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Today I want to talk about something that comes up again and again in my work with nonprofit leaders. It's one of the hardest and most necessary mindset shifts you have to make as your organization grows. It's the shift from control to clarity. And in this episode I want to dig into why, as you grow, more control doesn't create more stability, it actually creates more fragility and how letting go of control is actually the way to lead to greater impact. Welcome to the Nonprofit Mastermind podcast. I'm Brooke Richie Babbage. I've been in the social impact game for 25 years as a social justice lawyer turned two time nonprofit founder and leader turned growth strategist and coach for leaders around the country. I grew my nonprofit from me and an intern in a tiny closet to a high impact seven figure organization. And along the way I learned so so much about how to build an organization that has real impact and how to do it without burning out. In this podcast, I share the nuts and bolts of all of it so you can do that too. We dive into the mindset, strategies and tactics of how to scale a high impact organization and how to do it in a way that's truly sustainable. Let's start with why this issue of control is so tricky. It's mostly because when you start out, when your organization is small, it makes sense, right? When it's just you and a few team members, it makes sense that you're touching everything. As the leader, you're helping write grants, you're checking the communications and newsletters and emails as they go out, you're making all the donor calls, you're doing all of the meetings with funders. You're part of every decision. And this is usually because of three things. One, you can control everything because your entire organizational ecosystem is small enough for you to actually see, have eyes on and hands on everything. Second, you probably have to keep your hands on everything just to keep things moving. When you're small, the organization simply won't function without you helping out as an operator. And finally, we default to control when our organizations are smaller because it can also feel like the safest way to protect the work itself, to ensure excellence, as many of the leaders that I work with describe. Right. They, they want to make sure that their work, that the programs and the brand is being felt by their community with a certain level of excellence, right? So control is usually rooted in these three things and they make sense when you are small, right? When you're under a certain size. But here's what happens as you Grow, you get more staff, you grow your programs, you have more funders, you have more board members. Your ecosystem gets bigger and more complex, and before you know it, the very habits that kept you stable and growing and that ensured excellence and impact, like being in all the meetings, signing off on all the partnerships, these very things are now actually creating bottlenecks that are blocking your growth. The sneaky thing is that we don't often recognize that we've moved from one stage of growth to the next. It's not always obvious when it's time to shift out of operator mode and into what I call architect mode, you're doing what you've always done, but slowly and quietly, those habits are creating the strains that are working against you. I can't tell you how many leaders I talk with who are stuck rewriting every donor email, their team drafts, or redoing newsletters at midnight, because if I don't check it, it'll go out wrong. I hear that all the time. Or they hire staff, and this is a big one. But instead of creating relief, the work just bounces right back to them, right? Delegation doesn't ever seem to really work. The folks that they hire don't seem to really fully own their work, right? So more staff over time feels like more work over time instead of more spaciousness. And I get it, because when I first start talking with the leaders in my program, often their habits of control make them feel safe. It makes them feel like they are leading, right? Doing more, seeing more, signing off on more feels like leadership. But what I help them see, and what I'm sharing now is that control doesn't protect you as you get to and pass a certain size. And worse, control actually makes the whole organization fragile because everything still depends on you. It's like balancing everything on a single table leg. And that fragility shows up as exhaustion, decision fatigue, and second guessing yourself at every turn. So if control isn't the goal, what is? The answer is clarity. It's one of the core elements of your nonprofit's balanced operating system, which I teach inside my next level nonprofit program and offer inside of elevate. It's actually the thing that stabilizes your organization. And I don't mean clarity in the fuzzy sense of we all have clarity about where we're going or what's important. That's great to have, but I'm actually talking about operational clarity, strategic clarity. I mean clarity in the concrete, measurable sense. That type of clarity directs everything else in your organization. Think about how a pilot flies a plane. They are not rushing around touching every wire and every lever. They're not trying to micromanage what's happening in all parts of the plane. They have a dashboard, their cockpit, and that shows them the few critical signals they need to track to know that the plane is moving in the right direction. That's how they keep everything safe and moving the way it's supposed to move. And that's how clarity works. That's what leadership at scale looks like. Your job is to design your own cockpit, the few key signals that tell you what's working and what's not. And clarity is what allows you to identify, communicate and monitor those signals. So here's what clarity looks like. For example, defining what quote, unquote good communication with donors and funders looks like in advance and in something that is written so your team can own it without you rewriting everything. Another example, making sure that the goals in your annual plan and your annual board plan align with your long term strategic priorities, with what's actually written in your strategic plan, and that that alignment is clear, it's explicit, so that everyone on your team, your team and your board always knows how what they're doing today adds to the North Star end goal. Another example, making sure your team's work plans explicitly name outcomes and milestones that everyone agrees on them and knows what they are, so that everyone knows exactly what counts as success. That is how you step away and know that people are executing according to your defined success metrics. A final example, embedding values that have agreed upon definitions into decision making protocols so that the choices that your leadership team are making are aligned with those values even when you're not in the room. Those are examples of clarity in action. And that type of clarity is what allows you to let go of control while also trusting that decisions are being made the right way, that work is being done with a level of quality you're proud of, and that work is moving forward without things falling apart. Now, I want to pause here for a moment because this is where things can get really uncomfortable for folks. I just outlined some of the structural ways to install the type of clarity that allows you to let go of control. But if we're honest, let's admit it, letting go of control can feel scary. And this is where most people get stuck. For a lot of leaders, it's deeply tied to the secret mean voices and the internal sort of extra echoes of shame questions that they ask themselves. Like if I'm not the one making all the decisions, am I somehow letting my Team down or if I don't touch everything, what's my role? I hear this one all the time in coaching calls all the time. Leaders sharing things. Like, I should know how to do this by now and if I let go of too much, everything's gonna spin off and out of control. But here is the critical and powerful reframe that I offer them and that I'm gonna offer you. Letting go of control is not abdication, it's evolution. It's not caring less, it's caring differently. It's about stepping with intentionality out of your role as co operator, running around, helping to do all the things and stepping affirmatively into a new role and a new identity as the architect, the one designing the system and the container so the work can happen without everyone burning out. And yes, that can feel like a loss at first, especially if you have been with the organization a long time. If you are a founder, if you've grown the organization up right through stages of development, it will feel like a different form of leadership. It is a different form of leadership. But without this shift, nothing else works. Without this shift, nothing else works. This shift from control to clarity, to locking in clarity as a core part of your nonprofit's core operating system is actually the shift from that unlocks everything else, your capacity to lead and make decisions at your next level of growth. So here's the reflection I want to leave you with this week. What is one area where you've been holding onto control because you don't trust that things will happen or happen the way you want them to without you? Think about delegation, think about lack of definition, think about, think about fear, right? All of the things that I've touched on that keep us locked into habits of control. Where is one space where clarity could help you shift out of control? Right? Maybe it's as simple as writing down what quote unquote good looks like in one area of work that you want your leadership team to hold? Maybe it's getting clearer about your organizational and team values and about how you are going to explicitly bake them into decision making protocols. Maybe it's naming one clear priority for this quarter that everybody knows and understands and is aligned around. And what are the key results that demonstrate that you're making progress towards that priority. What is the work that needs to be done? Whatever it is, think about choosing one place to practice, moving from control to clarity. Because control isn't our goal, clarity is our goal. And clarity is what frees you up to lead at scale, with calm and with confidence. Without burning out. Now if you're listening to this and thinking this shift, this what she's talking about here would unlock real growth and ease inside my organization and for me as a leader. Fill out my fit check at brooke ritchiebabbage.com fitcheck I will get in touch and I will share how I can support you in locking in this part of your organization's operating system. You can head over to Brookwith gbabbage.com fitcheck or you can text fit check to 66866 and we'll email you the fit check right to your inbox. So that's it for this week. I will see you next week for more Mastermind. And until then, I hope you give yourself some permission to release some of that control and experiment with clarity. Thanks so much for joining me this week. If you enjoy this podcast, I would love for you to leave a rating and a review. I read every single one and they really do matter. I also share extra tidbits and resources building on what we talk about here in my newsletter, Leadership Forward. Three two one. You can sign up by texting the word impact to 66866. And finally, definitely check out the links and resources that I mentioned this episode@brookerichybabbage.com podcast. See you next week.