Blog

I absolutely love a horizontal life pause (aka nap). And I love a lot of the things that traditionally make up self care advice. I am not very good at it but I try to meditate. I write in a journal now and again and I take time out to do things that I enjoy that are unrelated to work. 

However, looking after ourselves does not stop there when it comes to leading nonprofits. We also need to re-energize and refresh ourselves in the work itself. Every day it is our job to inspire and lead our staff to work with people who are hurting, to challenge unfair systems and to help others make a better life for themselves. This requires passion. And passion requires energy. Not just ‘I had 9 hours of sleep last night’ energy – although that is important. Passionate energy is also about jumping back up when we get knocked down, fighting the good fight wherever we can and believing wholeheartedly that our bit of the world can be changed.

This kind of energy can be refreshed by the 3 things that we have focused upon in our leadership forum TIME OUT – reflecting, learning and connecting.

Reflecting
Taking time to reflect on our work is crucial for any leader. As nonprofit leaders it’s easy for us to get caught up in the day to day. We see things that need to get done all around us. There is always another grant application to write or report to get done. Our staff need us and sometimes we have to spend a lot of time with them to ensure they are on the right track. It’s all true. But as leaders we also hold the space for strategy and future development. If we are always stuck in the day to day, we cannot plan for the future or meet our strategic goals as a whole organization. Reflection is also important to being a good leader for our people. Standing back and seeing the full picture equips us to direct our team more effectively, enables us to be less reactive and helps us to feel like we are making the change we want to see in the world. 

Learning
Learning often gets put to the side as we feel we don’t have the time or the money to invest in it. A commitment to learning is also something that has eroded in our sector overall due to the tendency toward project focused funding, an active resistance to ‘overheads’ by donors and a growing culture of austerity both outside and within our organizations. But as we know from watching austerity budgets eradicate the infrastructure needed to deliver services, it doesn’t work. We need to invest in order to grow. And that is true of learning. As nonprofit leaders, many of us have had to figure out how to do our jobs as we went along. There are few affordable opportunities for us to learn how to be an ED or even a leader. Spending time finding out about new ways of working is refreshing and crucial for us to be able to manage changing environments. Learning new approaches to leadership will help us with our shifting employee base. And sometimes, just finding out that what we are doing is on track helps us feel more confident about ourselves and our abilities. 

Connecting
It’s crucial that we as nonprofit leaders spend time with others doing similar work. It’s revitalizing to meet new people who share our interests and passions as well as to catch up with those we already know and like. In our ED survey of 2015, 90% of respondents reported feeling somewhat or very isolated. Being an Executive Director can be a lonely job and so having the opportunity to spend time with others doing the same job too enables us to feel less alone. When we’ve had the opportunity to connect with others we often return to our work with renewed enthusiasm. Connecting is also important for our big picture. Having conversations with others about the bigger picture stuff helps us to find those with similar values and dreams. It enables us to discover possibilities for collaboration, for finding synergies between organizations or for the work in general. In short, connection is required to make any substantial social change beyond achieving the deliverables of our own organizations. 

If you are a Peel Region or Ontario nonprofit leader, we very much hope that you will be able to attend our day of reflecting, learning and connecting. It’s a full day intended to refresh your passion, re-invigorate your learning and look after yourself. In addition to having the opportunity to try chair yoga or have a chair massage, you will be able to connect with Imagine Canada, Ontario Nonprofit Network and Canada Helps as well as many other wonderful organizations doing great work. You will also have the opportunity to add to your leadership toolbox and participate in rigorous conversations about diversity, advocacy, decent work and innovation. 

Guest blog provided by Lianne Picot, Executive Director of Peel Leadership Centre, an organization growing leadership and organizational capacity in the nonprofit sector. Lianne is passionate about great leadership, storytelling and creating opportunities for transformational learning. Connect with Lianne at lpicot@peelleadershipcentre.org.