Lead by Letting Go
Paper airplanes with red one leading white planes.
Practices for Growing Yourself and Your Team
I remember sitting there—surprised and embarrassed. I'd worked with her for years and had no idea she wanted to grow into managing grants. She assumed I didn't trust her. I assumed I had to do it all. She felt stuck and ready to leave. I was burned out. Wow, I really screwed this one up. There's a quiet weight that builds over time in nonprofit work—the accumulation of responsibilities, emotional labor, invisible tasks, and unspoken expectations. A whole list of assumptions about team capacity, workload, etc. At some point, your calendar gets full, your energy gets thin, and your clarity gets foggy. And yet somehow, you keep holding it all.
These well-intentioned assumptions quietly shape how we work, partner, team, and delegate—reinforced by a scarcity mindset where we tell ourselves, "We can't afford anyone else. This work has to get done."
That’s why we created Lead by Letting Go. It’s not a checklist or a job description rewrite. It’s a moment-in-time reflection tool. A simple, flexible way to pause, notice, and make space—for yourself, for your team, and for what matters most.
Building on frameworks like Delegate and Elevate, the Zone of Genius, the Eisenhower Matrix, and start/stop/continue exercises, this tool was designed for the heart of nonprofit life. It’s a practice to help you stop hoarding the work—and start sharing the leadership.
The Problem Beneath the Surface
Here are a few of the challenges this tool helps name and navigate:
1. Invisible overload. Work sneaks into our days and stays there. We pick things up without realizing it. Roles creep. We forget to ask, "Is this mine to hold?"
2. Bottlenecked growth. We can unintentionally block others from stepping up because we're used to holding the reins—or assume no one else wants to try.
3. Fear of letting go. Our identity is often tied to being the one who "does it all." Letting go can feel vulnerable. Like we're not needed. Or like things might fall apart.
4. Team mismatch. Sometimes the person in a role isn't set up to thrive because we've wrapped the role and the soul together without clarity. Other times, we miss opportunities to tap into someone's strengths because we're too buried in assumptions or survival mode.
A Tool for Reclaiming Clarity
Lead by Letting Go helps you (or your team, board, or staff) sort through what you're holding, reflect on what matters, and create space to align your work with your energy and the organization's needs.
It helps you:
Map what's currently on your plate
Notice what energizes you—and what drains you
Identify what can be delegated, simplified, shared, or released
Invite growth for others while making space for yourself to lead where you're most needed
And maybe most importantly? It brings grace into the process. You're not expected to fix everything. Just to get curious.
When & How to Use It
This tool can be used in a variety of ways depending on your context:
As a personal leadership reflection – especially during transitions, burnout moments, or growth seasons
In supervision or team check-ins – to guide conversations around workload, support, and opportunity
At the board level – to support EDs and key staff in staying aligned with their highest-impact work
As a quarterly rhythm – to normalize checking in on what's working, what's heavy, and what's ready to shift
The tool is simple—but it opens up powerful questions. It creates a shared language and makes it easier to talk about work without defensiveness. To say, "This feels heavy." Or, "I think this might be a great stretch for someone else." Or even, "What happens if we let this go entirely?"
Creating a Culture of Clarity and Growth
Many organizations talk about roles and souls—acknowledging that a job is not a person, and a person is more than their job. This tool lives in that space. It helps separate what needs to be done from who's doing it—while also honoring the unique strengths, quirks, and brilliance of the people in the room.
Sometimes, the right move is to grow someone into something new. Other times, it's to pull something off their plate entirely. This tool doesn't tell you the answer—but it gives you a place to start.
Letting go is not a weakness. It's not a failure. It's a leadership strategy.
When we lead by letting go, we:
Create room for others to step in and step up
Build a culture where growth and clarity are normal, not emergencies
Reclaim energy to lead the work we're actually meant to do
Ready to try it?
Download the tool, grab a pen (or a teammate), and take 20 minutes to pause and map what you're holding. You don't have to get it perfect. You just have to begin.
Letting go makes space—for alignment, for joy, and for the kind of leadership that lasts.
