Action Tips on This Topic from Founder and Principal Consultant of Heightened Development, Chamlee McGuire and Introduction of Ginny Waller
Heightened Development has written on this topic a few times before and also has this downloadable tool that allows you to get started right away. This step-by-step tool will help you assess the decision-making areas for each role you supervise and work collaboratively with each team member to define their authority and identify ways to help them take more and more decisions and details off your plate. This allows you to intentionally grow their capacity, distributing more leadership and decision-making authority throughout the organization.
Heightened Development welcomes Ginny Waller as a guest writer on this topic. Chamlee and Ginny work together on a number of projects and have mutual respect for each other’s expertise- often through learning from failures and growth in the field.
Ginny Waller is the Founder and Principal Advisor of Waller Consulting, LLC, a woman-owned firm based in Northern Virginia that specializes in nonprofit leadership transitions, strategic planning, and governance.
Leading Beyond the Center: Real Talk on Distributed Leadership
By Ginny Waller, Waller Consulting LLC
In the nonprofit world, we talk a lot about leadership, but too often, what we really mean is the leader: the person in the corner office with the title, the inbox, and the never-ending to-do list.
I’ve been that person. And I can tell you: that model doesn’t work for long.
Real leadership isn’t about having all the answers. It’s about building systems and trust so others can lead too. That’s the heart of distributed leadership: shared power, clear roles, and the belief that leadership should live everywhere, not just at the top.
Learning to Share the Load
When I led Sexual Trauma Services of the Midlands, I learned the hard way that trying to be the center of everything was a one-way ticket to burnout.
I was juggling media requests, donor meetings, program oversight, and community advocacy, all while trying to run an organization that served thousands of survivors each year. It wasn’t sustainable, and it wasn’t smart.
So I started intentionally sharing leadership. One small but powerful example: I trained my leadership team to handle media interviews.
We built a process for vetting requests and preparing responses, and my team became the organization’s subject matter experts and spokespeople. They owned their work, and I trusted them to represent the mission with confidence and clarity.
That practice was symbolic of something much bigger. Over time, the leadership team developed a deep sense of ownership. It wasn’t my organization anymore; it was ours. By the end of my tenure, it was as much their baby as it was mine.
That’s distributed leadership in real life: giving people the structure, authority, and trust to lead within their lane, and then watching them rise to it.
How Leaders Can Start Distributing Leadership
If you’re a nonprofit leader reading this and thinking, “Yes, but how do I actually do that?” here are two places to start.
1. Practice What You Preach
Start with self-awareness and assessment. Take a real look at your staff and volunteer team: who holds influence, who’s ready for more, and who needs coaching or clarity to grow into leadership.
Then let go where you can. Delegate with intention and check in with curiosity instead of control. Ask questions like:
- “What do you need from me to move forward?”
- “Who else needs to be part of this decision?”
- “What would success look like if you led this?”
When you shift from doing to developing, you build capacity that lasts. You’ll get more off your plate, and your team will feel ownership of the mission — not just compliance with your to-do list.
2. Lead with a Solutions-First Mindset
I believe deeply in solutions-first leadership. If you come to me with a problem, come with at least one possible solution too.
That’s not about perfection; it’s about mindset. Coaching your team to think this way builds problem-solving muscles across the organization.
Here’s the trick: put on your coaching hat, not your supervisor hat.
Instead of giving answers, ask questions that help people find their own:
- “What options have you considered?”
- “What do you think would happen if we tried that?”
- “What support would make this solution stick?”
You’ll still guide decisions, but your staff and volunteers will start coming to you not just with problems — but with ideas, energy, and ownership.