Sustaining a Healthy Work Environment with Alexandra Reese, Founder of OpaStrategy
How can you lead a team of people if you’re unaware of your own habits and processes?
In the seventh episode of Nonprofit Connect, we speak with Alexandra Reese, Founder of OpaStrategy, who serves as a strategist, executive coach, and trusted advisor to her seventy-five clients. She has over thirteen years of experience guiding over a hundred leaders, teams and organizations, ranging from Fortune 500 companies to government agencies, and (and this is the kicker) she specializes in nonprofit leadership.
Leaders Need to Understand: People Are Complex
Many of us were raised in families headed by boomer parents, and although you may love them endlessly, it’s all too common to have grown up never really talking too in depth (if at all) about your feelings. For some, the most understanding about one’s emotions is either happy or sad, but never much more. Fathers had a tendency to be stoic and distant; mothers didn’t want to confront too deep an emotion; in fact, it seemed like all the adults around us had everything sorted out, and yet, there was always an underlying current of miserableness.
So, where does that leave you, the child? You grow up, go out into the world, and face future responsibilities and challenges. You end up working within a team, whether in a nonprofit or for profit, and you find that everyone around you, all adults in their own right, are more complex than your upbringing would have had you believe. It comes as a shock, because after all, aren’t adults meant to be reserved? Aren’t they meant to have everything together? That’s how it seemed.
The answer, if you haven’t guessed already, is no. Nobody has it fully together; people do irrational things, and not everyone is as reserved and emotionless as your boomer parents made it seem. People are complex, but it is that complexity that makes us all equally similar.
If you find yourself in a leadership position within a team, you must ensure you’re self-aware enough to handle it. Are you aware of your own emotions? Do you understand the complexities of yourself before you can begin to understand those of others? It’s not enough to simply follow the processes of an organization; you need to understand people.
“It’s not enough just to have a good process that people can engage in,” says Alexandra, “because that creates ownership, but it doesn’t necessarily create leaders who are capable of leading a transformation. To do that, you’ve got to do the work inside to help people figure out ‘Am I aligned to this?’ and ‘Do I have a healthy team dynamic where we can work together?’”
Is Your Work Environment Healthy?
We bang on about this a lot on Nonprofit Connect, but gosh darn, we’ll say it again; more often than not, nonprofits tend to have a scarcity mindset. They’re convinced that because they’re doing all they can for others, they don’t deserve to have money, resources or support; they need to do everything on their own.
This simply isn’t true, and although we understand why they think like this, it doesn’t exactly create a healthy work environment for your nonprofit team. If you’re too focused on this, you will gain tunnel vision, unable to see outside of it, which leads you and others to burnout. So again, this is why awareness of your emotions and others' is so important; if you can’t look after yourself, how on earth can you expect to look after your team and those your nonprofit is trying to help?
“I didn’t have that self-awareness until somebody called it out,” admits Alexandra. “I share that because I think that self-awareness is really hard to cultivate and, no matter how good we are at reflection, we can’t always see the box that we’ve put ourselves in, and we can’t always understand the impact of how we show up around other people. You have to be getting feedback, especially as a leader.”
Listen to the Whole Episode!
And once again, there you have it, one of the best things you’ll ever read in your entire life.
Follow the link below and listen to the full episode of Nonprofit Connect! Or better yet, connect with Rogue Creatives directly to see how we can improve your nonprofit’s story to raise more revenue.