http://www.homegrownstrategies.work/

HomeGrown Strategies, LLC, Madison, AL (2026)

05/28/2026

I had to learn this one the hard way.
Sharing my thinking out loud comes naturally to me. I can walk someone through my reasoning, name the tradeoffs, explain what I'm watching for. That part flows.

What doesn't come naturally is sharing the big-picture “why” underneath all of it.

Because for me, it's intuitive.
I assume that if I explain my thinking clearly enough, the other person will arrive at the same picture I'm already seeing.

Over and over, I've learned: that's not how it works.

We hear the task.
We nod.
We think we're aligned.

But we're picturing entirely different things in our minds.

And we don't discover that until the work comes back — and something is off in a way that's hard to even articulate, because the pieces are technically all there.

They just don't add up to what you were seeing.

Here's the image I keep coming back to.

🧩 A 1,000-piece jigsaw puzzle in a blank box.

All the pieces are there. The instructions are clear. Everyone is working hard.

But without the picture on the box — without the shared image of what we're building toward — it is genuinely, unnecessarily hard to make the pieces line up.

The picture on the box is the big-picture why.

Not the task. Not the thinking behind the task.
The larger context.
The reason it matters in the way it matters right now.

For some of us, that picture lives so naturally in our heads that we forget it hasn't transferred.

This is one of the patterns the Confidare Leadership Self-Assessment surfaces — not because leaders aren't strategic, but because translating strategic thinking into shared context is its own distinct skill, and most leaders haven't had anyone name it as a gap.

It takes about 10 minutes. You get your results immediately. It's built for mid-level nonprofit leaders — not executive advice that doesn't fit your day-to-day reality.

If you've ever looked at finished work and thought "this isn't what I meant" — start here: https://hgswork.com/leader-assess

It won't tell you to add more to your plate.
It'll help you see where you could leverage a small shift — so the work already leaving your hands lands the way you intended.

05/26/2026

Watching a team get right up to the edge of a hard conversation — and then back away from it — is one of the most familiar moments in this work.

I facilitated a cohort session recently with a strong team. Real trust. Complex problem, with real people-dynamics sitting underneath it. And I could see the moment where the easier move was to talk around the thing instead of through it.

That's when a story I've carried for years showed up — one Rory Vaden tells about cows and buffaloes on the plains.

I shared it. And I asked the room to be the buffalo.

Not as bravado. Not as a "just say the hard thing" demand. As an invitation to trust what they'd built — enough trust to name what was actually happening, take turns leading through it, and refuse the comfort of false harmony.

Because false harmony has a cost. The hard thing doesn't leave the room. It just stops being said out loud. And the people who were already carrying it keep carrying it.

If you lead a team — or sit on one — what storm has your team been circling?

05/22/2026

There’s a moment that happens almost every time I bring leaders together from different cities.
Within 20 minutes, someone says...

“Wait. You’re dealing with that too?”

The specifics are different.
Different funder.
Different board.
Different local politics.
Different program.
Different zip code.

But the shape of what they’re carrying is often the same.

I see this almost every cohort. A leader who has been quietly convinced their situation is uniquely impossible discovers that the pattern is bigger than their building.

That recognition matters.

Not because it makes the hard thing easier — it doesn’t.

But because it changes the story you’ve been telling yourself about what’s wrong with you, your team, or your organization.

The work is still hard. But the hard isn’t a verdict on your leadership. It’s just the shape of mid-level nonprofit work right now.

If you’re leading and you feel like you’re the only one figuring this out alone — you’re not.

The work is hard because the work is hard. Not because you’re failing at it.

So here’s a small move I’d offer:

Find a few peers who don’t share your funder, your board, or your zip code.

Tell them the truth about your week.

See what happens.

You might be surprised how quickly it stops feeling like you’re carrying it alone — and starts feeling like a pattern you can finally name out loud.

Creating this type of shared space is the intention behind the Confidare Leadership Cohort.
Visit https://homegrownstrategies.work/confidare to learn more.

05/22/2026

There's a moment that happens almost every time I bring leaders together from different cities.
Within 20 minutes, someone says...

"Wait. You're dealing with that too?"

The specifics are different.
Different funder.
Different board.
Different local politics.
Different program.
Different zip code.

But the shape of what they're carrying is often the same.

I see this almost every cohort. A leader who has been quietly convinced their situation is uniquely impossible discovers that the pattern is bigger than their building.

That recognition matters.

Not because it makes the hard thing easier — it doesn't.

But because it changes the story you've been telling yourself about what's wrong with you, your team, or your organization.

The work is still hard. But the hard isn't a verdict on your leadership. It's just the shape of mid-level nonprofit work right now.

If you're leading and you feel like you're the only one figuring this out alone — you're not.

The work is hard because the work is hard. Not because you're failing at it.

So here's a small move I'd offer:

Find a few peers who don't share your funder, your board, or your zip code.

Tell them the truth about your week.

See what happens.

You might be surprised how quickly it stops feeling like you're carrying it alone — and starts feeling like a pattern you can finally name out loud.

What's a recent moment when something you thought was just yours turned out to be shared?

05/19/2026

Failing forward sounds great on a poster.

In practice, most of us are still waiting until we have the full plan before we let our team try anything.

The bigger the change you’re trying to make, the more you want to get it right the first time.

So you plan.
You convene.
You build the deck.
You delay.

By the time you launch, the conditions have changed and the plan is already partially wrong.

I love decorating. And decorating teaches you one thing fast — you don’t pick a paint color off the little chip.

The chip looks one way in the store and another way on your own wall, in your own light. So you buy the sample, brush a patch where it’ll actually go, and you live with it for a few days.

Morning light.
Evening light.
Next to your own furniture.

You’re not being indecisive. You just want to see what the color actually does in your house before you commit a whole room to it.

A test patch isn’t indecision. It’s information — real data instead of the version you imagined.

Leading change works the same way. The team doesn’t need the whole plan. They need one honest test they can run, watch, and learn from — then adjust and run again.

That’s change management. Not the size of the plan. The quality of the tests.

It’s one of the six competencies I coach in the Confidare Leadership Cohort, and it’s the one leaders most often assume they’ve handled — because they’re good at planning. But planning was never the hard part.

Failing forward isn’t a mindset.

It’s a method.

What’s one small test you could run on a change you’ve been planning for too long?

P.S. If you want to see how all six competencies fit together, I’ve put the link in the comments.

05/14/2026

I've been working on something behind the scenes, and I'm excited to finally share it with you 🎉

So many mid-level nonprofit leaders are carrying enormous responsibility—but doing it without the support, development, or guidance their role actually requires.

That’s why I created Confidare Leadership Cohort: a 9-month leadership development experience built specifically for leaders navigating the messy middle of nonprofit leadership.

Confidare (kon-fee-DAH-ray)
comes from the Latin: *to trust, together.*

This cohort was designed for the program directors, department heads, and managers expected to lead teams, navigate complexity, and drive results—often without a clear roadmap for how to grow into the next level of leadership.

Over 9 months, you'll build the leadership skills that actually shape how the work gets done.

Together, we'll focus on:
✅ Communication that builds clarity and trust
✅ Performance management that strengthens teams
✅ Change management and problem-solving in real-time
✅ Resilience that helps you lead sustainably
✅ Leadership and vision that move people forward

💡 This isn't leadership theory you'll forget by Friday. It’s structured, practical development designed for the realities of nonprofit leadership.

🟠 The waitlist is now open:
https://hgswork.com/confidare-waitlist

05/12/2026

In a recent leadership cohort I facilitated, more than 40% of participants named resilience as what resonated most.

Here's what I want to say about that.

When most of us hear "resilience," we picture the individual version.

The leader who kept showing up.
The team member who didn't quit.
The boss who stayed steady through the storm.

But individual resilience is not what carries an organization through hard seasons.

Team resilience does that.
And team resilience isn't grit.
It's not pep talks.
It's not telling people they're strong.

It's the quality of the connections between people when things get hard.

It's whether your team can name what's actually happening, ask each other for help, disagree without falling apart, and recover together when something goes sideways.

You don't build that through inspiration. You build it through practice — the small, ordinary moments where a team learns it can be honest with itself.

If your team feels brittle right now, the work isn't to make people tougher.

The work is to make the connections between them stronger.

05/07/2026

For a long time, I was the leader who answered every question. Someone called — I picked up. Someone had a problem — I solved it. Someone needed a decision — I made it.

And I told myself it was because I was helpful.

What I didn’t want to look at:

My identity was wrapped up in being the one with the answers.

Being needed felt like being valuable. Being available felt like being good at this.

So I answered questions at night. On weekends. Between meetings, in the car, before coffee.

I couldn’t try anything differently — because I was too busy doing the thing that wasn’t working.

Here’s what finally shifted it:

I stopped giving answers and started narrating my thinking out loud.

Not just “what do you think?” — because that can land as pressure when someone is still learning.

But:

Here’s what I’m wondering.
Here’s the risk I’m holding in mind.
Here’s what I’d want to know before I decided.
Here are the two options I’m weighing and why.

I let them hear the logic.

The strategic considerations. The risk lens. What I was listening for and why it mattered.

Not a lecture — a window into how I got to the answer.

And something started to change.

About 8 months later, I opened my calendar on a Tuesday morning and had 2 hours blocked for strategic work.

Not because I’d fought for them.
Not because I’d stayed up late to create them.
Just — they were there.

Because the questions that used to fill those hours were handled.

My team member sent me a message at 9am:

“Here’s what I think we should do about the client situation and here’s why. Flagging in case you want to weigh in before I move forward.”

I read it. It was right.

I replied: “Go for it.”

That was it.

No call.
No 40-minute problem-solving session.
No me mentally carrying it for the rest of the day.

My 1:1s shifted too.

Instead of putting out fires, we talked about their development. What they were noticing. What they were ready to take on next.

The conversation had room in it — because there wasn’t a backlog of unresolved decisions sitting between us.

I left those meetings energized instead of drained.

And the work they were producing? Stronger.

Because they weren’t just executing tasks anymore.

They were thinking.
They were owning.
They were leading.

That’s what this shift makes possible.

Not just a better-functioning team — though it’s that.

Not just your time back — though it’s that too.

It’s the version of leadership where you’re doing the work you were hired to do.

Where your capacity goes to the problems that need your level of thinking.

Where your team doesn’t need you less — they just need you differently.

If you’re the leader who answers every question right now — I’m not here to shame that.

You got there because you care and you’re capable.

But there’s a more sustainable version ahead of you.

What would it look like to come to work on a Tuesday and find 2 hours that are actually yours?

05/05/2026

We don't just "should" on our staff.
We should on our peers. We should on our bosses. We should on ourselves.

We should in every direction, all day long — and most of the time, we don't even notice we're doing it.

With our staff, we forget what it felt like to be newer. To not have the context. To be several levels removed from the decisions being made about your work — without full explanation, without being asked, without your reality being part of the calculation.

We forget what it's like to be pulled in twelve directions with half the information and none of the authority.

And so we think:
"I figured it out. Why can't they?" "I did it once. What's so hard about this?" "They should know better by now."

With our peers and our leaders, we judge the ones who don't share our values, our approach, our way of seeing things — as if our way is simply the correct one and theirs is the gap.

And then we turn all of it inward.

We hold ourselves to the same unforgiving standard — and judge ourselves just as harshly when we fall short of it.

Here's what I've watched happen in coaching conversations, over and over:

A leader comes in frustrated. Someone on their team or a peer isn't responding to emails promptly. It feels disrespectful. Inconsiderate. Like not being a team player.

They've been judging it for months.

And then — in the same conversation — we start looking at their own calendar.

Their whole day is consumed with responding to everyone else's requests. They drop whatever they had planned the moment something comes in. They're context-shifting constantly. They're exhausted. They can't move their own work forward.

The core need, when we finally name it: boundaries.

So we explore it. What if you blocked time for your own strategic work? Closed email during that window? Held certain requests for specific days?

The reaction is immediate:

"That would make me inconsiderate. A bad team player."

The same words. The exact same judgment — now pointed at themselves.

And then the question: if you don't protect time to move your own strategies forward, what does that cost the team?

The pause.

The slow realization.

"...Maybe the people I was judging don't lack consideration. Maybe they just have boundaries. And they're trying to get their work done."

That's the lightbulb.

Not a framework. Not a five-step plan.

Just: oh.

Maybe what I've been calling a character flaw in someone else is actually something I desperately need for myself.

Maybe what I've been judging is simply one side of a many-sided coin.

And maybe grace — for them, and for yourself — is actually where the real shift starts.

Where are you "shoulding" right now — and what might it be telling you about what you need?

04/30/2026

When a performance issue goes unaddressed, you usually don't lose the person who's underperforming.

You lose your best people.

Because your strongest team members are the ones with options.

And they're paying close attention to whether standards are real here.

Here's the part most leadership content won't say directly:

It's not just avoiding the hard conversation that costs you.
It's having the conversation once and then punting on the follow-through.

That's the move your best people read most clearly — because they're the ones who've been quietly covering, adjusting, picking up the slack while waiting to see what you'll do.

I've watched a version of this play out more times than I want to count.

The strongest person on the team — the one you most wanted to keep — walks in with a resignation letter.
Polite. Two weeks. No drama.

And the person who wasn't meeting expectations is still there.

Avoiding a hard conversation doesn't protect the team.
It slowly dismantles it.

But here's the part worth staying for:
When you do address it — and keep addressing it — the team notices.

You don't have to disclose anything. They can see the signals.

They see you pulled someone aside.

They see the work starting to shift.

And then something quiet happens. The team exhales.

Not because the problem disappeared overnight.

Because they can see that someone is paying attention.

That expectations are real.

That they're not on their own, carrying someone else's weight while leadership looks the other way.

That's what holding the line on accountability actually looks like.

Not punishment. Not public embarrassment.

Just steady, consistent follow-through that tells the team:
I see what's happening.
I'm not ignoring it.
And your effort matters enough to protect.

Your best people don't need you to be perfect.

They need to know that doing great work here actually means something.

If you asked your strongest team members what they're waiting to see from leadership right now, what do you think they'd say?

Once a month, I send practical tools for exactly this kind of leadership work — accountability scripts, feedback frameworks, and decision aids built for nonprofit leaders.
👉 Sign up here: homegrownstrategies.work/newsletter/

HomeGrown Strategies, LLC

05/28/2026

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