’re operating in:

  • Consultative: “I will make the decision after hearing your input.”

  • Delegated: “You all are making this call; I’m here to support.”

  • Directive: “I am making this decision, but I want to understand the implications.”

  This eliminates assumptions and frustration.

• Never Leave without Action Items and Assignments. After a decision, conclude every meeting by writing down what you decided, who is doing what, and what comes next. This creates clarity and accountability.

• Don’t crowdsource strategy. Strategy should be shaped by a focused leadership group…. not by a large open call for opinion or consensus. Team input is valuable, yes, but direction is your job. Crowdsourcing strategy is a quick path to analysis paralysis and loss of focus.

• Use Provisional Decisions. You don’t need the perfect or permanent answer. In a crisis, you rarely can. Make a “right now” decision that creates momentum. E.g. “We’re choosing a direction for the next two weeks and will re-evaluate on this date.” This reduces the pressure of ‘getting it rights’ and builds in critical flexibility in an environment that is likely changing rapidly.

3 | Don’t come with the Answer / Lead with Curiosity

One of the fastest ways new leaders fail in crisis is by assuming that what worked before will work again. But disaster has its own story: its own culture, dynamics, history, and terrain… which means it needs it’s own solution.

When Don led operations in Haiti, the cultural dynamics, infrastructure challenges, and political context shaped their decisions. Those solutions didn’t translate to Poland, where the crisis centered on refugee displacement rather than collapsed buildings. And Poland’s lessons won’t cleanly apply to Jamaica. Each situation demands that leaders learn the landscape before they act.

The same is true for nonprofits in crisis. Each organization is its own ecosystem, with its own culture, operational and programmatic realities, community expectations, and funding pressures. That means a previous leader’s playbook probably won’t solve today’s problems. “Best practices” only work when adapted to local context. And what succeeded at one organization cannot simply be cut-and-pasted into another.

This is something I have to remind myself of constantly. When I step into an interim role, I bring years of pattern recognition… and that’s valuable. But it’s also dangerous. The moment I assume I know what’s happening before I’ve listened, I start solving the wrong problem. The leaders who fail fastest are the ones who arrive with answers already formed. Or worse, the ones who believe their experience guarantees they’re right.

Crisis leadership is inherently adaptive. You have to be skilled at reading context, not just applying formulas.

What’s going to get in the way of doing good work?

• Coming in assuming you know the answer / you know best

• Relying too heavily on past solutions

• Ignoring local knowledge

• Treating best practices as universal truths (instead of starting points).

How to get it right

• Curiosity over Certainty. Curiosity keeps you from defaulting to old solutions or blind spots. Ask more questions than you think you need to. Assume there’s something you’re not seeing.

• Look Local. Seek input from frontline staff, beneficiaries, partners, community members, and even skeptics. Local means People closest to the work often see the risks, patterns, and realities that leadership overlooks.

• Get to know your biases. Be transparent about the instincts or assumptions you’re bringing from past experiences. Saying “I’m inclined to do X because of what I saw at my last organization… but I want to test that here” models humility and invites challenge.

• Decisions as Drafts. Normalize iteration as good leadership. Treat initial decisions as drafts, not final answers. This approach enables teams to flexible and unafraid to adjust course as they learn.

4. It’s a Team Sport

The myth of the heroic leader is both seductive and dangerous.

When a leader tries to carry everything on their shoulders, to take on every decision or be the central problem-solver… they ultimately become a bottleneck. They miss critical information. They overestimate their capacity. They burn out. They compromise team safety.

Disaster response only works when the leader pushes leadership outward and downline.

I literally heard Don coach once: Your ego is not useful here; Your team is. In the field, he has to rely on medical leads, logistics coordinators, local partners, community elders… all the people with knowledge and skills he doesn’t have. His job isn’t to be the expert on everything. It’s to create the conditions where expertise can flow.

In organizations, the same rule applies. Crises cannot be solved by one person. You need:

• your staff

• your board

• your donors and funders

• your community partners

• Your beneficiaries

• Your family and friends

People whose expertise you trust even when you don’t fully understand it.

Some leaders crumble in crisis because they tighten control. They fear that if they are not the center of every decision, they are failing. But the best leaders know their job is to clear the path so others can do their best, most essential work.

I remind myself of this constantly in interim roles. My job isn’t to be indispensable… it’s to build capacity so the organization doesn’t need me at the center. From day one, I’m thinking about my last day.

You are responsible for the team. You are not responsible instead of the team.

Shortcuts to failure:

• Hoarding decisions

• “If I want it done right, I must do it myself” thinking

• Assuming leadership means being alone

• Taking credit instead of distributing it

• Failing to communicate roles and expectations

How to get it right

• Know your Role. Your job in a crisis isn’t to be the hero…it’s to clear obstacles, set direction, and create the conditions for others to lead well. Collaboration works when leadership is shared, not centralized.

• Help others know their role. Ambiguity is expensive in a crisis. Make sure every person knows what they own and what authority they have to act.

• Delegate For Real. I’m not just talking about tasks but ownership. Give people real responsibility and the authority to make decisions within their domain.

• Normalize Upward Feedback.. Make it explicit that you expect people to speak up: “If you see something I don’t, tell me.” The team becomes smarter and safer when truth flows in every direction.

• Celebrate and Uplift Leadership. Highlight what others contribute, not what you did. Public acknowledgment builds confidence and shared ownership.

• Plan for your Exit. Heroic leaders stay indispensable; real leaders build systems where they’re no longer needed at the center. From day 1, you should be thinking about your last day, and how to ensure your team will be able to stand up without you.

Don and I have discussed this at length and agree: “Leadership is the legacy you leave behind. If you leave and everything falls apart, you weren’t actually that effective.”

5. Rest is a Leadership Responsibility

Exhausted leaders make worse decisions.

Disaster response is grueling…. physically, emotionally, spiritually. The nonprofit sector is no different. And we are wiling to do this work because we care, not because it enriches us, and will go the extra mile for that very reason. However if left unchecked, that passion can accelerate burnout.

This final point isn’t about self-care as a nice-to-have. It’s about the unarguable fact that fatigue degrades everything (judgement, patience, strategic thinking, kindness, etc).

My partner has rituals he protects fiercely: running, two square meals a day, and a full night’s sleep. Non-negotiables. Without them, he can’t lead effectively. He’s learned that the hard way.

I’ve learned my own version of this. I need good sleep and real meals (the basics.) But I also need time alone in my thoughts: a warm shower, meditation, space to be creative. My writing and art aren’t hobbies I squeeze in when there’s time… they’re how I process and reset. And time with family and friends isn’t optional. It’s what keeps me human when the work gets heavy.

…But it’s not just about me. Part of my job as a leader is making sure the people around me are pacing themselves too. That means building systems that reduce overwhelm and normalize rest as part of performance. Great leaders need to model that you can step away without the world ending.

You can be better than this:

• Wearing exhaustion as a badge of honor (its not).

• Overworking because “the mission matters”

• Skipping meals, rest, or decompression

• Assuming you can push through indefinitely

• Believing burnout as a normal part of leadership

How to get it right

• Know What Fills Your Cup. Not everything that looks like rest actually restores you. Get specific about what replenishes your energy and protect/prioritize it.

• Schedule Rest. For you & Staff. Block recovery time on your calendar. Build a buffer after emotional conversations. Create “off hours” and honor them.

• Audit the patterns. I’ve worked with teams so dug into overwork that they didn’t even see it anymore. Sometimes that means auditing PTO usage and encouraging chronic under-users to take time. Sometimes it means investigating why people are overworked and redistributing the load. Surface the patterns so you can interrupt them.

• Visibly Model & Encourage. Don’t just sign off for the weekend: tell your team you’re signing off. Encourage them to do the same. And don’t contact them during their off hours. If you say rest matters but you never rest, they’ll follow your behavior, not your words.

• De-urgency-ify your work. Not everything is an emergency. Frankly, for most of it, almost none of it is. Part of your job is helping the team distinguish what’s truly urgent from what just feels that way.

• Build in Reflection. It is so easy to solve one problem and jump into the next. Make sure to build in opportunities to reflect together, celebrate.

• …Its ok to Surge Sometimes you have a deadline and you need to push hard. You might work overtime for a big project. That’s real. But as a leader, build the rest on the backside and communicate it: “We’re going to push hard through this launch, and then we’re taking a breath.” And then actually have a real break.

Don once told me: “Being able to do your job confidently, with energy, while making it look easy … that signals mastery.” There’s something to that. For those of you new to your leadership role… If you’re visibly exhausted and grinding all the time, people will appreciate your effort… but they won’t want to burden you with their thoughts or problems. You’ll miss out on real insight, and the opportunity for partnership with your team.

Rest is the ultimate prerequisite for exceptional leadership.

Final Thoughts

Leading well in a crisis isn’t about being the smartest person in the room or the one who works the hardest. It’s about steadiness. Knowing when to listen and when to decide. Staying curious, sharing the load, and protecting your capacity for the long haul.

These five lessons have shaped how I lead and came from watching someone do extraordinary work in the hardest circumstances imaginable.

And if you’re in the thick of it right now … leading through uncertainty, trying to hold things together while everything feels like it’s shifting… know that you’re not alone. The work is hard. But you can do hard things. And you don’t have to do them by yourself.

Don Beeson is an amazing human who is doing tremendous good in the world. He’s currently taking a bit of a break and exploring what might come next … and frankly, you want him on your team. Whether it’s disaster response, crisis leadership, or operations in high-stakes environments, he brings a rare combination of calm, competence, and heart.

» Connect with Don on LinkedIn or his website
» Check out his interview with Oakley!

I’ve seen it happen more than a few times:

A respected leader prepares to step down, confident they have a strong internal successor ready to take the reins. This senior staff member has been a steady presence for years… someone talented, committed to the mission, and trusted by the team.

But for one reason or another, once the recruitment process begins, something doesn’t line up. The board hesitates. They don’t share the outgoing leader’s confidence… and ultimately, choose to look externally.

The question isn’t why the internal candidate wasn’t ready but why the board didn’t see it.

So if you’re an executive fortunate enough to have a strong second-in-command or emerging internal talent you believe could one day step into your role, now is the time to start preparing the ground. It will take more than just titles and talk… You will need to connect the dots: help your senior staff member build critical relationships, gain visibility, and develop a leadership narrative that allows the Board to see what you already do.

Below are practical things I’ve done in my career, or have seen done by my peers, to ready and elevate internal leadership talent.

1. Give Them Boardroom Visibility

Your internal leader can’t earn the confidence of the board if the board hasn’t had an opportunity to see them lead (feels like a no-duh, right?). This exposure is critical to building the familiarity and trust needed for a successful succession. When your emerging leader has the opportunity to speak in the boardroom, sharing their vision, insights, and achievements, board members begin to associate them not only with competence, but with authority.

To be clear, it’s not about making an artificial showcase: It’s about finding authentic opportunities for them to shine.

Some practical ways to build board visibility include:

• Invite them to present key updates or strategic reports at board meetings. that highlight their ownership and judgment.

• Assign them to a board committee or task force, especially one within their area of expertise.

• Include them in board retreats or strategic planning sessions, giving them space to contribute ideas, problem-solve collaboratively, build rapport, and demonstrate critical thinking.

• Find them high-impact assignments that have real, bottom line impact and benefit from collaboration with board members.

2. Strengthen Their Executive Communication

Visibility alone isn’t enough. Once your emerging leader has a seat at the table, they need to be able to communicate at that level. Many emerging leaders are exceptional operators with their teams but struggle to make the jump when speaking with the board. They often communicate at the wrong altitude, getting too detailed or tactical, which can leave the board questioning their strategic capability in the long term.

Your role is to help your staff adapt their communication to the executive context, where clarity, brevity, and strategic framing matter most. The goal is to help them shift from explaining the work to articulating the impact.

Practical ways to build this skill:

• Coach them to lead with impact and insight, not information. Shift them from reporting on what happened to what it means for the organization? Push them to frame their communications around impact: what changed, why it matters, and what’s next. Remind them they don’t need to explain everything that happened.

• Never let them go in cold. Have them practice presentations with you or work through key discussions together. Resist giving feedback in the moment. Instead, debrief afterward on what landed, what didn’t, and how their presentation could be stronger.

• Be radically candid with your feedback. They can’t grow without hearing the truth about where they’re over-explaining or under-communicating, or where their communication tics might be getting in the way of being heard.

• Model and Mentor. Take time to narrate your own thought process when preparing for meetings so they can see how you translate complexity into clarity. Explain why you choose to include or omit certain information, and how you decide what truly matters for the audience. Let them know more than just what you communicated, but how you thought about it. This is where real executive judgment can be taught.

3. Build Strategic Exposure and Judgment

One of the biggest gaps I see in emerging leaders is limited experience (and opportunity) to make decisions with real stakes. In many small or mid-sized organizations, even strong senior leaders spend most of their time managing operations rather than navigating larger conversations on financial trade-offs, risk response, and competing strategic priorities. As a result, they may not have had the chance to build the muscle that true executive judgment requires.

Strategic thinking and emotional steadiness are developed through real-time interfacing with complexity, not through reading a book or observation. Emerging leaders need to see how hard calls are made, how competing priorities are balanced, how relationships are managed under pressure–and then given the opportunity to do it themselves. Help your senior staffer build this skill by:

• Including them in strategic meetings, even if just as an observer at first. If possible, let them sit in on negotiations, crisis responses, or organizational challenges so they can see real decision-making under pressure.

• Pulling them into decision-making. Have them in the room for budget reviews or annual planning, particularly when board collaboration is involved. Ask for their opinion. Carve out time to explain your reasoning afterward, even briefly, to reveal how decisions are shaped.

• Inviting them into your thought process. Share how you approach trade-offs, assess risks, and interpret board dynamics. Exposure to how you think, not just what you decide, builds their strategic instincts.

• Coaching them on stakeholder dynamics. Many internal successors stumble not on ability but on relationships. Help them understand unspoken power structures, personalities, and institutional history so they can navigate confidently.

4. Create Personal Connections

In the case of executive leadership, perception is as important as performance. A potential successor can be talented, capable, and trusted internally, yet if they feel like a stranger to key stakeholders they will never make the leap. Finding opportunities for your senior staffer to build authentic relationships with board members, funders, and strategic partners will allow others to see their leadership firsthand and develop confidence in their character and judgment long before a transition is on the table. You could try these:

• Facilitate introductions intentionally. Set up informal coffees, joint calls, or small-group meetings with board members or major funders, especially if there is common ground or shared work. Give them context beforehand so they can speak comfortably and authentically.

• Share visibility. Bring them along to donor visits, partnership discussions, or community events where they can represent the organization and demonstrate leadership presence.

• Encourage external representation. Let them attend conferences, serve on panels, or participate in collaborations that naturally expand their network and credibility.

• Signal endorsement publicly. When appropriate, mention their work in external conversations or acknowledge their leadership in group settings. Your confidence in them helps others see it too.

5. Succession as Long-Term Leadership Development

You need to think of succession planning as a long-term development process, not just a short-term contingency plan. You and the Board should aim for more than identifying who could step in; you should be actively growing their readiness and broadening their exposure over time That shift… from crisis management and replacement planning to capability building… is what turns succession into a true strategic advantage.

A few tactical things to consider adding to your succession planning process:

• Executive Skills Matrix & Assessment. Create a defined skills matrix for executive capabilities paired with an assessment tool to track senior staff progress and guide targeted professional development during their performance reviews.

• Annual Board Succession Conversation. A standing yearly discussion with board officers about your senior leadership team. This is not about performance management but perception management and gaining meaningful feedback on how the board perceives current talent.

• An Open Conversation With Your Board About Your Eventual Departure …including your perspective on internal talent, who is growing, and where the real potential lies.

• A Living, Continuously Updated Plan. This isn’t a set it and forget it exercise. An organization needs a dynamic document, regularly reviewed and refreshed as leaders grow and organizational needs evolve.

Final Thoughts

There is a tremendous amount of invisible leadership inside organizations. Talent that gets overlooked during transitions not because of a lack of ability, but because they’ve never had the opportunity to demonstrate their capacity before it mattered.

Your second-in-command can’t just be a name on a chart you quietly hope will rise to the occasion. You need to stretch them strategically, relationally, and intellectually. Put them in the rooms where judgment is shaped. Give them visibility long before they need it. Help them build the relationships that will create the confidence needed to make the leap.

If you do this early and consistently, the board won’t need convincing. They’ll already see what you see: a capable, credible leader who’s ready when it matters most.

That first meeting is more important than most new leaders realize. It’s where your team will start to decide what kind of leader you’ll be: whether you’re someone they can trust, whether you listen, and whether your leadership will bring stability or upheaval.

I didn’t always get it right. Early on, I made the same mistakes many of us do. Eager to impress, I talked too much, tried too hard to inspire, and made promises before I had the full picture. Eventually, I learned that the first all-staff meeting isn’t about proving yourself; it’s about building trust and setting a steady tone for what comes next.

In most normal circumstances, here is how to approach it with confidence and care.

1. Understand what people want vs need to hear

When a new leader steps in, people’s first reactions are rarely logical — they’re emotional. Before they even hear your plans, staff are already asking themselves the same questions:

• What’s going to change?

• Is my job safe?

• Will this person understand what makes us unique?

These reactions aren’t a reflection of resistance or skepticism. They’re human. Change management research consistently shows that uncertainty triggers anxiety, even when people support the reason for the change. William Bridges distinguished between change (an external event) and transition (the internal process people go through to adjust to that change). In those early days, your staff aren’t resisting you; they’re navigating that emotional and mental transition: trying to understand what your arrival means for their work, their teams, and their sense of security. (1)

At the same time, people crave clarity and direction. They want to know where you’re leading them and what will happen next. But here’s the paradox: you won’t have that vision yet- and it’s risky to pretend you do.

The early phase of leadership isn’t about answers; it’s about understanding. You might have read the strategic plan, reviewed financials, or spoken with board members before your first day.... but the real culture and rhythm of an organization live in its people. You can’t learn that in an onboarding packet.

So when staff look to you for certainty, give them something better: honesty and steadiness. Acknowledge that you’re still learning, and set a clear timeline for when they can expect direction. For example:

“I know everyone’s wondering what will change, but my first priority is to listen and learn. Over the next few months, I’ll be spending time with teams, understanding our work, and hearing from as many of you as possible before setting new direction.”

This kind of message does two things at once: it satisfies people’s need for structure by outlining a plan while also reducing fear by affirming that nothing sudden or arbitrary is coming.

In short, the first thing your staff need from you isn’t vision. It’s psychological safety.

2. Don’t Wing It.

Even experienced executives sometimes underestimate this moment, assuming they can just “speak from the heart.” But the first all-staff meeting is too important to improvise. This isn’t about being scripted, it’s about being intentional.

Before the meeting, write down your talking points and practice them. Keep it short (five to ten minutes). If you tend to ramble when nervous, time yourself. A well-structured message demonstrates discipline and respect for your audience.

Think of your message as having three key goals:

1. Reassure people.

2. Establish your credibility.

3. Set expectations for communication and pace.

If you accomplish those three things, you’ve succeeded.

3. Structure Your Message Around Five Simple Parts

Here’s a framework I’ve used again and again, with organizations small and big.

• Introduce Yourself briefly and authentically. Share who you are, what drew you to this organization, and why the mission matters to you. Avoid a long résumé rundown. Right now, staff need to see your humanity, not your LinkedIn profile.

• Acknowledge the Transition. Leadership changes are emotional, especially if you are follow up a well-liked or successful leader. Recognizing this can help build empathy. You could say something like “I know transitions can bring uncertainty. That’s normal. My goal is to understand what’s working, support you, and keep things moving forward as we learn together.””

• Outline Your 30- or 90-Day Plan. Be transparent about your learning period and timeline. “For the next 90 days, I’ll focus on listening: meeting with teams, shadowing our operations, and understanding both our strengths and our challenges. I won’t make major structural changes until that process is complete.” This kind of clarity calms people. It replaces speculation with a steady plan. Importantly: Don’t promise things you don’t plan to do.

• Share What You Need from the Team. Once your team knows what you’ll be doing over the next 30 or 90 days, invite them in. This is your opportunity to set the tone for the kind of working relationship you want to build. As someone who relies on candor to lead effectively, I always make that explicit: “What I need from you is honesty. Tell me what’s working and what’s not. Don’t hold back — I can’t make good decisions without good information.” Name a few core values you’ll prioritize (e.g. communication, transparency, or collaboration) but keep it brief. This isn’t the time to share your full leadership philosophy.

• Explain How You’ll Communicate Going Forward. Let people know how when next they’ll hear from you. For instance: “I’ll share updates after my first 90 days and send monthly notes in the meantime. You’ll always know what I’m learning and where we’re heading.” Predictable communication reassures people that they won’t be left guessing.

4. Project Steadiness

When you’re new, people aren’t expecting perfection. Before you even speak, they’re reading you. They’re watching your facial expressions, your posture, your language. Do you seem calm or hurried? Curious or dismissive?

Even small things matter. Smiling, thanking people, and staying composed if a question catches you off guard all communicate volumes about your leadership style. Research on first impressions shows that people make judgments within seconds, and those early cues tend to stick. Studies on leadership trust also show that people decide whether to trust a leader based on two qualities: warmth and competence. In those early moments, your tone and body language often communicate both long before your words do. (2) (3)

5. Follow Up Thoughtfully

After the meeting, send a short follow-up email the same day or the next. Summarize your key messages: a review of your next 30 or 90 days and how staff can engage with you. You might choose this moment to also open a simple anonymous form or feedback channel for questions. It’s an easy way to surface honest thoughts from people who might hesitate to speak up publicly. I often include a line like:

““If there’s something you’d like me to know or a question you want to ask anonymously, here’s a space to do that.”

It signals openness and respect, and from my experience, surfaced insights that shaped how I approached my onboarding.

Final Thought

Your first all-staff meeting is a moment of truth... not because you have to dazzle anyone, but because it’s your first opportunity to model the kind of leadership you’ll bring. Be calm. Be clear. Be curious.

Vision, strategy, and change can come later. But if you get this first moment right , everything else becomes easier to build.

References

Bridges, William. “Bridges transition model.” Guiding People Through Change [interaktyvus][žiūrėta 2017-04-23] Prieiga per internetą: https://www mindtools com/pages/article/bridges-transition-model htm (2004).

Willis, J., & Todorov, A. (2006). First Impressions: Making Up Your Mind After a 100-Ms Exposure to a Face. Psychological Science, 17(7), 592–598. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9280.2006.01750.x

Zak, P. J. (2017). Trust factor: The science of creating high-performance companies. AMACOM.