Episode Overview
Most nonprofit leaders were promoted because they were good at the work, not because they were trained to lead a team. That gap is where imposter syndrome lives, and where a lot of leaders quietly burn out. Kathy Archer has built her coaching practice around closing it, and she has specific ideas about where to start.
Key Takeaways
Authentic leadership requires continuous self-reflection and growth.
- Identify your personal values and check whether they actually align with the decisions you’re being asked to make at work. Kathy pointed out that the conflict between personal and organizational values is one of the loudest signals that something needs to change, either in the role or in the conversation a leader is willing to have about it.
- Build the soft skills nonprofits rarely train for: difficult conversations, emotional regulation, conflict. Kathy was direct that new leaders are often promoted for being good at the work, then handed a team with no training for the people side.
- Use assessments like the VIA Character Strengths to name your strengths and values out loud. Kathy uses this with clients and noted one leader who runs it with all her staff so the team has a shared language for what’s driving each person.
- Treat your own development like a project. Kathy uses project management software to track her personal learning plan in 90-day sprints, with specific goals and a way to measure progress.
- Make values a recurring team conversation, not a one-time exercise. Kathy described teams where two people clash because one of them values efficiency and the other values thoroughness, and neither of them realizes that’s what’s happening until somebody names it.
Episode Highlights
1. Building Authentic Leadership Through Values
Kathy starts most of her work with leaders by asking them to name their core values. Honesty. Fairness. The usual list. Then she pushes harder: what does honesty actually mean to you in practice? What does it look like on a Tuesday at 2pm when something is off and you have to say something? The specificity is the point. Without it, the values are just words on a poster.
She gave an example that lands well: two team members in a meeting, one of them values efficiency, the other values thoroughness. Neither one is wrong. But if neither one knows that’s the gap, the meeting goes sideways and they both walk away annoyed. A leader who can name what’s actually happening turns that into a useful conversation instead of a quiet resentment.
2. Navigating Leadership Challenges with Competence
Kathy was direct about the path most nonprofit leaders take into management. They are good at the job. They get promoted. Now they’re running a team and nobody trained them for that part. The gap shows up as imposter syndrome, second-guessing, and a quiet hope that nobody notices.
Her counter to that is plain. Build the skills. Emotional regulation, conflict, hard conversations, all of it can be practiced in real time at work. The first few attempts are awkward. That’s the cost. She tells leaders that the awkwardness is the signal that the skill is being built, not the signal that something is wrong.
3. Creating a Personal Development Plan
Kathy treats her own development the way she treats client work. A plan. Goals. A tool to track progress. She gave a specific example: she’s an introvert, and networking was a real growth edge for her, so she built a strategy for it. Reading specific books, attending specific kinds of events, debriefing afterward.
The piece most leaders skip, she says, is the tracking. Growth that isn’t measured tends to drift. Kathy uses project management software for her own learning the same way she’d use it for any project, which sounds obvious until you realize how few leaders actually do it.
FAQ
How do I help my nonprofit leaders build confidence in their roles?
The fastest way to build confidence in a nonprofit leader is to build their competence first. Kathy is direct that confidence does not come before skill; it follows it. Most new leaders need training in the soft skills nonprofits rarely teach: emotional regulation, conflict, and direct conversations. Practicing those skills in real situations, with the awkwardness that comes with it, is how confidence actually shows up.
What’s the difference between personal values and organizational values in leadership?
Personal values are what an individual leader holds; organizational values are what the team or org agrees to operate by. Kathy says the gap between the two is one of the most common sources of leadership burnout, and most leaders never name it. Her recommendation is to make values a regular team conversation, not a one-time exercise, so misalignment surfaces early instead of after someone has already quit.
Is it worth investing in a personal and professional learning plan for leaders?
Yes, and Kathy makes the case that the structure is what makes it work. A learning plan with specific goals, a way to measure progress, and a tool to keep yourself accountable turns vague growth into something trackable. She treats her own development like a project she’d take on for a client, with the same discipline.
Tools and Resources
- VIA Character Strengths Assessment: A free tool that helps individuals identify their character strengths and values, which can inform personal and professional development plans.
- Gallup CliftonStrengths: A paid assessment that identifies your top strengths so you can lead from them instead of trying to copy someone else’s style.
- The Training Library: Kathy’s membership site with ongoing training and coaching for nonprofit leaders, including her values verification mini-course.
How to Apply This
Start by naming your core values, then push past the headline word. If you wrote “honesty,” ask yourself what honesty looks like in your hardest current decision. That specificity is what makes values useful, not just decorative.
Next, create a personal development plan focusing on specific skills you want to improve, such as conflict resolution or networking. Set measurable goals, and schedule time in your calendar to work on these skills, treating them as you would a project at work.
Finally, bring values into team conversations. Not as a one-time workshop. Set a recurring time to check in on what people are valuing this quarter and where it’s clashing. Most teams discover the friction was never about the work itself.
About Kathy Archer
Kathy Archer is a leadership coach who works almost exclusively with nonprofit leaders. She is the author of Mastering Confidence and Character Driven Leadership for Women, and she runs The Training Library, an ongoing coaching and training resource for leaders building authentic leadership styles rooted in their own values. Readers can find more of Kathy’s work at The Training Library.
Next Steps
The full episode is at the top of this post. If something here lined up with what your team is working through, sending it to one person there is the highest-leverage thing you can do with it.
