Nonprofit Leaders Can Make Time for Personal & Professional Development

As a woman leading in a non profit, I know you want to learn. You want to grow and develop yourself.

• You want to take time to journal. 
• You want to take time for self-reflection. 
• You have a list of courses that you want to do and books to read! 

You know you need to do the work to grow yourself. And yet – When? 

The best leaders know that they must grow, develop, change and adapt to what is going on. Strong leaders work to become their best selves, cultivate strong character and continue that always. To do that, you need time to work on yourself.

But we all know you're going from meeting to meeting to meeting. Between those meetings, you respond to texts and emails while you put out fires, deal with crises or tick off the boxes of things that absolutely need to be done. And that doesn't cover what happens when you get home! 

​When would you find time to do this? How on Earth would you fit it into your busy day, either at work or at home?

It's true. To be your best self, you need to spend time learning, growing and developing. You need to discover new skills, learn new information and do the inner work to figure out how to assimilate that into your leadership and life. ​

So, how do you find time to work on yourself? Below are three things you need to consider to help you shift your mindset and your time, so you can make time to grow yourself as a nonprofit leader.

​​Your mindset matters a lot! You need to think, believe, have an expectation, and understand that growth and development are not nice to haves but must-haves. You must also believe that you can grow.

• Your mindset is your mental model. It is your way of seeing things and your view of the world. If your view of the world is that you're stuck, that nothing can change, and that growing yourself is not a part of leadership, then you're stuck in a fixed mindset and will not find the time to do personal development work. This fixed mindset will keep you stuck in overwhelm, survival mode and perhaps even a toxic culture.​ 

You need to shift from a fixed mindset to a growth mindset!

Adopting a mindset that personal growth and development are part of leadership and creating the space to do that work is most effective when connected to your goals. As a leader, you need more than goals that your organization may or may not have set for you. You need your own goals that you have crafted to help you be your best self. The best leaders create the impact you desire at work and in your life.

In The Training Library, I encourage you toreview where you're at annually. From there, you create goals that you want to work on and draft a personalized learning curriculum. This learning curriculum will identify how and from what sources you will learn those things you need to learn or work on. 

From there, my students in The Training Library schedule time each quarter to see how they do on those goals. Then, monthly, weekly and daily, I encourage them to connect those goals to their daily activities. 

​​Creating this strategy and curriculum to work on yourself encourages you to create time to do it. It's not something random; it's a plan you are working on, and you can see the steps and feel the outcome.

You need to create goals and a learning curriculum

​You will never FIND time. You need to CREATE time. We spend most of our leadership and life reacting to things, and instead of reacting, we need to create our own experience of leadership. Part of this experience of leadership that you desire, if you've read this far, is the desire to grow and develop yourself. To do that, you need to create the time and space to grow and develop yourself.

We all have the same 24 hours in a day. What we choose to do with those 24 hours makes the difference for each of us. You have to prioritize in some tiny way growth and development.

We often think it has to be the perfect time with the right pretty journal and candle lit beside us. Nope.

• You'll never do it if you keep waiting for the ideal time!

You don't need a full hour to do personal development work. A few minutes here or there will keep you moving forward. Certainly, you'll want more substantial chunks of time to do some of the work. But you can also do parts of it in smaller segments.

• You'll find a mix of both short and longer timeframes works best.

This goes back to the perfect time idea. We often have a vision of what reading or journaling looks like. Don't think it has to be that way. 

• I've read books while stirring a pot on the stove. 
• I've watched videos while doing my hair in the morning. 
• I've jotted notes down on the back of an envelope about ideas that have come to me hours after reviewing a lesson.

 What it means is you need to find opportunities that already exist. ​

The best example is all of the times in your life when you are waiting! For example:

• Waiting for your kids to finish their extracurricular activity or while they are at the dentist. 
• Waiting for a meeting to start
• While on transit or driving

Consider changing what you do during some of these times:

• What could better do with your time watching T.V. or scrolling through your favourite social media app.
• How many times do you go back and check the same email without responding? What if you set aside specific times for checking email and specific times for doing your personal development work?
• How much time are you complaining that you don't have time, rehashing what's not working for you and your team or shuffling piles on your desk?
  

What could you do to be proactive about creating time for growth and development with these time-wasters?

Make time for 15 minutes of learning 4 times a week in these spots (That's a whole hour eacweek!!)

• Get up 15 minutes earlier one day to journal.
• Make time on a lunch break for 15 minutes of reading.
• Schedule 15 minutes in the evening to watch a video.
• Plan 15 minutes on the weekend to organize your notes, schedule time for the following week and respond to a question in the online program you are taking.

Tada....YOU just CREATED a whole hour each week to work on developing yourself!
WHOOOOO HOOOOO!!!! Remember, personal and professional development is your path to success in leadership and life!

• Schedule at least two 15 minutes into your next week to begin the work you need to be your best self!

You'll be thankful you did!

​How to repair your reputation
​Angela told me she and one of her supervisors are not getting along. "I don't feel like she respects, appreciates, or likes me or my leadership style. She questions my decisions and actions and undercuts my authority." What's more, Angela described how the tension falls over to the rest of the team, and everyone can feel its effects.

​Angela acknowledges that she's done an incredible amount of personal growth over the past few years. In the past, she wasn't always emotionally and physically available to her team. She was short with them, frazzled at times and made too many reactionary decisions. Now that she's changing, she needs also to change her relationship with her team and their perception of her. Angela said, "My reputation sucks. How do I clean that up?"

As Angela was telling me her story, I totally understood her pain. I've been there. I damaged my reputation, and I repaired it.

My team lost trust in me
In 2008, things took a turn. While my team had been able to trust me, the arrival of a large new contract changed that. Previously, I'd managed everything on my plate and did it with a level of confidence. But increased responsibility, travel, staffing, scope and budget all left me scrambling to hold things together. 

​Because of that:

• I didn't always keep my word. 
• I didn't follow through on promises. 
• I neglected to listen to people, their ideas and their input. Instead, I railroaded through with my plan.

​That year's feedback on my performance appraisal indicated what the staff thought of me. They said that I lacked integrity. I was frustrated, hurt and discouraged by the feedback. Previous performance appraisals indicated I had strong trust with the team. How could things have plummeted so fast?
​
Without trust, my team was falling apart!
When my team lost trust in me and felt I was out of integrity, they didn't feel they had a strong leader. Therefore, as trust in our team eroded, I lost followers. 

The team cohesiveness was quickly eroding, and in its place was tension, bickering, and whispering that stopped when I walked into the room. The decline culminated in a grievance filed against me. I was left fearful of being fired and, at the same time, ready to quit.

​Embracing my essence: I took a good, long, hard look at where I was at
In working with my coach, I realized I lacked integrity, not just because people said I did, but because, through careful self-reflection, I saw it with my own heart. 

• I said family was my most important value, but the hours I put into work and my relationship with my family said otherwise. 
• I told my staff I was there for them when they needed me, but my travel time, meeting schedule and unresponsiveness conveyed a different message. ​

​I wasn't walking my talk. I wasn't leading with integrity; it was time to change that. I noticed what parts of how I was leading needed to change. 

• I needed to regain a sense of work-life balance.
• I'd lost sight of what was important to me. 
• I could list my values, but I wasn't living my values
• I'd lost focus on building and maintaining relationships.
• I recognized that I'd neglected my learning 
• I didn't know how to bring my unique blend of gifts, strengths and talents into leadership.

​
​Pondering my potential: I looked at who I wanted to become
I knew I wanted to repair my reputation. I wanted to be not just the leader I was but an even better version of myself. By pondering our potential, we set new intentions for who we are becoming. 

• I created a new vision of my version of work-life balance and identified boundaries and habits that would help me get there.
• I identified a goal to be composed as I navigate the daily challenges of leadership. 
• I journaled a lot to pull out what was important to me. 
• I explored my values and began understanding them more clearly and how to operationalize them.
• I noticed how messy my emotions were and wanted to develop emotional control and be a composed leader.
• I decided I wanted to be a caring leader with compassion for what my team was dealing with. 
• I recognized that I'd neglected my learning and needed to bring that back in. 
• I completed several self-assessments and personality tests and got a sense of my strengths and styles and how I could use those to lead authentically and honestly.
• It became my mantra to lead with integrity and honesty so as to build trusting relationships and walk my talk.

Engaging in continuous learning: I did the work to become who I wanted to be
To rebuild my reputation, I needed to do the ongoing work of building my character. Character in leadership refers to the set of moral and ethical qualities, values, and principles that guide your behaviour and decision-making. Your character is about your integrity, how accountable you are for your actions and decisions, and how respectful you are. You will be judged as leading with strong character if you demonstrate empathy, courage, humility, authenticity and consistency.

I decided that I wanted to lead in a way that demonstrated my highest moral and ethical standards, set a strong example and inspired trust, loyalty, and respect among my team. To do all of that, I had to work on my conduct. 

People define your character by your conduct. It's your interaction with them that impacts what they think of you. But what they think about you is not the endpoint. Their opinion of you is only the catalyst for their behaviour. Your actions, your conduct, and, in essence, your character at any given moment will influence others to take positive action or negative action.​​

I'm not suggesting we need to be chipper all of the time. However, the sum of your actions and behaviour over time creates how others define your character. The problem is how you conduct yourself in stressful times tends to outweigh other people's memory of your conduct during smoother times. Therefore, we must be even more diligent about our behaviour during crises. That was the work I needed to do!
​

• I began to work with a coach who helped me expand my perspectives and create this new and improved version of myself.
• I read books, listened to podcasts and took training that helped me understand leadership and how to develop mine.
• I engaged in tons of self-reflection. I journaled, meditated, pondered on walks, filled out worksheets and contemplated a lot!
• I grew my leadership skills and emotional intelligence and started to lead more authentically. ​

And none of this stopped and still hasn't. I'm constantly growing, learning and evolving, each day working to be a better and better version of myself. ​

3 steps to develop your character and improve your reputation
It was the above steps that I told Angela about:

1. Embrace your Essence: Who are you? 
2. Ponder your Potential: Who are you becoming?
3. Engage in Endless Growth: How are you developing now?

​Resources to help
​Assess Yourself:

• Get to know your character strengths
• How bad are things? Evaluate yourself on the Surviving to Thriving Continuum. 
• Identify and develop your leadership competencies with this assessment
• Learn to turn your talents into strengths

​Grow yourself

• Watch this Excellence in Leadership Series
• Develop skills in leadership: Staff Appreciation
• Become more self-aware
• Learn to get better at time management
• Learn to be in Emotional Control by increasing your Emotional Intelligence
• Create a plant to get out of SURVIVAL MODE
• Join The Training Library for ongoing personal and professional development designed specifically for you and your challenges and have access to your own coach!

​
​Cultivating your character takes time
Character development is not easy work. Developing your character takes time and attention. It requires you to be vulnerable and explore some of your life's messy and painful places. Not just once but again and again.

Be intentional about developing and cultivating your character. That way, you can let go of who you think you should be and just be you. You'll be happier and a better leader!

Next week, we will discuss how to make time to do this inner work of leadership development and cultivating your strength of character.

Do you often wonder what you must DO to be a better leader?

• What training do you need to take?
• What meetings should you attend?
• How often should you meet with your people?

These questions revolve around what actions you need to DO?

While those are important components of leadership, the critical question is deeper than that. It's not what you have to DO to be a good leader; the question is: Who do you need to BE to be a good leader?
 
Be?
Yes, BE!
Who do you need to BE to be a good leader?



Consider the HOW of what you DO

Take a moment to consider who are you BEING when you do your job?

• Anyone can run a meeting. But HOW do you run a meeting?

 

• Executive Directors, Managers and Team Leaders always communicate with their team. But HOW do you communicate with your team?

 

• What type of leader are you BEING when you address an employee's poor performance or share positive outcomes with the team?

 

• Who are you BEING when the crisis hits?

Have you ever considered your character?
Who you are BEING when you do your job is a description of your character. It's the essence of who you are. But we don't talk about it.

🤔 When did your manager last talk with you about developing your character? 

🤷🏼‍♀️ When did you last consider why it might be important to develop your character? 

🤨 Have you ever wondered how to build your character? 

For most of us, the answer is never! It may be time to consider it. 


How you are BEING is a description of your character
Your character is your unique combination of who you are:

• personality traits
• values
• ethics
• morals

No two of us are the same. The problem is that we typically don't think about who we are BEING or our character as we lead our team. Instead, we follow the model of leadership passed down for generations. And honestly, most of us don't fit into that model. ​

Feeling like the imposter?
When we don't feel like ourselves while leading, we assume that's how it should be or that perhaps we aren't leading correctly. But when we are out of touch with our true selves, we feel awkward, fake, or like we are messing up. There is this enormous gap between who we believe we should be and who we actually are. That leaves us unsure of where to turn and not really satisfied.


When you develop your character, you'll be happier!
You will feel better, more fulfilled, and positively influence those around you if you take the time to cultivate your character. Instead of stepping into the role and trying to lead how you should lead when you develop your character, you will learn to lead from your character strengths. 

🎭 Rather than feeling like you're putting on a persona or mask for each encounter and interaction, you will feel more authentic and more productive and impactful.


Why don't we lead with our character strengths?
Most of us are genuinely unaware of our true selves. We've lost sight of our true selves as we transitioned through our teen years, started families, and advanced in our careers. Many of us don't know what makes us tick because, quite frankly, we don't know what our best gifts and talents are. And we have no idea how to use them to lead. We've never tried to find, unearth, or awaken them.
 
🤨 Who are you?


Back to describing character 
Once again, consider how we describe other people and how others might describe you.
Pay attention to the word character in each of these sentences👇🏻

🟪 Often, we talk about someone's character in GENERAL statements such as, 

• I admire her character.
• We might say someone has sound character.
• In a tongue-in-cheek tone, we might chuckle, saying, Boy, she's quite the character!
• At other times, we might whisper to a friend, suggesting That was out of character for her.
• Alternately, we groan as we watch someone do something and say She just damaged her character by doing that! ​

🟪 Now, think about SPECIFIC POSITIVE descriptions of other people's character traits. Consider again how people might describe your traits. These are some ways we speak in awe of certain women's characteristics:

• She is so reliable.
• I love her honesty.
• What grace she has!
• That is a woman of integrity.
• Such determination and persistence.
• I appreciate her ability to be decisive.
• She has a clear head on her shoulders.

 
🟪 Don't forget that not all character traits are good. Here are some SPECIFIC NEGATIVE traits
Reflect on this list below. These are times we cringe at character traits that some women exude:

• She's so cold.
• I can't trust her. 
• She's so inconsistent.
• She's got her favourites!
• She only cares about herself.
• She's condescending and demeaning.
• I'm tired of her micromanaging everything I do.

 
I hope you are now seeing how important it is to cultivate and develop your character.


How your character is defined:
A little overview: Your character is your unique combination of traits distinguishing you from others. It is how others perceive you, not how you describe yourself. Let me say that again. Your character is someone else's perspective of you. It's not how you see yourself and wish others would see you. You certainly can impact or influence what others think about you, and you should. Ultimately, how people describe your character is their perception, which makes character development tricky.
 
Perhaps you wonder if character development is about getting people to like you. 🙅🏼‍♀️ No, that's not quite it.

Your job as a leader is to guide people to a vision 👀
by inspiring them to grow 🌱
and helping them develop 🧩
so that together, you can reach your shared vision 🙌🏻

Your influence and impact on people can motivate them to be their best selves, which is incredibly helpful to reach team and organizational goals and serve clients. Achieving that level of impact on others may be easier if they like you. But still, it's less about people liking you and more about them respecting you.


Why you should care about how people define your character 
⭐️Your character is so important because it influences what people think about you and, therefore, its impact on them. 

When your character is strong, you have a good reputation. It's that reputation that garners others' respect. Someone doesn't have to like you to respect you. The two do not always go hand in hand.

However, when people on your team respect you, it allows them to be patient with you, persist for you, and push themselves. They'll often respect you because they believe in you, your message, and how you live that purpose, which is inextricably linked with your character. As such, they will conduct themselves in a certain way because you've inspired them, and they are motivated by your actions, your conduct and the type of person you are.


💡 How to lead with strong character

1️⃣ The first step
Start by noticing character, yours and others.
Keep a log, note on your phone or journal entry about character words you'd use to describe your or another's character.
​
2️⃣ The next step
Then, choose your character traits.
Pick words that you'd like others to use to describe you. What is the type of leader you want to BE?

3️⃣ Finally
Finally, cultivate your character
Do the work to grow and develop those character traits in yourself.
Next week, I'll introduce you to the strategies for developing your desired character traits and how to become the leader you want to be, having the impact you desire to have.

​​If you are like most leaders, you've been here:

You have a precious break in the day, so you look at your endless to-do list.
All tasks seem important, but you scan the list, looking for the priority items you can knock off in a few minutes. As you glance at each item, you make a mental note:

• I don't have time to do that.
• I still have time for that, so I can do it later.
• I'm waiting for Angela's part. I can't do that.
• That's not even my job. I don't know why I still do it.
• I'm not in the right space to do that.
• I don't even know how to do that.
• Ugh, I hate doing those!​

Your to-do list is like an emotional roller coaster
In the time it takes to scan down the list, your emotions move from overwhelmed to anxious, then annoyed and doubtful, ending with discouraged.

Pushing the to-do list aside, you begin scrolling through your inbox without realizing you've avoided doing anything on the list and, as a result, get further behind and more disheartened 😩

I get it. I've been there many, many times too! In fact, if you are like most leaders, you have a lengthy to-do list that haunts you into the wee hours of the morning and, honestly, will never get done.

But why is it that we will never get through our to-do list?

💥The reason your to-do list will never get done is twofold

REASON # 1
First, it's a disorganized list that is more of a holding place than a completion place.

• Your to-do list is a storage place for everything they should, might, and want to do, but without delineating between the items.
• Your to-do list is a bunch of projects and tasks all jumbled together without any indication of which tasks belong with which projects and in what order.
• Your to-do list is not only your tasks but embedded in between are things others need to do.

REASON # 2
Second, we look at the list as items that need time to be completed, and we blame lack of time as the enemy 😡 ⏰

It's way more complicated than just not enough time.
For example, look at your to-do list and consider:

• Who else is involved in the tasks
• The level of complexity in the tasks
• How confident do you feel about taking on the tasks
• What else is happening around you, such as distractions, projects, clients, what's going on in your personal life, and, of course, world issues
• Your energy level, physical well-being, mental clarity and emotional capacity

 
Without taking all of that into consideration, our to-do list becomes an impossible challenge, and time becomes the enemy. But time is getting a bad rap. ❌ It's not ⏳ time's fault.

The time available to complete tasks is only one small factor in managing our to-do list. There are other things to consider. Below are three steps to help you manage your to-do list with much greater success👇🏻

QUESTION: How do I get done, what matters on my to-do list?
ANSWER: You create order and awareness.

1) First, start by prioritizing your to-do list into some semblance of order
That way, your to-do list can become a tool working for you instead of a threat against you. 

• Use the 3-step weekly planning for leaders who want to get done what matters most

2) Next, let go of inappropriate expectations of your to-do list
You change expectations of your to-do list by shifting your mindset from believing your to-do list is a list of things that need doing to a holding place for projects and tasks.

• David Allen's book Getting Things Done will help you make this mindset shift.

3) Finally, move a few key items to each day's agenda, plan or priorities
When you only have three things to get done each day, you will check them off with greater speed and satisfaction. 

• Use the Eisenhower Matrix to help you prioritize what you should be working on today.

But we are still overlooking something

That covers the tactical side of getting through your to-do list. But there is something bigger that needs addressing.

🐘 The elephant in the room is the emotions you felt when you scanned the list. 

• Jobs you hate doing can make you feel unmotivated, and there is a good chance you'll struggle to get them done. 
• Tasks that you don't know how to do can leave you feeling unsure about where to start, doubtful you'll be able to pull it off and have a way of rearing imposter syndrome. 
• When you know it's someone else's job, not yours, your resentment may get in the way of getting it done.

Your emotions play a big role in productivity
Many of us are unaware of our feelings, let alone how our emotions affect our productivity. We can choose our responses better by slowing down and getting a better awareness of what we are experiencing and how our emotions distract us from getting done what matters most.

If you want more help with this, read this next: Why Your Emotions Are Sabotaging Your Productivity