Hey changemakers,
I’m about to tell you something that might make you squirm a little. Ready?
“Managing change is about upsetting people only at a rate that they can tolerate.”
That gem comes from Harvard’s David Shore, and honestly? It made me want to hide under my desk the first time I heard it. Because let’s be real—most of us didn’t sign up to be professional distress distributors.
But here’s the plot twist: that’s exactly what effective leadership requires.
The Great Shielding Epidemic
I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard leaders say, “Upset my team? Never! I want to remove every barrier so they can soar like majestic eagles!” (Okay, maybe not the eagle part, but you get it.)
One executive director once told me she wanted to practice “photosynthesis as a leader”—breathing in toxic CO2 from funders and breathing out pure oxygen for her team. Beautiful metaphor. Terrible leadership strategy. Last I checked, we’re humans, not houseplants.
Here’s what I’ve learned after 25 years of watching well-meaning leaders accidentally sabotage their own teams: when we shield people from reality’s beautiful messiness, we’re basically saying, “I don’t trust you to handle grown-up stuff.” And then we wonder why our teams crumble the moment things get spicy.
The more we “protect,” the more we deprive. It’s like raising kids in bubble wrap and then being shocked when they can’t handle a scraped knee.
The Vision Problem (AKA: The “This Is Fine” Syndrome)
We’re fantastic at painting dreamy pictures of our organizational promised lands. “Just imagine it—perfect programming! Happy stakeholders! Unicorns delivering grant money!”
But we conveniently forget to mention the part where we’ll be wandering in the wilderness for a while, eating questionable provisions, and questioning all our life choices.
Ron Heifetz nails it: “Followers want comfort, stability, and solutions from their leaders. But that’s babysitting. Real leaders ask hard questions and knock people out of their comfort zones. Then they manage the resulting distress.”
Translation: Your job isn’t to be a human stress ball. It’s to be a skilled discomfort distributor.
Four Ways to Get Comfortable with Discomfort
After a quarter-century of helping leaders figure this out (and making plenty of mistakes myself), here’s what actually works:
1. Paint Vivid, Realistic Visions
The Nobel laureate Wangari Maathai painted a simple but powerful vision: “When we plant trees, we plant the seeds of peace.” She could see how women planting trees would restore degraded land, provide income, and rebuild communities.
Her Green Belt Movement in Kenya demonstrated how one clear, actionable vision could address poverty, environmental destruction, and women’s empowerment simultaneously.
2. Normalize Grief and Loss
Even when we desperately want change, saying goodbye to the familiar is hard. There’s wisdom in that old saying: “I know I live in Hell, but I know the names of all the streets.”
Make space for your team to mourn what they’re leaving behind. Yes, even if what they’re mourning is dysfunctional. Grief is weird like that.
3. Build for Resilience (Not Weakness)
Remove the barriers that genuinely block progress, but don’t create a zero-gravity workplace where nothing is difficult or complicated. Muscles atrophy without resistance. So does resilience.
4. Find the Sweet Spot of Discomfort
This is where Shore’s wisdom really shines: “only at a rate they can tolerate.” You’re looking for that Goldilocks zone between empowering challenge and paralyzing overwhelm.
It requires emotional intelligence, some trial and error, and the ability to read your team like a really good book (preferably one with interesting characters and a decent plot).
Your Weekly Reality Check
Here’s a question to chew on this week: “What am I doing today that my team could actually handle—and grow from?”
Maybe it’s involving them in budget discussions they’ve been shielded from. Maybe it’s sharing the messy feedback from that difficult board meeting. Maybe it’s letting them see you navigate uncertainty instead of pretending you have all the answers.
Because here’s the deal, friends: when we find that sweet spot between order and chaos, we don’t just manage change better. We build teams that can weather storms we haven’t even imagined yet.
And in the nonprofit world, that’s not just nice to have—it’s survival gear.
Keep stirring the pot (responsibly), Kimberley
