The President’s Message 2/13/23

“When I dare to be powerful, to use my strength in the service of my vision, then it becomes less and less important whether I am afraid.” – Audre Lorde

Like most of us, I truly can’t remember a time when I wasn’t afraid while doing something I believed in or I envisioned. I’ve learned over the years working as a nonprofit professional, my community needs my vision. The people I serve need me to seem fearless. Am I fearless? Absolutely not! I work through my fears daily. As leaders, we have different fears and responsibilities.

Audre Lorde’s point is not that she doesn’t have fear but it’s not a focal point in her process.

Fear rules us because we desire so much for our plans to succeed and we place a lot of pressure on that. What happens if it doesn’t succeed? Or worse, we hurt someone in the process of trying to be successful?Fear is there because we have a deep feeling or desire to be successful and those what ifs run through our minds. Lorde is saying she doesn’t care about the what ifs. They are drowned out by the deep desire to finish what she started!

We all have the one hope that we want to feel heard, seen and appreciated. Our work as leaders is deeper than that. It is to ensure our team feels heard, seen, and appreciated. The work we do within our organizations is not withstanding the help of our teams. We cannot make an impact without working within a team and our teams need leaders.

How are you feeling as a leader? What are some of the challenges you are facing? We don’t all have the title of a leader but our presence exudes leadership. Our work is focused on guiding our communities, providing services or simply listening to our clients. Remember as service providers, we are all leaders to our communities. Let’s allow our light to shine through and drive out the darkness.