Field Guide for Organizational Leaders

The lessons that don’t fit neatly into a job description. This guide explores what it actually looks like to lead with empathy, equity, and emotional intelligence—and how to build cultures that hold together through trust, not control. Practical tools alongside honest reflection. This isn’t theory. It’s what I’ve learned when the rubber meets the road.

This is a living field guide and will be expanded every month with new pieces.

⭐ Your First Read

Leading Through Crisis: Five Lessons for Nonprofit Leaders
Field tested, practical guidance for navigating hard leadership moments.

📍Contents:

Starting A New Role

• What to Say (and Not Say) in Your First All-Staff Meeting
  First impressions can make your job easier or much much harder.

Leading & Managing Well

• The Only Thing That Keeps Me Up at Night as a Leader
  The importance of putting people first, in all your decisions and thinking.

• How to Prepare Your Second-in-Command for Leadership
  Tactical ways you can elevate and ensure your successor is setup for success

• The Most Expensive Words in Your Workplace: Got a minute?
  Get control of your time, and teach your team.

Fundraising

• Why you probably can’t fundraise your way out of a deficit.

Human Resources

• Organizational Design Mistakes
  Solving common pain points with your organization through design

• Moving Beyond Performative Diversity in Executive Hiring
  Ten things you and the board can do to hire a more diverse workforce

• How to Leave Well Without Leaving Your Staff Behind
  Because how you leave matters.

• What to Do When a Board Member Applies for a Staff Position
  The good, the bad, and the ugly.

Myths of Nonprofit Leadership

• Nonprofit Means No Profit!

• People Work in Nonprofits Because They Can’t Cut It in ‘Real’ Business

• There is a universal ‘Best Practice’ for everything

🔒Mental Models & Management Toolbox

• The STARS Model
  Understanding the Business Situation You’re in and How to Lead Through it.

• Housekeeping Happy Hour
  Getting your ‘house’ in order, one month at a time.

• Minimum Good, Maximum Bad Principle
  Decide when to leave, and when to stay

• Radical Candor Feedback Principle
  Give feedback that actually moves the needle

• The Pyramid Principle / The Message House
  Craft concise, executive-level communications

• 🔒Meeting Hygiene

• 🔒Setting Clear Expectations for Management

• 🔒Catalytic Coaching Feedback

• 🔒The MECE Framework

• 🔒The SCQA Framework

• 🔒Bottom Line, Up Front (BLUF)

• 🔒4Ps (Product, Price, Place, Promotion)

• 🔒4Cs (Customer/Consumer Needs, Cost, Convenience, Communication)