My Focus is My Locus: The tension between doing the mission and managing the people doing it.
May's workshops focus on people management, hiring, and compassionate leadership. This piece should speak to what it actually feels like to lead a team inside a nonprofit, where the mission is urgent, resources are limited, and the people you manage are often just as passionate and stretched as you are.
Prompts to consider
What does it feel like to be responsible for both the mission and the people carrying it out at the same time?
What is something you wish someone had told you earlier about managing people in this sector?
What does compassionate leadership actually look like on a hard day, not in theory, but in practice?
Have you ever had to choose between what was best for the mission and what was best for your team? How did you navigate that?
What does a healthy team culture look like in a nonprofit, and what gets in the way of building it?
Shana's Submission
For me, one of the most enduring leadership lessons is this: where we place our attention shapes what we are able to build.
Right now, endless distractions compete for our focus. We are under constant pressure to react immediately to political chaos, attacks on democratic participation, shrinking resources, culture wars, and fear-based narratives. But sustainable leadership, especially in challenging times, cannot be built in a perpetual state of reaction.
That is why my personal mantra this season has been: My focus is my locus.
At CEN, we are centering our attention on the work that endures and on the areas where we can have meaningful impact. We remain committed to strengthening organizations long after the news cycle changes and helping leaders navigate complexity without abandoning their values or themselves.
We also recognize that leadership and political power are deeply connected. When communities lose access to representation, voting protections, or equitable participation, nonprofits often become part of the civic infrastructure that helps hold democracy together at the local level.
That work matters deeply to me personally. I come from a family that helped shape the Civil Rights Movement in the American South, and I have never taken for granted that our rights are permanently secure. They must be protected, exercised, and strengthened across generations. I carry that commitment into my role at CEN, where we support organizations and leaders doing the hard work of protecting democracy, advancing civic participation, and upholding the dignity of every community.
CEN’s focus remains clear: leadership development, healthy governance, courageous conversations, collaboration, and strengthening organizations so they can continue to act with integrity under pressure, even in the most daunting moments.
Focused leadership is not light work. In times like these, it is transformational.