What nonprofit leaders carry that nobody talks about
- 1 day ago
- 2 min read
Recently, I read something that made my heart sink.
It was an unpublished article written by a nonprofit CEO. The only safe space she had found to put words to what she was carrying was a document nobody would ever see. She was venting. She was heartbroken. And the words on the page almost had an audible exhale — like the keyboard was the first thing that had actually listened.
As an executive coach, a facilitator of a local CEO peer group here in Traverse City, and someone who has spent decades alongside leaders, moments like this one strike me in two ways.
The first is the weight she was carrying alone. The shame. The inner conflict. The fear of how close to breaking she really was, and what it would mean if anyone found out.
The second is that I have heard this story before. Many times. In different words, from different people, in different seasons. And what I know sitting on this side of those conversations is something she could not yet see: everyone in leadership has had these moments, and what she is feeling does not make her less of a leader. It makes her human.
That gap, between what a leader presents and what they are privately carrying, is one of the loneliest and most confusing places I know.
What I rarely hear said out loud but feel underneath nearly every conversation is: Can I keep going? Am I enough? Do I have enough left for this fight? And if the answer is no, what does that mean for everything I have built and everyone counting on me?
That is not weakness. That is the weight of leading something that matters enormously, with resources (energy, people, and finances) that rarely match the size of the need.
What a nonprofit CEO needs in that moment is not another quick fix. It is someone in their corner who can hold the full complexity of what they are carrying, help them find the next simple step they actually have energy for, and give them permission to be human while they do it.
That is what I love about the work I do.
Together with a client, we look at the root of what's going on, rebuild a foundation that may have crumbled, and uncover a more sustainable path forward.
If you are a nonprofit leader and something here lands, I want you to know there is a space for you to say out loud the things you have not found a safe place to say. That's what a Clarity Session is for.
Alternatively, if you know someone carrying this weight, the most generous thing you can do is send the link to this post to them today.
Always in your corner,
Halle
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