How to Avoid Becoming Just Another Burned-Out Executive Director
I’ve met many executive directors as I’ve wended my way through the nonprofit sector. Regardless of background, size of organization, or mission, over time, I began to classify some stages in the development of an executive director.
As I considered my own leadership trajectory in the face of what I was observing, I seesawed between inspired and forewarned, depending on the leader I met (and to be fair – probably the day on which I met them).
It became clear to me that there were forks and bumps in the winding road of leadership – a path toward putting more fire into leadership or toward fizzling and burning out.
I started to catalog practices I saw energized leaders employing that helped them to stay energized. I also defined stages in the life of an executive director that helped to guide my leadership journey.
Year One – The Newbie
In this stage, executive directors come in excited to make their mark, especially if it is their first executive director role. In addition to the look of shock that generally adorns their face, executive directors in this stage may be:
- Nauseous from bungee jumping from 10,000 feet into the weeds and back out daily.
- Confused, beset upon, or avoiding their board.
- Nursing back pain from trying to lift morale.
- Too busy to know if this job is rewarding or just busy.
- Wondering why the Board didn’t wish them a happy anniversary (or do an annual review).
Year Two – “I got this … I think “
In this stage, the shock of Year One is starting to subside, and new skills and challenges begin to appear:
- Phrases like “That’s interesting; I’ll think about it” flow freely during meetings with donors and Board members (and often sound sincere!).
- Tired of all that time in the weeds, they launch a strategic planning process.
- Again, they wonder why no one on the Board sent happy anniversary wishes (or did an annual review).
The Energized Executive Director Years
Starting in Year Three and lasting anywhere from three years until burn out rears its ugly head, the job itself has ceased to offer big surprises. In this phase:
- There are cues that the board, staff, community members, and donors understand the direction of the strategic plan more often than not.
- The daily surprises of organizational life are engaging, not anxiety-provoking or rage-producing.
- There are fewer cancellations on trusted colleagues, coaches, and friends and family.
- The relationship with the board is trusting enough that they playfully cajole them into performing an annual review and shrug off the absence of anniversary wishes.
The Burned-Out Executive Director
In the next phase, the executive director comes to that fork in the road I warned you about. What does the trip down Burnout Boulevard look like? We’ve all seen these executive directors:
- They have fully mastered their RBF (Resting Board Face). “That’s interesting, I’ll think about it” means nothing of the sort.
- All potential collaborations start with, “Is there funding for this?” These conversations continue only if the answer is yes.
- Another strategic planning process seems like so much work when the current direction is still working so well.
- Suggestions for change are greeted with 15+ minutes of explanation about why “we do things the way we do things here” (usually referencing events of at least eight years ago).
I knew this final stage was not inevitable – I knew leaders who were wilting before me and leaders who were fresh as a daisy. I knew leaders that seemed to flip between the two.
Were the invigorated executive directors doing something different or was it just who they were as people?
Were they in denial? Were they Wile E. Coyote racing off what they didn’t realize was a cliff – only to plummet to the bottom of a canyon in a small puff of smoke?
As I considered my own leadership, I realized that keeping it fresh was about being able to envision positive change and intentionally engaging in behaviors that fostered my ability to do that.
So, what was I doing and seeing other energized leaders doing that you can also do to prevent the work from becoming stale and worse, leaving the organization in a state of stagnation?
First, dedicate time to connections that energize you, not pull you down closer to burnout.
- Invest in your relationship with your board president. Any change in your organization that will be long-lasting must be a joint effort. To avoid your own burnout, you need to help your board president do the same. Don’t bring only board management issues, continue to discuss mission and strategy at every meeting. Keeping this interesting for your primary partner can ensure that generative discussions that energize you can also take place at board meetings.
- Stay connected to peers who revitalize you. Your connection to other nonprofit leaders that you respect deeply can fuel you. You will share with each other about organizational issues, strategies you are testing, trends you are seeing, and obstacles you might work to overcome together. I made it a habit to have breakfast, lunch, or coffee at least once each month with one of these trusted colleagues.
- Build a team that challenges you. An agreeable team is not a high functioning team. Invest in building your team’s ability to disagree with each other and you and then come to consensus. This type of discourse is key to uncovering challenges, sparking new ideas, and challenging the status quo that you created.
Building on the foundation of these relationships, you have some runway to be bold.
- Take risks. At the beginning of your tenure, you will need to build the trust that your board, team, donors, and community members have in you. That will never be perfect, but when you sense that your stakeholders support you and believe in your vision, you can make bolder and faster moves. The time may be right to make some of the changes you thought about at the beginning of your tenure but dismissed because you lacked ample support.
- Never let a crisis go to waste. When an emergency rocks the work (during my tenure we responded to Superstorm Sandy and then the pandemic), you will choose between hunkering down and stretching yourself, your team, and your board to experiment with new ways of achieving your mission. Innovating in these moments can raise visibility, rebrand the organization for its stakeholders, and attract new resources.
- Put the work aside. Not every executive director can take a sabbatical, but if you can, you should. If you can’t take a sabbatical, find times that you consciously separate from the work – even a long weekend or a shorter vacation – no email, no phone, nothing. Beyond filling your own tank, time away helps you to see that the place actually can run without you.
I can’t say that I did all of these things intentionally at the time, but looking back, I know these practices helped maintain my energy and positive outlook as an executive director.
I hope sharing these strategies might help you as you come to the fork in the road where you are deciding whether to reenergize or wind down.
I know that on their best days, executive directors can live in the “energized” phase – seeing the possibility in the work, feeling good about my partnership with staff, Board, community members, and donors, and imagining change for the organization.
Gary Bagley
Gary has over 25 years of experience in the nonprofit sector, most recently as the Executive Director of New York Cares, New York City’s largest organization devoted to driving community impact through volunteer-led programs. His previous experiences include positions at nonprofit organizations focused on arts education – Young Audiences New York and TADA! Youth Theater. He also teaches nonprofit leadership, management, and strategy at Columbia University and Baruch College. To receive more of Gary’s blog posts and news about upcoming courses and speaking engagements, sign up for his newsletter HERE or follow him on LinkedIn.