Nonprofit Hub Radio
Whether starting a nonprofit or taking an existing cause to the next level, The Nonprofit Hub Radio Podcast is about breaking down how nonprofits can grow. Each episode features an interview with a sector star with insight, stories, or ideas that can take your nonprofit from good to excellence. Join host Meghan Speer every week to make your good go further!
Nonprofit Hub Radio
Leadership in Crisis: Managing Dysfunction and Conflict
In this episode, host Meghan Speer sits down with Chris Wong, founder and executive coach at Leadership Potential and a featured main stage speaker at this year’s Cause Camp. Drawing from his background as a licensed therapist turned leadership and organizational development expert, Chris shares practical strategies for nonprofit leaders—especially those who identify as “chronic people pleasers”—to navigate difficult conversations, balance accountability with support, and set clear boundaries without sacrificing empathy. Together, they explore how regular check-ins, progressive discipline, and value-driven leadership can transform team culture, prevent burnout, and keep organizations mission-focused. Whether you’re leading a small startup nonprofit or a large, established team, this conversation offers actionable insights to help you lead with clarity, courage, and compassion.
Get free nonprofit professional development resources, connections to cause work peers, and more at https://nonprofithub.org
Non-profits. Are you ready to spend less time on paperwork and more time making an impact? Save big on Adobe Acrobat Pro, the leading PDF and e-signature tool built for mission-driven work. Apply for your discount now at adobecom. Slash nonprofits, slash acrobat. Welcome back to the Nonprofit Hub podcast. I'm your host, megan Spear, joined today by Chris Wong, who is the founder and executive coach at Leadership Potential. Chris is also going to be on the main stage at CauseCamp this year. Really excited to dig into that and have him here in Pittsburgh. Hoping you're planning to join us for that as well, because, oh my gosh, the lineup this year is just fantastic. I'm so excited about it, but really excited to have Chris as a part of it and to have him on the podcast today. Chris, welcome in.
Speaker 2:Megan, thank you for having me. I love chatting about this topic and chatting on podcasts in general.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so fun. So tell us a little bit about your background what brought you to this point here today, and a little bit about Leadership Potential.
Speaker 2:What brought you to this point here today and a little bit about leadership potential. Yeah, I got my start as a licensed therapist and I was working with adolescents with complex developmental trauma and I love that work. But I just got burned out. So I moved into learning and development because I still wanted to support people doing the work. I still wanted to stay involved and from there I just loved. I found a passion for training and coaching and helping other people get better at doing what they're doing.
Speaker 2:And then I moved into leadership and organizational development and I just fell in love with the idea of working on systems, working on culture, working on big, big items, big problems, and then also helping leaders be better, because I was realizing leaders are the main effect and cause of kind of everything in the organization. You have a strong leader, you can have a strong team, you can have a strong organization and you can achieve your mission better. Essentially, that's all, and so that's what I do on my own now is I work with leaders who have inherited dysfunctional teams and organizations. Purpose-driven leaders who want to make a difference, but they're just dealing with dysfunctional teams or teams that are in conflict or chaos. They need to turn things around and never more apparent than now in our current climate in the world.
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely, and so that's really where we're going to dig in today. I know when you take the stage at CauseCamp, we're going to be talking about how to have some of those difficult conversations as a leader, and I'm going to make an admission on the podcast today that I've not made before, and that is I've held a lot of leadership positions in my life over the course of my career, but at my core I am a chronic people pleaser and I feel like sometimes that makes these conversations really hard. And I see it so often in nonprofit leaders, especially where we want to be so nice because these folks are doing like they're helping the mission, but maybe there there's some poor performance or there's an issue or there's chaos, but at the same time we know like they are likely at a position where you were before is being burned out, they're probably not making the money that they could make somewhere else, and so we try to be really nice and really gracious and, I'll admit it, sometimes it has been to the detriment of my organization because I wasn't willing to step on toes, I wasn't willing to have that uncomfortable conversation. So let's talk about that. What do we have to do if somebody is in my position Because, I'm going to be honest, I think there's a lot more people pleasers out there in the world than not.
Speaker 1:Nobody wants to make people uncomfortable. Nobody wants to do that. So if we are that, if somebody is in my boat as the chronic people pleaser but also in leadership my boat as the chronic people pleaser but also in leadership how do we even identify? Like? This is where we need to start to have those conversations. If we find ourselves in that, how do we get over the people pleasing hump?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think it starts with mindset, and this is the example I use with lots of different leaders is do you have kids yourself?
Speaker 1:I do.
Speaker 2:I have one grown daughter okay, imagine your daughter was back in middle school, right? Imagine she came to you and said hey, mom, I'm not gonna do my math homework anymore, I just don't really care about it and I prefer to just focus on sports. What would you say to her?
Speaker 1:oh, that's a no-go. You gotta, yeah, you have. You have to meet those responsibilities.
Speaker 2:Is it because you hate her that you're saying that?
Speaker 1:No.
Speaker 2:Is it because you're stepping in her dreams and you don't want to pursue her dreams or passions?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I want her to be successful and graduate school and get into a good college to pursue her future.
Speaker 2:I think that's the mindset that we need to think about when we think about having any of these difficult conversations. Yes, you care about the people and that's the mindset that we need to think about when we think about having any of these difficult conversations. Yes, you care about the people and that's good. You want to that. That'll help you structure the conversation and say it in a way that's caring, and not just me yelling at you or being disrespectful to you, and also recognizing that you setting boundaries. Having the hard conversation can come from a place of love, because you care about the person. You want them to succeed, you want them to do well, and so it's not about being mean or micromanaging or anything like those things that people get hung up on. It's about you care about them. You want them to succeed, and they can't succeed if you don't give them that direction or guidance or that feedback, or have that conversation about what's what they're missing or how they're missing the mark.
Speaker 1:It's interesting, I think, that you use the word micromanage, because I think that has gotten this connotation lately, where nobody wants to be, that no one wants to be the micromanager, and we know that nobody wants to feel as a grown adult. I don't want to feel micromanaged either, and so I think I almost wonder if we've swung the pendulum too far away from it, and is that maybe causing a lot of this?
Speaker 2:Yeah, it happens a lot. I coach one leader now who she's in a hospital system, and she lost a person previously before I started with her, because she was so afraid of micromanaging she would let them do whatever they wanted, and luckily this person did a great job. They were on point, they did everything, but they eventually left because they just kept asking what else should I be doing, what else should I be doing? And she wouldn't give them any guidance at all, and so he was like I don't know what to do about this, I'm just going to leave.
Speaker 1:Yeah, okay, so let's put ourselves in that person's shoes. How do you course correct? Because the image that's in my head right now is that thing that used to sit on everyone's desk, where you have the line of swinging metal balls right and we hit one and they all swing this way, if we find ourselves swinging too far, the natural tendency is to swing all the way back right. So if we find ourselves in that position where we have let something get out of control, we didn't want to micromanage, so everybody's kind of running amok and doing their own thing how do we course correct without going to the opposite extreme?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think of a two by two grid of, and you have one axis is accountability and one axis is support, and so you want to give them maximum accountability, but you also want to give them maximum support, as they need it to get to that point. And so that's where regular check-ins help is. You can course correct in the moment if they're missing the mark, if they're not doing something, if they're behind on something, and that's part of those coaching conversations. It's not about why aren't you doing this, it's more about what's getting in the way. Do you not have the skill, do you not have the knowledge? Do you not have the tools or the resources? And if any of these are missing, I can help you figure it out.
Speaker 2:Right, let's say, this is your first time in this kind of role. You don't know how to do it. I do need to show you how to do it. I do need to either demonstrate it or teach you or have somebody mentor you, all those kinds of things. But you won't know that unless you start having more regular check-ins and get curious about what might be happening, because I think a lot of times also, a lot of us assume based upon our own experiences. This is why I struggled with it, or this is why I've seen somebody else struggle with it, so I assume you must be struggling with it because of this reason.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:But we're getting rid of those assumptions and getting back to. Let's be curious and let's just explore what's getting in the way for you and then let me help remove those roadblocks as much as.
Speaker 1:I am able to. That's such a good call out and I feel like, especially in a nonprofit context, because you generally those teams are running so lean they're running you know, there's not always like an abundance of budget to pay for additional staff and so I feel like those regular check-ins are one of the first thing that flies out the door because everybody's running so lean, they're running a thousand miles a minute to get the program done. The internal structure of that gets lost. Yeah, yeah, is there so okay? So let me ask it this way Is there what's like the best? Is there like a formula for how often we should be checking in? What's a good kind of rubric for?
Speaker 2:Yeah, there's no, it depends. It depends. Everybody's job is so different, um, everybody's roles are so different, and so it really depends it's. It can't be less than once a month.
Speaker 2:It should be at least once a month okay every week is nice, but also depends on the job and schedules and if you're working shifts you might not see each other all the time. But I think gallup had a some research back in 2018, 2017 just one check-in a month can increase engagement by like 70%. Wow. So not even a one-to-one, not even a meeting, just a check-in like how are you, how's your day going? That was their bar.
Speaker 2:That most people don't even do or can't do because of you know, things are busy, we're flying from place to place, we're just in meetings all day or whatever, or we're out there in the field doing the work, whatever it might be Doing. That one check-in is just helpful once a month at least just to see how things are going, and the more you can put in, even better. You can do it every other week. If you can do a more formal every other week, once a week, that goes a long way just to see. Then that helps you figure out are they on track or not? Right, and you develop them if they want to grow, if they want to enhance their career in some way.
Speaker 1:I'm trying to envision. You know, I've worked in a lot of different places, a lot of different teams, a lot of different causes. I can't imagine a workplace where people aren't checking in with each other just to see how their day is going. Like that's the fact, that's the bar. Yeah, I feel like that is, man. I just want us to do better than that. Yeah, you'd be surprised yeah that feels like the lowest possible level of engagement, of, just like normal human behavior.
Speaker 2:Right wow, but if people are, you know, I think I can certainly understand, right, if people have shift work, if people are different shifts or if they're constantly out in the field of some way and they have a big catchment area.
Speaker 2:You know, let's say, la is a big I'm just using it because it's in the news, but it's a big city, right, it's huge, really huge. You might not see somebody if they're constantly going to schoolwork, if they're just visiting schools all the time. You really might not see them very much physically, right. So it's more incumbent on you to figure out how do I talk to them, how do I initiate contact, or even if you're remote, if I'm working in Texas and you're working in indiana, we got to find ways to connect on a regular basis, even if we're busy yeah, man, that's okay.
Speaker 1:So that's a great call out. If you're not checking on your people, it's very easy for some of these situations to get ahead of you and you do not keep your finger on the pulse. So that's, I appreciate that call out. I want to flip, maybe, to the other side, because I really like the vision of your, the image of your grid right, where the goal is high support, but also giving that feedback. The opposite, though, it cannot. It doesn't necessarily have to be that total hands-off micromanager, but what does it look like when we are, or how do we avoid, I guess, being so overly supportive, like I would think it's easy to get that grit out of whack, I guess, is what I'm trying to say, but trying to stay in that top upper quadrant, it's so easy, there's so many other options. So where do you see leaders fall? Into other quadrants most often?
Speaker 2:You know, I would say in the nonprofit space, truly, they do give a lot of support. I think that's not really necessarily an issue as much. I think there's still issues. But I think it's the accountability, holding people accountable, as you mentioned in the beginning. How do you hold people accountable, right, when we're so nice and we don't want to hurt people's feelings? And it's the not holding them accountable, giving them chance after chance or taking on their work if they don't do it, if they're late on it.
Speaker 2:I'm just going to do their work and everybody just learns how to work around this person as much as possible and they're afraid to go out, either afraid or they don't know how to go through the progressive discipline process if things are not working out. But all those tools are there for a reason. You need to follow up, you need to give that feedback in the moment, have those disciplinary coaching conversations, but also go through that progressive discipline process If you need to. You need to escalate it because you need to set boundaries and guardrails right, otherwise anybody can do whatever they want.
Speaker 1:If you want to spend less time on paperwork and more time making an impact, we have the solution for you. With Adobe Acrobat Pro, you can streamline reports, speed up contracts with e-signatures and create polished PDFs that inspire donors and engage volunteers. Work smarter with cloud access, top-tier security and powerful editing tools designed for teens on a mission. And with special nonprofit pricing it's efficiency you can afford. Apply for your discount now at adobecom. Slash nonprofits, slash acrobat. A lot of the folks in our organizations that are either listening to the podcast or go check it out tend to be at, I would say, organizations that are kind of earlier on, right, so they're sort of startups a lot of younger organizations who might not be in a place where those policies are in place, something they've ever had to think about because you know the original.
Speaker 1:When you think of an organization like that, the original staff, the founder, the first couple people on board are so bought in and so like exactly sold out to the mission, that it's not until maybe you start to grow and bring in maybe the second or third wave of people that we start to have these. So a lot of organizations we find don't have discipline policies in place. They don't have an escalation procedure in place, and so things do get out of hand because they don't know what to do next. So in your work, what does that look like? What should that policy include? How many chances do we give people? What do we want to make sure that we have in place from the jump so we always can go back to it?
Speaker 2:I would say number one get an hr consultant. If you're small, get somebody. You know there's always going to be some hr consultant within your price range that can at least help you set up some policies, right? Yeah, because you want to have that. But essentially the the overall structure is you know, the first line is something happens, they miss a deadline, they do something incorrect or inappropriately, they're yelling in a meeting or swearing at you. That should be feedback, feedback, right? Number one should be I'm giving you this constructive feedback and then from there, the next escalation. If it continues, then you're giving that either a formal warning or written warning of some sort. And then, if it continues and then, depending on your own structure is then it's separation. From that point on, okay, and it seems I know it seems harsh because you're like it's a very quick turnaround. But yeah, again, you're, if you keep allowing this behavior to happen, right, there's a quote what you permit, you promote.
Speaker 1:So the more you allow this behavior, you're not just allowing it, you're actually saying to everybody else it's okay to do this and I just I mean, I think this is one of those scenarios where the impact of not taking action is actually increasingly detrimental to an organization, right, not only does it can it harm the, the environment or the culture of your organization, but if someone is consistently I'm thinking, you know, we know, I know a lot of folks listening, work in programs that are maybe human services or working with children, or there's a lot of things, that, a lot of behaviors in that that are completely inappropriate and unacceptable. Right, and we can't allow that to continue.
Speaker 1:That's right or the whole organization is going to close. So I think, yeah, inaction by itself is an action and it you can take the whole organization down in one fell swoop that way that's right.
Speaker 2:And I think what I also see is like some organizations are hesitant to do that because they might be understaffed and they're like we can't afford to lose a body doing anywhere, even if it's, even if they're bad, even if they're bringing us down. Like we can't afford to lose a body doing anywhere, even if it's, even if they're bad, even if they're bringing us down. Like we can't afford to lose a physical body. And you know you'll have to make that choice. Right, but it goes back to your values also, right? Like what kind of culture are you trying to set, what kind of organization you're trying to lead, and do the ends justify the means? You know that's. That's the question everybody has to wrestle with. Does it it matter how you get there, or does it matter you know what you do day to day? You know, and we can argue philosophically about that, but that's going to be a decision you have to make as a leader and as an organization. Does the mission matter more than how we get there?
Speaker 1:how some of the executive directors in our audience that might be listening to this episode, who, at least, this is what this is how it works for me. I'll listen to an episode and I think, oh my gosh, I now see a problem that I maybe didn't know existed or maybe I've been ignoring if. If that's the case, if the executive director is now looking and saying, maybe some of those middle managers are not pulling their weight to get their teams in line, how do we model that behavior? Or how does the leader change middle management behavior appropriately to make sure that that trickles down all the way through your organization?
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, I think it's. If you've never addressed it before, let's say you've let it go on for a long time. It starts with addressing and acknowledging that. I think you can easily say not easily, but you could just frame it as I'm turning the corner here. We've let things go on for a long time. I'm recognizing we need to change. I want us to you know this is these are our values. I want us to you know these are our values. I want us to be able to do this, and it matters to me how our culture is. So let's work together from now on. Let's work. Let's start with a blank slate. Let's do this, and so everybody start with a blank slate of what's appropriate, what's not appropriate, and also clarifying what happens if you do these behaviors. So, if you were to do this, going forward, this is what's going to happen. These are the next steps. You know, even if it's not super formal, you're a small place, you don't have an hr team. You could say if you, if this happens again, we're going to have a conversation, we're going to have a coaching conversation, we're going to have a you know, just a one-to-one about it give some feedback and we're going to work on this and then we're going to escalate it if it continues. Right, but it's being clear on that part.
Speaker 2:I worked with a VP of a. It was an international, like wine company and so for profit, and she was having the same problem, right? So this is a VP of a for-profit company, the same issue that she has a senior director that for a year and a half was not pulling his weight. And just in our conversation she was like I've been giving him too many chances. I don't know why I just keep saying that I'll give him an extra chance. And she realized like she can't let it go on. It's an hour, it's a year and a half.
Speaker 1:She needs to let him go because it was just dragging everything down by him not doing his job correctly and that's I mean that's impact to the bottom line. Yeah Right and we yeah right and we can't. And even in a non-profit right, we can't continue to let folks impact to the bottom line, especially when resources are already scarce and thin to begin with right.
Speaker 2:So, this executive director, you got to start modeling it. You got to start having the conversation, bringing it up on a regular basis. It's got to be ongoing and you got to model it too, right? So you got to be careful about how you're showing up, how you're what you're saying, what you're not saying in front of people and being clear, and if something happens, then you have to address it. You got to show I'm being serious about this or we're being serious about this now. So something's happened, now we're going to address it.
Speaker 1:That I appreciate the call out and I think that requires a level of humility that can sometimes feel antithetical to the like portrayal of a leader. Right, we want to, we want to be the we've got all the answers. But to say like, hey, I have been doing this wrong and we're going to switch, we're going to flip the page, here's what we're doing. That requires we're going to flip the page, here's what we're doing. That requires a level of humility that can be really tough in and of itself.
Speaker 2:It is. I think that's the. I find that a lot of leaders mistakenly think that to be a leader, you need to be that hard charging. I'm confident, I'll never say sorry, I'll just do what I got to do. Yeah, you know, and there's all types of leaders you know. That type of leader is really only good in a crisis situation, like if we're in a crisis, like you know, whatever's happening, we need to have somebody make good decisions, quick decisions and it doesn't matter, right, like. A good example is Rudy Giuliani, mayor of New York City during 9-11. That type of leadership style is really good for that type of situation there's an urgent thing happening and we need to fix it a crisis. That type of leadership is not good in regular times or every other day life.
Speaker 1:Right, just normal existence yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I think there was a study years ago where they told a group of participants your organization in trouble and in crisis and you need to fix it. What are the qualities of a leader that you would want to lead you through this? And they listed all very stereotypically feminine characteristics, right, like caring, empathic, listening. And then when they were given a resume the same exact resume, one with a female name, one with a male name they overwhelmingly chose the male resume because they still have that stereotype in the head of they need like a masculine approach, even though they all feel like they need this caring, somebody listening to us and understanding and empathic.
Speaker 2:And so I think we all have that bias in our head, or a lot of people have that bias, but you just have to be yourself as a leader and it's okay to you know, be humble, be curious and listen.
Speaker 1:Oh, that could start me on a soapbox about all sorts of things on the way that we look at male versus female leadership that's right and how those are. Oh, I could get on on a whole different. That's a whole other episode, yeah, so, chris, tell me a little bit what is your favorite part of your work?
Speaker 2:I love the light bulb moments of uh when people, when we're working, when I'm working with somebody one-on-one, and they suddenly say, oh, oh, why didn't I think of this? Oh, this makes total sense, why don't I do this instead? And the way I do it? I'm not telling them the answer, right, but they've come to the answer themselves and I love that transformation because it's also a realization that they had the answer all along. They knew how to do it, they knew what to do. We're just all stuck in the day-to-day life and we get inundated with all these emergencies, personal and professional, and we're trying to figure out how to filter all that out. We really have a lot People have the answers with themselves a lot of the times, and so I love drawing that out and seeing that transformation into being somebody who's like all right, I know what to do now, as opposed to when we start, when they're like I'm stuck, I have no idea what to do.
Speaker 1:This is terrible yeah, well, and I think because we get so stuck in the you know, the forest for the trees, right, we can't. I'm so stuck in the day-to-day that it's hard to take a step back and see that bigger picture, so that has to be really encouraging for you to watch. Yes, exactly, yeah, yeah, very good. And if somebody wanted to learn more about you or connect with you and learn more about the work that you do and the services that you provide, how would we do that?
Speaker 2:conversations where we talk about this a lot more. But you'll find resources. You'll find my newsletter. If you want to listen, get my resources. You can also get in contact with me there, but and you can also just find me on LinkedIn Chris Wong, lmhc.
Speaker 1:I, so you and I are LinkedIn connected and I really appreciate. Is it Thursdays?
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:Where you talk about specific difficult conversations. Yeah, yeah, Really good, Because there's so many. I feel like you know, especially as a leader. There's so many conversations that that we get caught up in in the course of a day or in the course of a week. But there has yet to be one that I've seen from you where I'm like oh, my gosh, that doesn't apply to me at all. Right, Every single one of them I can think about like, oh, that's, that's really good. I should have done that the last time, but I know for next time and here's how we'll do it. So, yes, highly recommend going to connect with Chris if, if for no other reason than the Thursday LinkedIn posts.
Speaker 2:I appreciate that. You know when I first started that I was like is anybody going to care that I do?
Speaker 1:this on.
Speaker 2:Thursdays? I don't know, we'll see.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, no, I really like it as a, as a series, because I think, yeah, it's super relatable. If nothing else, it makes me sometimes feel better of like, oh, I actually think I did. I had a conversation similar and I handled it the right way and, yes, I've had a little pat on the back moment on occasion oh nice, very encouraging, awesome thanks very good.
Speaker 1:Uh so, chris, one of the things that I've been doing on the podcast this season as we wrap up, because this is has been a crazy year for a lot of non-profits. They're going through all sorts of stuff. If you could give one piece of advice or wisdom to those non-profit leaders, one piece of encouragement, what would that be?
Speaker 2:can I give two? Absolutely, I would say, if you haven't already, get into mindfulness to use as a skill to just calm yourself down and keep yourself relaxed. There's a person I I I follow on linkedin, megan whitney. She does a lot of stuff around mindfulness and preventing burnout, but as a therapist, I also think it's a useful skill. I teach it to everybody and I think it's just a useful skill, especially especially when you're in a crisis, when things feel like they're falling around you. You got to find ways to keep yourself calm and appropriate. So I'd say, number one get into mindfulness, find ways to keep yourself chill. And I would say number two I was thinking about this all, I couldn't think of anything specific. But I would say number two just keep trying, don't stop, keep trying. I think it's easy to feel overwhelmed by everything and it's never going to be one specific person that's going to change the world or change the future. It's the culmination of everybody's efforts together. So just keep trying, keep doing the best you can.
Speaker 1:I love that, chris, so good. I really appreciate this conversation. I think it's not one we get to have often for leaders, but I think it's a really good one and I'm excited to have you speak more about that at CauseCamp coming up this November.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'm looking forward to it. I went to Penn State, so I love.
Speaker 1:Pennsylvania.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so I'm looking forward to being in Pittsburgh.
Speaker 1:Fantastic, yeah. So CauseCamp coming up November 4th and 5th here in Pittsburgh. Go ahead and get your registration in, because it did sell out last year and we don't want you to miss out on amazing content from people like Chris and from industry leaders across the country. So, yeah, excited to see you in person there. Yeah.
Speaker 2:I'm excited.
Speaker 1:Very good, chris. Thanks so much for joining us Again. My guest has been Chris Wong, who's a founder and executive coach at Leadership Potential. My name is Megan Spear and this has been another episode of the Nonprofit Hub Radio Podcast. We'll see you next time.