What a difference a day makes.
Campaign season brings hope, anxiety, excitement, worry, a sense of expansive possibility, and deep uncertainty to the social impact sector. We’re thinking about how these last few days have us feeling the full emotional journey of the campaign season. Maybe (hopefully) you’re breathing a little easier, your shoulders have unlocked a little tension, and you’ve been able to join in on what feels like a collective sigh of relief as we let the possibility and excitement of Kamala Harris’s candidacy wash over us. Take in all that positive energy when it comes.
These are the ups and downs of the season, and your task - if you’re leading a team - is to continue weathering the storms for yourself and for the folks you support. It’s on you to find and hold onto hope and possibility in these high moments, and also in the most uncertain moments, in order to connect with and inspire your team.
Along with the ebb and flow of the news cycle, your team is going to ebb and flow emotionally, spiritually, psychologically.
How are you staying in tune with where they are? Whether it’s elation thanks to a new and energizing candidate or the grind of heads-down work, are you checking in with them? Do you have your finger on the collective pulse? Are you motivating them to connect with each other?
The organizations we work with stake positions on some of the most critical social issues of our time. They’re not on the political sidelines; they’re in the game. The election outcome carries serious repercussions for their missions, and for the people they serve. These repercussions extend deep into their own talent pool as well. Their survival hangs in the balance in this election season — not just their funding and their staff’s future, but a complete social upheaval with the highest stakes.
And because these organizations attract like-minded employees, folks are feeling, personally, the enormous weight and opportunity of our current political climate. Leaders of organizations working in political and mission-driven spaces, and leaders within the campaign world itself, need to focus on two things now and in the months to come: 1) leading their teams through the emotional ups and downs of this campaign cycle, and 2) intentionally building resilience so their work and their people can go on no matter the election outcome.
Honestly, it’s not just the election. The world feels upside down. As of the date of writing this article in July 2024, more than 40,000 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza, there are ongoing wars in Ukraine and Sudan, an attack and erosion of LGBTQ+ rights, the elimination of access to healthcare for women across the country, an existential threat to immigrants and refugees, a warming world. The list goes on.
All that’s happening in the external world impacts your team and its mission. People work with you because they care about the issue or issues you address and the vision to which you aspire. When the world feels like it’s on the precipice of an upswing, they might be feeling energized and hopeful. And when we hit the next “unprecedented” crisis, they might experience fear, panic, rage, numbness, exhaustion. They show up to work with all those emotions in tow. As a leader, you may want to pretend that you can go about the day-to-day as usual, but the reality is that your people are deeply feeling what’s happening outside of work. You have to be mission-focused and drive toward your outcomes, but you can’t get away from the fact that it’s election season — and that our current election is happening in a tornado of global crises.
3 Things Social Impact Leaders Should Do Leading Up to November
So how do you reckon with all those feelings and perspectives among your team? We’re encouraging the leaders with whom we collaborate to take three actions now (and to ask an associated series of questions):
Make space for your team to name and process feelings, out loud and together, and then clarify how their work fits into the bigger picture. What’s in your team’s control? What is beyond your team’s control? What action can your team take to ground itself and to push your organization’s work forward?
Build routines that ensure you’ll come back to the conversation at regular intervals both individually and as a group. If you’re in constant communication with your team you can weather the storm in a steady way instead of managing from crisis to crisis. It’s not a one-and-done. How will you bring the whole team back together, and how will you touch base with your team over time? What are the routines your folks can rely on? How can you encourage connection and emotional resonance?
Build and share strategic scenario plans to give your team a sense of stability so they know where they’re heading, no matter the outcome. What needs to happen now so that you’re prepared for whatever happens in November? Are your people clear on how you’ll respond in each of the win scenarios and in a contested scenario? How are you preparing your team to function under even the highest external stress scenarios?
Your team may look to you for answers. They may hope you can fix the world’s problems. They may long for you to resolve their unease. But that’s not a leader’s job. Your role here is to emphasize relationships and connection. Your job is to invest them in their own self care and in one another, and to create intentional space for folks to check in, express themselves, and identify ways in which they’re unlocking from the constant stress. It’s also to set the vision, to inspire, and to clarify how the team can make impact even in uncertain times and in the face of external forces outside your direct influence.
This isn’t to say you have to conceal your own fears and anxieties behind a brave face. It’s important to show empathy and vulnerability as a leader — by expressing that you feel these emotions too, and admitting that you cannot build solutions on your own. Make space for everyone to share and be heard, yourself included, and then talk about how you all can support each other and do your best work together.
There’s no leadership special sauce required in this moment. Simply an acknowledgement of the gravity and the emotion we’ll all be feeling in these next few months, along with regular check-ins with your team, is what your folks need from you. That’s emotional intelligence in action.
The sweet spot is somewhere between the extremes of demanding that your team operate as usual and letting fear take over — where folks can feel the feels and be passionate about the issues that matter to them while keeping them focused on the greater mission.
It’s a tightrope, for sure. If you need a guiding hand, let’s talk. And we invite you back to this space in the coming weeks as we share more thoughts on how leaders can navigate and plan, whatever the future holds.