Carrying the Emotional Labor of Leadership

Why Emotional Labour Overwhelms Women Nonprofit Leaders

One of my clients, Sandy, a nonprofit executive director, sat in a team meeting that was supposed to be routine. The agenda covered an upcoming fundraiser, program issues, and the resources they would need. On the surface, it looked like a typical discussion. But Sandy was carrying something heavy. That morning, she had learned from her board that the organization had only a few months of cash flow left.
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Normally, Sandy worked hard to keep her team steady and confident. She believed it was her role to absorb stress so her staff could stay focused on their work. But as the conversation turned to resources, she could feel herself hesitate. Her staff noticed. One person asked her directly if money was a problem. And in that moment, she froze.

Later, she told me it felt like a deer in headlights. Her face flushed, her body tightened, and she was convinced everyone could see her fear. She was embarrassed, anxious, and afraid. Most of all, she did not know how to answer in a way that was both honest and protective of her team.

She offered a quick response: “Everything’s fine, we just need to be cautious.” It was not untrue, but it was incomplete. Afterward, she carried the weight of that moment with her. That night she lay awake, replaying the conversation and wondering if she had said the wrong thing.

What Sandy was doing in that moment wasn’t only about managing resources. She was protecting her team from emotional turmoil. This is the work of leadership—stabilizing, creating calm, shielding our teams from uncertainty, and maintaining a supportive and inspiring culture.

But sometimes, that weight becomes too much to carry. Sometimes, the emotional labour of leadership takes its toll on the leaders. 

What Is Emotional Labour in Nonprofit Leadership?

Emotional labour is the unseen, exhausting work of managing your own emotions while caring for the emotions of others. In nonprofit leadership, it looks like:

• Staying calm when someone challenges your decisions.
• Holding space for a frustrated staff member even when you’re drained.
• Softening your words when you’re angry so you don’t hurt someone.
• Rewriting an email three times to get the tone just right.
• Smiling through a Zoom call when you’re crying inside.
• Choosing how much of the truth to share, balancing transparency with stability.
  
  

For women leaders, especially in nonprofits, this labour is often expected. You’re supposed to care. To stay composed. To fix things. To not make anyone uncomfortable. And to do it all with a generous heart and calm tone.

But here’s the truth: that expectation isn’t sustainable, not without tools, habits, and intentional inner work to carry the weight of it all.

For  Sandy, the experience revealed just how isolating and exhausting it can be to carry the responsibility of both keeping the program financially afloat and managing everyone's feelings. She wasn’t just calculating cash flow. She was calculating how much truth her team could hold without losing trust, focus, or hope.
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And that is the quiet, often unseen work so many nonprofit leaders do every day.

Why Emotional Labour Is a Problem for Women Nonprofit Leaders

Leadership will always involve emotions. That’s normal. The problem is when you hold everyone’s stress, worries, and conflict inside your body and your packed agenda. When you do that:
Do any of these sound familiar?

• Your calendar is overloaded. You agree to every meeting, check-in, and request because you don’t want to let anyone down. There’s no white space left to breathe, think, or reset.
• Blurred boundaries: You’re always available for staff emotions but rarely carve out time to process your own.
• You take the work home. Not just the laptop, but the emotional weight as well. You lie awake replaying conversations, worrying about how staff are coping, and carrying other people’s stress into your evenings and weekends.

When this happens:

• Burnout: You’re depleted and resentful.
• Team stagnation: Your staff never learns to regulate their own emotions because you do it for them.
• Leadership misalignment: You stop being the leader and become the emotional caretaker.

Emotional labour is part of leadership. But when you hold it all, it consumes you.

How to Carry Emotional Labour in a Healthy Way

In Character Driven Leadership for Women, I teach a framework called The Infinite Leadership Loop. It helps leaders steady themselves, manage emotions wisely, and build capacity in their teams.

Step 1: Pause – Create Space Before Reacting

Stop the spiral before you fix, rescue, or overprotect. Step out, breathe, or walk away from your desk. Pausing calms your body so you can choose a thoughtful response.
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Script for a tense meeting:
“Let’s take a quick pause so we can regroup and leave this meeting with a clear next step.”

Step 2: Ponder – Notice What You’re Really Carrying

Pondering is about awareness. It’s the moment you slow down and ask: What’s really going on inside me? What am I carrying? 
To help you ponder, here are some reflective prompts (adapted from Character Driven Leadership for Women) :

Healthy emotional labour looks like:

• Listening with empathy but not fixing everyone’s feelings.
• Coaching staff to manage conflict rather than mediating every issue.
• Sharing news honestly, without over-filtering.
• Setting boundaries on availability for emotional support.
• Letting others feel discomfort so they can grow.

Unhealthy emotional labour looks like:

• Absorbing stress and carrying it home.
• Hiding bad news to “protect” the team.
• Feeling responsible for everyone’s happiness.
• Doing extra work yourself so others don’t feel overwhelmed.
• Avoiding hard conversations because you don’t want to upset people.

To make this practical, try journaling or reflecting on these questions (adapted from Character Driven Leadership for Women):

• What emotions am I holding that don’t belong to me?
• Where have I blurred boundaries, and what needs to change?
• What one value can anchor me this week?
• How would my best self handle this conversation?
• What’s one way I’ll protect my own energy today?

Step 3: Pivot – Shift Your Perspective

​If Pondering is holding up the mirror, Pivoting is changing the lens. It’s what you do with your awareness. Pivoting means reframing how you see the situation so you can act differently.
Pivoting means moving from:

• Feeling stuck → to seeing options.
• Thinking “I have to fix this” → to asking “How can I coach them to fix it?”
• Believing “If I share the bad news, they’ll fall apart” → to reframing “If I share it with context, they’ll build resilience.”

As I explain in Character Driven Leadership for Women, pivoting is a mental and emotional shift. It’s choosing to see a person, problem, or project differently.
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Scripts to guide your pivot:

• Instead of smoothing things over: “I’ll mentor you to have this conversation yourself.”
• Instead of hiding bad news: “Here’s what we’re facing, here’s what we can control, and here’s our first step.”
• Instead of taking on the work: “Let’s map out how you’ll approach this so it feels manageable.”

Step 4: Proceed – Re-engage with Intention

Once you’ve shifted perspective, it’s time to act. Choose one pattern to change and try something different. For example, instead of smoothing over conflict, guide team members to have the conversation themselves. This builds their capacity and lightens your emotional load.
Choose one pattern to shift.

• If your team avoids conflict: “Your next step is to book a ten-minute chat with Sam. I’ll check in on Thursday to see how it went.”
  
• If you’ve been shielding staff from bad news: “This will be tough, but I trust we can handle it together.”
  

Step 5: People – Build Capacity Through Connection

Every interaction builds or breaks trust. How you talk in the hard moments matters because your words and tone set the culture for your team.
This stage is about moving from the inner work back into relationships. After you pause, ponder, and pivot, you need to re-engage with your people. This is where your character shows up in action—through your integrity, moral courage, and hope.
It’s not about being perfect. It’s about being authentic, honest, and steady so your team knows they can count on you. People watch how you show up in these moments more than they remember the exact words you say.
Some ways to lead well in the People step:

• Model composure. If you stay grounded, it helps others stay calm.
  
• Name the reality. Share the truth with context and next steps, not spin or sugar-coating.
  
• Empower, don’t rescue. Support staff to take the next step themselves rather than doing it for them.
  
• Hold steady hope. Remind people of the bigger vision and that you believe they can handle the challenge.
  

Scripts for common scenarios:

• When someone wants you to fix it: “I’ll help you think it through, but the next action is yours.”
  
• When bad news must be shared: “Here’s what we’re facing, here’s what we can control, and here’s our first step.”
  
• When emotions rise in a meeting: “Let’s pause and reset. I want us to hear each other and leave with clarity.”
  

Managing Emotional Labour in a Healthy, Sustainable Way

Emotional labour will always be part of leadership. But when you learn to carry it in a healthy way, you:

• Protect your own well-being.
• Model composure for your team.
• Build resilience across the organization.
• Lead with character, not exhaustion.

If you want more practical tools, journaling prompts, and strategies to manage the emotional weight of leadership, you’ll find them in my book Character Driven Leadership for Women. It’s your guide to leading with confidence, competence, and composure, without burning out.

For more resources, check out

Why Is Nobody Talking About What Really Helps Nonprofit Leaders Ditch Burnout?
The time management solution for the busy nonprofit woman leader
From Burnout to Balance: 6 Daily Habits That Help Women Leaders Thrive