(Illustration by iStock/pocketlight)
As the world changes, so must we. Humanity faces climate instability, rising authoritarianism, and possible new forms of artificial life. Social sector leaders face hostile governments, an uncertain funding environment, and an exhausted workforce. Leadership remains the task of inviting others into a shared story, an exercise best rooted in ethics and basic human decency. But it must also evolve in this roiling context.
In this essay, we share lessons on leadership in this moment, drawn from cross-sector dialogues we’ve organized among leaders in philanthropy, nonprofits, government, and business. We saw clear themes, which offer a blueprint for future-ready leadership: One that sustains the individual, serves the mission, and meets the moment. And while the path ahead won’t be easy, it can be full of purpose. The leaders who will thrive may not be the loudest or most charismatic. They will be those who are grounded, aspirational, and committed to evolving themselves alongside the world they seek to change.
1. Return to purpose
Fay Twersky, the president of the Arthur Blank Foundation, offers a basic mantra for social change work: Start with purpose. Like so many other seemingly self-evident statements, these wise words can fade into professional wallpaper. We must not allow that to happen. Purpose is our motive force, not a sentence in a strategy document on a shelf.
By definition, changemakers need to start with purpose. Yet this phrase has taken on new meaning in our time. Many social change leaders have built their careers upon basic beliefs: that climate change is dangerous; that racial bias is real; that it is good to care about the poorest of our neighbors; and that immigrants make a country great. Now that these assumptions are being openly rejected, many social change leaders find themselves at a loss. They—we—have spent decades with these assumptions as both a moral and strategic foundation. What do we do now?
Return to purpose. It may feel absurd to have to re-state the importance of decency and compassion, of facts, and of reason. But doing so offers us a strategic opportunity to reset conversations with our allies: funders, beneficiaries, partners. Many of them are at a loss, too. It is a gift to invite them back to shared purpose.
In fact, this moment of restatement offers an opportunity to reinvigorate our own spirits. Too many of us, who have been deep in this work for years, have lost the passion that brought us to the social sector in the first place.
For example, when a local immigrant-rights nonprofit faced political hostility, its director re-centered messaging around the founding belief: “Every family deserves safety and dignity.” Highlighting this shared purpose in staff meetings and funder updates helped the team feel re-energized, and for allies to reconnect with the cause. By re-grounding ourselves in purpose, we can inject a new energy into our work and our lives.
2. Lead yourself
The most effective leaders are aligned in the sense that their internal ethics match their external behavior, and their organizations reflect their behavior. Centered and consistent, such leaders inspire trust among those around them, cultivate stability through a web of relationships tended with care over time. As they inspire and empower, they hand off power to magnify impact.
However, achieving alignment takes inwardly directed work. Leadership is both invigorating and exhausting. In a time of chaos and stress, avoiding burnout becomes a task of leadership in its own right. The most resilient leaders prioritize personal well-being as a means towards impact; that takes investment, from physical habits (exercise, sleep) and mental clarity (meditation, coaching, prayer) to structural design (boundaries, breaks, sustainable pacing).
To stay mission-driven, we must also be mission-embodied. You must protect your body and your spirit if you are to serve others. There is a reason flight attendants have their own mantra, “put on your oxygen mask before helping others.” While it can seem selfish to focus on self over others, it is, in fact, humility to recognize that leaders cannot bear infinite weight. It is also an opportunity to support those around us who share these burdens, to face the task of leadership together. Imagine the CEO of a triple-bottom-line business creating “No-Meeting Fridays” for herself and her staff: Doing so models healthy boundaries, gives time for strategic thinking, and improves morale across the organization.
3. Zoom out
It’s natural to think of strategy through our immediate experience, to focus on that which is near, soon, and similar. But the work of social change goes far beyond our daily to-do list or a plan for the next quarter. To change the world, we cannot retreat to the familiar.
We don’t know how artificial intelligence will impact our work, when a changing climate will impact our communities, or where political leaders will shift the very nature of societies. But when we retreat to the familiar, we limit our ability to see beyond it. If the world were going to stay the same, it would be fine to frame our work in terms of the familiar. Recent years have made it clear: The world will not stay the same.
Leaders need to stretch their minds
and consider not only immediate objectives, but long-term trajectories (time), different regions (space), and multi-layered systems (scale).
Time: Since the end of World War II, almost every metric of the human economy has gone into overdrive, what some have called the “Great Acceleration.” We feel it in our daily lives. But instead of getting caught up in the daily news cycle or the latest software update, we can zoom out and consider the long-term impact of our work on generations ahead, and adjust our actions accordingly.
Space: We all live in places, which are embedded in layers of connection: local, state, national, planetary. In this interconnected world, there is no such thing as geographic isolation: Carbon emissions in Omaha impact rainfall patterns in Delhi. Especially as it becomes clearer and clearer that natural systems will have a say in how we manage our human systems, even community-focused leaders must remain in regular reference to the entire planet we call home.
Scale: While some issues are the sum of individual stories, such as homelessness, others reflect exponential processes, like pandemics, or human systems, like criminal justice reform. In each case, as parts impact the whole and vice versa, leaders need to be able to zoom in and out from the particular to the general. Sometimes this may mean a big bet; other times, a deep focus on a given person or community is required.
For example, consider the food security nonprofits that complement their work running food pantries with advocacy for SNAP policy reform. By zooming out from immediate service delivery to systemic change, they created more lasting impact for families in need.
4. You are not your organization
Organizations can come to be identified with their leaders. An investor wondering about Apple’s strategy may ask, “What will Tim Cook do?” In a political cartoon, Xi Jinping may serve as a stand-in for China. In turn, leaders’ identities can be tied to their organizations, particularly in the social sector, where devotion to our organizations’ missions can add a moral valence to our work and provide motive force on a personal level.
This tangle can become a trap. Each of us has felt it in our own work: One of us (Jacob) experienced it acutely when he gave up the role as GuideStar’s chief executive to its merger with Foundation Center to form Candid. The other (Sara) is both coach and CEO at a coaching company and is seen as an embodiment of the organization’s strategy, whether she likes it or not.
We each have to find ways to align ourselves with our work while not identifying ourselves with our work. Work in the social sector is a professional manifestation of the core values of the human beings who work in it. For those who have devoted their professional lives to a personal mission, it can be all too easy to unconsciously equate our organizations with ourselves. This sells us short as human beings: We are all so much more than just our jobs. And it raises very real barriers to the kind of organizational changes that we often need to make to achieve our missions. Take, for example, the founder of a mental health philanthropy who stepped down after 15 years and chose to focus on celebrating staff and board continuity rather than centering his departure. Doing so models that the mission is collective, not tied to one individual.
5. Compassion is a competitive advantage
When the stakes are high, it’s easy to default to urgency and pressure. Conflict makes it easy to demonize other people. But the most powerful leaders pause to cultivate patience, empathy, and psychological spaciousness—for themselves, for their teams, and for the world around them.
This is more than soft skills. It is strategy. Compassion increases problem-solving capacity, reduces reactivity, and builds trust. Leaders who stay calm and curious in the face of volatility not only make better decisions, they help others do the same. Evidence from game theory shows that the most effective long-term strategies are rooted in hope and forgiveness.
This is why, at its best, the social sector is the institutionalization of compassion. Far from being a weakness, it is our greatest strength. During a budget crisis, for example, a municipal department of health director might host listening sessions with staff before making cuts; a compassionate approach must surface creative solutions and preserve trust, even in hard times.
Let’s become future-ready leaders together: sustaining ourselves as individuals, serving our organizational missions, and meeting this moment.
Read more stories by Sara Ellis Conant & Jacob Harold.