Navigating power and conflict within nonprofits with Rebecca Epstein
3/25/2024
“How can you function effectively while still reflecting your values and your theory of change and your vision in your operating practices and principles... Can you be explicit about those things on the front end? When people are coming into the organization or into specific roles, they understand, this is how the organization makes decisions. This is its strategy house. This is who it is, and I get my role in that ecosystem. I know what power I have and what power I don’t have. I know what I’m gonna be consulted on, what I’ll have decision making around, and what I won’t and why, and I get it.”
In episode 94 of Nonprofit Mission: Impact, Carol Hamilton and Rebecca Epstein discuss the article that Rebecca wrote with Mistinguette Smith published in the Nonprofit Quarterly in 2023: Paving a Better Way: What’s Driving Progressive Organizations Apart and How to Win by Coming Together.
The conversation between Rebecca and Carol covers the intricacies and challenges of leadership and organizational dynamics within the nonprofit sector, particularly in the context of social justice work.
Their discussion touches upon generational conflicts, power dynamics, organizational clarity, and strategies for effective leadership, especially in the recent crises we have all experienced over the past several years.
Episode highlights:
Generational and Cultural Dynamics in Nonprofits
[00:08:30] The recent increased conflict within organizations between leaders and staff, often on generational and racial lines. How these conflicts are similar and different to those of the past.
Addressing Internal Conflicts and Building Resilience
[00:15:30] Conflicts within organizations, such as public call outs and accusations of racism as well as the push for structural changes.
Organizational Clarity and Strategy
- [00:20:30] The importance of organizational clarity regarding power and decision-making, and how it should reflect an organization's values and strategies.
The Challenge of Aligning Strategy and Leadership
- [00:25:30] The challenges organizations face in aligning their leadership style with their identity and mission as well as aligning expectations across segments of staff.
Addressing Trauma in Nonprofits
- [00:35:30] Understanding and addressing trauma embedded in social justice work – the trauma that stems from the issue the organization is addressing, intergenerational trauma, personal and interpersonal trauma. How might trauma at all these levels be addressed responsibly?
Current Trends and Challenges
The dialogue offers nonprofit leaders a range of insights and considerations for fostering healthy, effective, and resilient organizations that can navigate the complexities of social change work.
Guest Bio:
Becca Epstein is a coach and consultant to social justice organizations and their leaders with over 20 years of experience in community organizing, organizational development, and nonprofit leadership. Becca is a co-founder of The Management Center, a former Vice President at Planned Parenthood Federation of America, and a convener of the “Paving a Better Way” working group. Her practice focuses on leaders, organizations, and movements confronting strategic challenges, seeking transformation, and advancing equity and justice. Becca holds an MPA in Nonprofit Management and Public Policy from NYU, a BA in Anthropology from Amherst College, and is a Certified Professional Coach.
Important Links and Resources:
Paving a Better Way: What’s Driving Progressive Organizations Apart and How to Win by Coming Together by Rebecca Epstein and Mistinguette Smith
Building Resilient Organizations: Toward Joy and Durable Power in a Time of Crisis by Maurice Mitchell
Learning From an Intergenerational Blowup Over Social Justice by Steve Kaagan & John Hagan
Rebecca Epstein: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rebecca-epstein-797aa75/
https://www.beccaepsteincoaching.com/
Internal Family Systems - No Bad Parts: https://bookshop.org/p/books/no-bad-parts-healing-trauma-and-restoring-wholeness-with-the-internal-family-systems-model-richard-schwartz/16396062?gad_source=1&gclid=Cj0KCQjw-_mvBhDwARIsAA-Q0Q7ZNqD5nvZg5Rc0AW1G0doLAO72cWnAFeCHvmKdI5QkEjpu1QDdtWIaAtc-EALw_wcB
Polarities - Polarity Partnerships: https://www.polaritypartnerships.com/
Related Episodes:
These articles were also discussed on:
Episode 75: Co-creation with Carol Hamilton and Danielle Marshall
Nature of the employee-employer relationship/what is work:
Episode 78: Renegotiating our relationship with work with Carol Hamilton
Episode 85: Building equitable compensation frameworks with Mala Nagarajan
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Carol: Well welcome Rebecca. Welcome to Mission Impact.
Rebecca: Thanks for having me. Great to be here.
Carol: So I always like to start with a question of what drew you to the work that you do? What, what would you say motivates you or what would you describe as your why?
Rebecca: I am most motivated to make the world a better place by eradicating racism, systemic injustices, and building pro-democracy in this country and the world. And so that was my start as an organizer, and that led me to try to help organizations that are doing that work every day, do it as effectively as possible with leaders that are Grounded and aligned in their values and organizations that are clear on their purpose and their mission. I believe that we can get to the world we want we have the strongest organizations leaders who are doing that
Carol: That's awesome. So that leads very directly to what we're planning to talk about today. You and Mistinguette Smith wrote an article that appeared in nonprofit quarterly in 2023. So last year it was called Paving a Better Way. What's driving progressive organizations apart and how to win by coming together.
Carol: And that article was in part. But I don't think entirely in response to another article in the nonprofit quarterly called Building Resilient Organizations towards joy and durable power in a Time of Crisis by Maurice Mitchell. Both of the articles center on the current and ongoing, I would say generational conflict that's going on.
Carol: Well, probably in the wider society, but also in the nonprofit sector in social justice organizations and movements between Boomer and now Gen X leaders and gen Z and millennial staff. And interestingly I was thinking, well, the first article was in. Written in 2022. The second article was in 2023, but I just got a newsletter from the Stanford Social Innovation Review and the very top line article for the January 4th edition was learning from an international no, not international intergenerational blowup over social justice by Stephen Kagan and John Hagan.
Carol: So that's a long way to, to get to where I wanted to. To just start, which is what was, what was some of the backstory or to leading to the two of you writing that article.
Rebecca: Yeah. And thanks for raising the context. I mean, what What we were seeing in, in a way that in my 20 plus years of working with social change organizations I had never seen before was just an intense level of conflict within the organization, primarily between staff and leaders, primarily cutting across those generational lines that you mentioned, but not
Carol: Not exclusively. Okay.
Rebecca: So I do wanna include that. I don't think it was just generational. I think racial cultural differences, some of which cut clearly across generational lines, but others do not. Were coming to play and we were living in a time that was unlike any other that I had ever lived in, in my lifetime. 46. And so the pandemic combined with the racial uprising in the wake of George Floyd's murder. We're creating conditions in which we had never been further apart. Literally, we were in our homes mostly on Zoom, so really in a physical way. And we were experiencing intense fractures as a society.
Rebecca: People were feeling concerned, scared, and we were re revealing, having the wool taken off our eyes, sadly for the first time for many white folks, especially around the real racial in society. And so we were addressing issues that were confronting us and had never been so stark in terms of tensions and frustrations and a call for, for change, and also the conditions we were living in. Had never been so, so isolated. That gave rise to some, I mean, on the heels of a Trump administration and on the Muslim ban and on just, just so many policies and a real sense of, of fear of what this country was actually going to come to. Like was our start going to realize itself, know, was white power going to be the dominant. Trend of this, of this century is really a call for change. And that call for change came on the streets and it came within organizations. And as a consultant and as a coach, I felt for the first time in my work, I. I did not have the tools
Carol: Mm.
Rebecca: I say if you're familiar at all with the Management Center, which was an organization I helped to start and trains managers on how to be progressive leaders on how to be effective managers.
Rebecca: moca wasn't gonna save us. Smarty goals were not the answer, you know nor really was, just good process or procedure or even clear vision or strategy. This was, this was deeper. And we needed to address it in a deeper way. So that was really the impetus. I was so pleased to see you.
Rebecca: You mention Maurice's piece. Just, just such a brilliant essay on the trends that he was seeing. And he really started to say the quiet part out loud that I think a number of people were feeling that we were getting in our own
Carol: Mm-Hmm.
Rebecca: That if we want to have real impact, the impact we need when our climate is in crisis, when our democracy is in crisis , when we have white supremacists running for national leadership and actually in national leadership now, we need to be, to be more aligned than ever. At the very time we needed to be more aligned than ever. We were. We were really drifting further and further apart. So that was the impetus. the specific challenges, I, we were seeing open letters from staff to leadership calling for changes accusations of racism, accusations of white sus supremacist practices by leadership, a lack of listening to people most impacted by the work.
Rebecca: some of these are, are, are not new. But what was new was the fervor Of the demands and the height of tensions, that were leading people to really just call for wholesale change. And some of those changes were actually impacting black leaders, leaders of color, black women who had come into positions, in part because, now, white founded historical organizations were saying, we need to take this seriously.
Rebecca: We need to change. We've gotta get out of our own way. We need to install new leadership that actually can carry us forward and does represent the views and ideologies and lived experiences of those who were trying to, to empower. and those were some of the leaders that were bearing the brunt of, of the attacks of the demands.
Carol: because the expectation for those folks are, it's even heightened even more so, like, I think there's expectations in these organizations that they're already going to, by default, by existing, going to be somehow outside of all of the norms that we live within. And that, that, the mission that they espouse, there's.
Carol: Definitely should be aligned right on the inside. I, I experienced this, in, in the nineties when I was a younger person, and, but I think a couple differences, clearly all that context that you're talking about and then, if we saw as younger staff. Concerns about our leadership. We talked to each other in the hallway about it.
Carol: We didn't, we didn't have social media and open, we, if we wrote an open letter, I don't know who it would be, probably to the board. The, the, the level of access or transparency wasn't, wasn't there. So, as you said, it's always been there and then yet so heightened with everything else that was going on.
Rebecca: I think that's right. And I do wanna add that there, the New York Times did a great job on Israel Palestine saying like it, it was so immediately clear you had to pick a side, what side are you on, who's on the right or the wrong side? And I think that that and organizing and movement work has often been pick a
Carol: Mm-Hmm.
Rebecca: Everything is binary. There's a right way and a wrong way of doing things. And that mentality. Was, I think, very evident in the open letters, the demands, the, if you're in leadership. know, not only do we not trust you 'cause you're in leadership,
Carol: Right.
Rebecca: there's a, there's a gauze of, Hmm, or you've gotta prove that you get it. But also just, okay, now we, now we're holding you accountable for all the flaws of this institution and you have to fix them right away. And it was a very good way of working. That said, I think staff also, and we tried to be Balanced in the piece because we also understand that staff members who are making these demands were feeling real
Carol: Mm-Hmm.
Rebecca: a real lack of alignment with their leaders and with their organizations and wanting to see change at a wholesale level. And, their pain was also real. And so demands for, pay equity or decision making rights were really coming from a place of wanting to have agency. And also rising inflation, rising
Carol: Mm-Hmm.
Rebecca: like $80,000 seemed like a, a million dollars when, when, a couple
Carol: Sure.
Rebecca: ago. Now, now that has really changed and I, I would say our, our salary pay has not
Carol: Right, right.
Rebecca: with the shifting economy. So, so there, there is, I think about what we were trying to show in our piece and what I've gotten more in touch with now. If you know polarities work at all, side has real
Carol: Mm-Hmm. Mm-Hmm.
Rebecca: There is real truth in that we don't feel seen, we don't feel like we can survive on this particular salary. We don't feel like we're listened to. Right. There's, there's truth to that and organizational leaders, there's real truth to, we can't, we can't Raise everybody's salaries. We don't have the funding.
Rebecca: Those constraints are real. not everyone can be part of decision making. We will never get anything done If we have a fully democratic, one voice, one vote, On everything we decide to do as an organization. And, and, hierarchy is in place to pursue a mission and a strategy and a vision. But there was, there's truth to both and we were missing some real shared concepts and shared understandings of even the environments that we were
Carol: Mm-Hmm.
Rebecca: So, so I just, I don't wanna lose the perspective of the staff too, who have very true lived realities. The tactics that were being used.
Rebecca: I think to your point, we're new in there, and how, and how loud they were. Social media, public calling, calling outs were, were newer. But the felt lived reality, was not
Carol: Mm-Hmm. Mm-Hmm.
Rebecca: ways, it was just coming to a head in a different way because of the moment that we are in and the tools available.
Carol: Yeah, and I mean, shifting expectations as well, right? As we each, every time we try to do better, then it's like, well, that's good, but let's do better like
Rebecca: Right.
Carol: So each.
Rebecca: And the arc bending justice
Carol: Right, right. And so at each generation, and, okay, so I'm still in the generational piece and you're saying, well, it wasn't all generational gaps.
Carol: But as time moves forward it's a good thing that people's expectations rise around. how. Work should be done and the, what the experience should be inside of an organization and, and come into that with a, with a different bottom level, if you will, than per perhaps previous generations who might have put up with this, that, or the other.
Rebecca: Exactly, and I think there's, there can be a sense of martyrdom from the
Carol: Mm.
Rebecca: generations to say, well, I went through it, so now
Carol: Right.
Rebecca: through it. And this is like awestruck taking on young people standing up and demanding justice. some leaders just saying like, wow, I would never
Carol: Right.
Rebecca: have the ability to do that.
Rebecca: good for you. And also. Let's all get on the same page about what's possible and where we are. So I completely agree that my there's a saying that happiness is the gap between your expectations around something and the
Carol: Mm-Hmm.
Rebecca: I think in 2020, that gap was felt bigger than ever for many people coming into progressive organizations. And so therefore, the. The unhappiness was, was greater than, than maybe
Carol: Yeah, it felt almost like a magnifying glass on everything, right? That, that ripping open and, and as you said for, for some. For many white people like opening up and seeing things that they'd never seen before. And, and yeah, just a feeling of, this must change now.
Carol: So one of the things that you talked about was the differing approaches and concepts around leadership, and I'm wondering if you could talk a little bit about that and how that played out or how you're seeing and maybe how it's evolving now.
Rebecca: Say more about lead,
Carol: So like, what does it mean to have shared leadership? The whole thing you were talking around being involved in decisions. How do decisions get made? Oftentimes my experience has been that it's how decisions get made is usually one of those implicit norms in an organizational culture.
Carol: So it isn't super . people don't necessarily have a shared understanding of what that's what that is. And so you may come in as a newer staff person and say, I've got a lot of ideas and I want to be involved. And as you say, taking that agency and, and wanting to contribute. And yet, you know the reality that if you have, if you're needing to move towards perfect consensus on everything, you will end up in complete paralysis.
Carol: So,
Rebecca: Yeah.
Carol: yeah.
Rebecca: Helpful. One of the things that we talk about in the article is power and how Power works in organization. Our point that we were trying to make is that the organization needs to be. Coherent in terms of its orientation toward power and building structures and systems reflect that ideology. And so for instance, in a power building, organization that's trying to build a base of people to organize them around whatever social issue, if the theory is people need to be empowered. Then there needs to be a way for, for people to be empowered in that organization too,
Carol: right?
Rebecca: can't be hypocritical
Carol: You can be. That's the problem
Rebecca: You can be, and then you're gonna get an open letter and you're gonna be held accountable and all the things. And so one of the things that we were trying to say is that organizations need to do a much better job being explicit about who they are, right?
Rebecca: From the get. So this is what we believe, these are our values. That is really the foundation. Of, when Maurice Mitchell says we need to do better at strategy. the strategy house is a tool that I've created and used in my work to help organizations get better at strategy and organizational coherence starts from that.
Rebecca: So what are our foundational values and beliefs about the world and how we should be? What is our purpose as an organization then becomes the floor of the house on top of that solid foundation. Are we trying to go? That is the roof. What is our vision? That's the tippity top. in an ordeal world, this would be true. Then what do we think needs to happen to get from our mission to our vision? That's our theory of change. What's our analysis about what's getting in the way right now and why that vision hasn't already come to be? What specifically are we gonna do to advance that theory of change? Are our strategies or the levels of our house right? With measures of success and all the good management tools built in so you can track your progress in adjusting that leadership. How power works in the organization should be reflective of your strategy house, of your theory of change. So for, just to give an example, if you're a base building organization and you have nobody from your impacted community on your board of directors, which is your ultimate powerful body that's saying yes to your budget. You are hiring your executive director, doing all the fiduciary things that it's required to do by the IRS, and we can have a whole separate conversation about whether boards are useful and how they've developed over time and all the things, but working within the construct. We're living in, we're living in a capitalist system. We're living with the IRS, we're living with boards. How should your board be made up? has power in your organization? Right. So a different way rather than everyone should have power. How can you function effectively while still reflecting your values and your theory of change and your vision in your operating practices and principles, and can you be explicit about those things on the front end? So when people are coming into the organization or into specific roles, they understand, oh, this is how the organization makes decisions. This is its strategy house. This is who it is, and I get my role in that ecosystem. I know what power I have and what power I don't have. I know what I'm gonna be consulted on, what I'll have decision making around, and what I won't and why, and I get it. And then we're coming in, in a, in a way, hopefully, where our expectations are closer to the reality, maybe they don't exactly match up. And that's where we can, have processes internally and hold people accountable and have all the things to express grievances and give feedback and work well together.
Rebecca: But without that foundation. We're really setting ourselves up for failure and deep, deep disappointment allowing people to project
Carol: Mm.
Rebecca: own values and beliefs onto the system, which then gets us into having to have hours and hours of internal meetings about things that should have been clear in the beginning.
Rebecca: Now let me just say
Carol: That's not easy though to get to that place.
Rebecca: It's not easy. Well, I don't think this is hard as organizations
Carol: Okay. Okay. Say more.
Rebecca: I do
Carol: I.
Rebecca: strategy, some, yes, some organizations. I just finished up a two year strategy process with deep, hundreds of stakeholders and lots of input and lots of deliberative discussion.
Rebecca: And yes, some organizations need two years. I think smaller organizations can do this work in not in six months. And I think the value of spending that time. Then limitless and priceless in terms of the dividends it will pay of having that clarity and something to return back to, to inform both our external work in the world and our internal work.
Carol: Yeah, I, I'm, I.
Rebecca: answers your question on leadership, but in my view, like decision making and all of that. Has to start from who we are as an organization and our ideology, and we need to be willing to put the power and the success of the organization in our own individual self-interest, right?
Rebecca: That's working with power. If I'm working in an organization, I have to believe that what's in my self-interest is also in the self-interest of the organization. And if the organization is successful, I'll also be successful rather than the other way around.
Carol: Yeah. And just going back to that clarity piece and, and investing the time. 'cause I think with a smaller organization, obviously you have fewer people to, to involve in that process. And at the same time, I feel like in smaller organizations that's where things are often the murkiest, because
Rebecca: Mm-Hmm.
Carol: moving
Carol: So fast. They have so many demands. So under-resourced that it's really hard and it feels almost like a luxury to spend the time talking about all those things. But as you're saying, if you don't, then you just end up having to deal with the conflict and the static later anyway. It's not like you avoid it.
Carol: So yeah. And so it's, it's not, there is a certain way of that that you should . pursue your leadership. What I'm hearing you say is more your leadership and your decision making processes and all of those things need to be in alignment with your identity as an organization. Your purpose, your mission, your vision, which
Rebecca: Yes.
Carol: think people intuitively know when they see a gap,
Rebecca: Mm-Hmm.
Carol: harder to think about what's actually an aligned organization that has all of that clear.
Rebecca: Yeah, I think there's no perfect, organization
Carol: Sure.
Rebecca: Everybody is in stages of growth and development and learning and being iterative. But what having that clarity allows you to do is iterate more transparently. So, for instance, what should we do in this situation? Is a lot harder to figure out if you don't have a
Carol: Right.
Rebecca: to come back to.
Rebecca: You're starting with a blank slate. and also how should those things change? It's a good question to ask yourself. know, every, every few years, what has shifted about our environment? What shift does our mission need to change given the world we're living in? and those are just very healthy conversations. I'd rather have conflict around the fundamentals than conflict around the
Carol: Mm mm. Yeah. And I think the conflict shows up as conflict around the symptoms. Can you give me an example of what, like when we're talking fundamentals versus symptoms, what that might look like?
Rebecca: Sure. So I was working with an organization several years ago, bleeding into the 2020 time that hired me to set, help them set clear goals. so the symptom of the problem was that they just weren't sure what they were trying to achieve. And as we did that work, it became clear That they could put all anything they wanted on paper. But what was really going on was a lack of trust
Carol: Mm-Hmm.
Rebecca: And the lack of trust among leaders was because I think they all had different theories of change for the organization and what
Carol: Mm-Hmm.
Rebecca: And so we were working on a management challenge that was really a leadership and a strategy challenge. And you could say, okay, that we should have done a better job scoping the work. And I'll take that criticism, As a consultant, we say yes. That's one of the things we need to do a much better job of, of not just responding to leaders and what they say the presenting symptoms are, but really getting to know the organization, listening to staff, really doing more of a holistic. Assessment on the front end so that the work that we end up doing is not just addressing the, what's at the tip of the iceberg, but the underlying causes as well. So that's a good example where the con we were never going to get out of fundamentals unless we addressed what was going on between the leaders. What, what they really believed the strategy to be and what was most important to their strategy. Was it campaigns or base building? know, was it, was it about building power for whatever people wanted or did they have an issue agenda? how did electoral work fit in? What was the analysis about short-term electoral work versus long-term base building? What was there, know, what was there, the balance there? And until they really had those conversations about what their organization was all about. Anything we were doing was just
Carol: Mm-Hmm. Mm-Hmm. And one other thing you said, you said, organizations should look at that every couple years. And when we started talking, you also said, things have shifted a lot like on, I can't remember exactly the exact words you said, but like, on their axis or something. So say more about, it's now been a couple years since all of all of the context that you were talking about.
Carol: How, what are you seeing now?
Rebecca: Well, when I said the world had shifted on its axis since we last spoke, I was specifically referring to October 7th and the aftermath in the war in Gaza. And I think we're seeing, our article feels like we are addressing small boar issues. When you look now at what's happening on the left and the real cleavages we're seeing. Around stances toward Israel Palestine analysis of what's going on there, of who's in the right, who's in the wrong and what should happen. And so I think what we're seeing is just the continuation of the cycle of disconnection in progressive spaces and coalitions, but at a much, much larger scale. And around one particular issue that has. Deep, deep complexities. Even so, so much as people don't agree on the historical
Carol: Sure.
Rebecca: of the region. And so when we talk about coming down your ladders of inference to get out of the cycle and coming back to a shared understanding around some core concepts and core, some core things so that we can be operating in alignment and our expectations generally match the reality and we're able to work together, I think. I am just seeing even larger gaps than before and ladders of inference that don't come back to any shared base, which makes it really hard to work through differences and conflict. 'cause we're just starting in such different places. So I think what I'm seeing is in some ways the level of intensity of the internal conflicts. Has come down a bit, especially last year. I wish that our organ, that our group had published our piece, two years earlier, I think it would've done a lot more good. It was a meaningful process and I think the work was better as a result of having so many contributors and so many eyes on it and voices in it.
Rebecca: But I, I think by the time we published, the conflicts were less acute. They were less felt. People were feeling a little bit better about the day to day, but they hadn't really resolved some of the deeper fundamentals. And now what, what I am seeing, especially in. In Jewish, but also non-Jewish organizations is is just, we are missing some of the fundamental tools to have the hard conversations that we need to have so that we can get, get to a shared understanding of, of where we are and come up with our own, our own organizational work as a result. And some of that's playing out internally between staff and leadership. Again open letters are coming up again. Demands unions, one of my clients received a letter signed by a thousand people demanding that they ask for a ceasefire. so there's a lot of wrestling going on with constituents yeah.
Rebecca: About trying to figure out the right way. One thing that, if I were to write the piece again now. I would focus more on something called parts work. I don't know if you're familiar with Internal Family Systems and Richard
Carol: Just becoming familiar. Yeah.
Rebecca: It's a very powerful coaching methodology that I think is also very relevant at an organizational consulting level and thinking about systems. So the notion of parts work, and I won't do it justice, but the idea is that we all have many, many parts. No parts are bad, but they have different functions. there are many parts that are protecting us from feeling Hurt. Trauma, pain, anger, fear. They just, they don't want us to feel those things.
Rebecca: They will do anything in their power to keep us safe. And there are other parts that actually have experienced those things, whether it's intergenerational trauma, Or, abuse or neglect or, or fear and, and those tender parts live in us too. And the goal of coaching and, and the goal of ultimately consulting and hopefully my, my work in the world is to help people and organizations act from self and self is. Grounded, it's confident, it's calm, it's clear, it's compassionate, it's curious, it knows who it is and it can manage the parts that come up when they come up. So fear raises its head, oh, hello, fear, I know where you're coming from. Can you step back now? 'cause we need to have a conversation, you know? And right now I think our organizations and many of our leaders are, and staff are captured by their parts, are acting out of a real fear. So on the left, people are understandably to stop the bombing in Gaza, and ensure that no more innocent people are killed. and, and on, in mainstream Jewish organizations they say, well, of course we don't want the death of innocent life, but Hamas is out to eradicate us as a people, and so we have to defend ourselves.
Rebecca: Otherwise, Jews may be no more. Both of those there's fear motivating both sides in different ways and if we could get to self, we, I think would be able to hold much more of a both and perspective. So this is a long answer to your question. I think what's happening is we are missing some tools and some skills when we get to the skill part of the article.
Rebecca: I think another skill I'd put in there is really trying to get grounded in self and act from self as an organization that's grounded in your strategy house and grounded in your values. That's a clear way. Okay, this is who we are. How do we act from that place? if some of those things are in dynamic tension with each other, and as a leader, it's Okay, I have this part that's really fearful and this part that's really angry and this part that just doesn't know what to do.
Rebecca: How do I get grounded so I can act from a clear place that's grounded in my values and my convictions and my beliefs? And holding those things. And if we were all able to act more from self, my, my hope, my dream, my belief is that we would be able to find more common ground and be able to act more powerfully together as one. and, and, that is what I try to do every single day in my, in my work. But it's really complicated and it's really hard. And the demands on leaders and organizations are incredibly intense. And so, I think some of this is muddling through and trial and error and trying to just be in dialogue and understand each other's perspectives so that we can come, we can ground in, in our own beliefs and work from there.
Carol: Yeah, a couple different things and what you said. One, I think there's parallels. When you said, when you talked about the ladder of inference and, at a, at a societal level, people not being able to agree on the history. And I mean, we've, we've experienced that with our own
Carol: Or country's history around racism, around the genocide of indigenous people, that there is an agreement there. And then the other piece around, talking about parts and, and that comes out of trauma work. And then there's so much all of these probably every, probably, I could probably say this is almost like an absolute, like every justice
Carol: Seeking organization comes out of some trauma that people are experiencing, either individually well and probably individually as a group, as an organization systemically, like at all levels and intergenerationally. And so then all of that. Those trauma responses are being kicked up. And yeah, folks have, I don't, I don't think we have the tools, the experience, the knowledge as organizational leaders to manage or cope with that.
Carol: Maybe, maybe organizations are starting to be trauma informed from a . Per maybe who, their serving perspective, but not at their core of like, what does that mean to do? I mean, I've been thinking, but not necessarily coming to any answers or any conclusions, but, how do, how do, how do organizations pursue equity and have a trauma informed lens to all of it?
Rebecca: It's
Carol: it's,
Rebecca: question. It's so
Carol: and there's, and, and the knowledge around that is just growing in leaps and bounds and, and yet is so . Is also so ru rudimentary in in some many ways
Rebecca: People who are doing healing work are so important right now to our movement spaces. And I would say one of the parts of the article that we try to really emphasize is organizations need to be really clear on what resources they can offer staff. I. Around in, in supportive ways and what they
Carol: But they cannot.
Rebecca: not because, because they're, they're bad or they don't care, but because that's not their expertise and they may or may not have the resources to, to, to do it in the way that it needs to be done.
Rebecca: And so I think organizations also need to be clear on what, are they hiring people who already have skills and tools for managing their own resilience? that an important part of their hiring because they know the work is so great and that they can't spend the time and energy. Training people how to do that, know, or is this a development place where they're saying no, a part of our work is to help people build resilience, and so we're actually gonna invest in that too. So
Carol: and
Rebecca: that
Carol: also on a continuum, right? Because, I often am always, talking about building healthier cultures and being able to, invest in wellness for, for people on staff. But, there is an outer limit to that, that, that your boss is not your therapist. it's not a clinical
Rebecca: They're not trained
Carol: Right. I mean, maybe
Rebecca: be
Carol: A few people are, but even then they're, they're not trained to be that in that relationship. That's a different relationship. And so seeing where, and, and again, getting some clarity instead of some, instead of murkiness around what is it that the organization can, can work with, and what needs to be, what healing work do you need to do elsewhere.
Rebecca: Exactly, and, and again, just being clear about it, really do believe there's no one right
Carol: Right.
Rebecca: to be a movement based organization. I do think organizations need to do a much better job getting clear on their way, it is their way, and what that looks like
Carol: Yeah. Yeah. Well, thank you. Just as we wrap up here just have one last question on each episode, I ask each guest, what permission slip would they give to nonprofit leaders or what would they invite them to consider to avoid being, we talked about martyrs, so avoid being a martyr to the cause and as they work towards cultivating a healthier organization.
Carol: So what permission slip or invitation would you offer?
Rebecca: I think I would, I would offer something that just builds on what I just said. There's no one right way to be a leader. The first permission slip is just be thyself and to be thyself. One needs to know thyself. So really taking the time to understand your motivations, understand your own values, understand your own theory of change. Know what gets you, one of my coach advisors
Carol: Mm-Hmm. Mm-Hmm.
Rebecca: you triggered, what pulls you off your base, and, and skill up on the things that you need to get back to who you are. And then really just make sure that those things are in alignment with the organization that you're leading. And if they are fabulous, there. Do as much good work as you can, continue to learn and grow. If they're not, that's
Carol: Mm-Hmm.
Rebecca: And actually, it's so important to know when there's a gap between your own orientation and your organization's orientation. And things can change over time. And so I always say to my clients, Staying put is not, is not the goal here. if you find that this organization is in a place where you can continue to grow and nurture who you are, it's time to leave and find a place where you can do that. So that's, I think that's what I would say. Know thyself, be thyself. Continue to adapt thyself and, and be in places where you can be
Carol: Awesome. I love it. Well, thank you so much. Thank you for this conversation.
Rebecca: Thanks, Carol. It's great. So good to talk with you. I appreciate all the good questions and the opportunity to reflect back almost a year later on
Carol: Yeah. Alright.
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