I don't know about you, but after returning from the holidays, my inbox is intense this week.

My email and social media feeds are chock-full of messages about setting new year's resolutions, how to perfectly plan the year, getting those goals, and lots of other high energy and expectations for what 2024 will become.

As a strategist and advisor, I frequently talk about how important it is to have a vision or direction for where you're headed.

But I have a confession to make.

If you’re thinking about the kind of energy you want to bring into this next year, here’s a little inspiration from my 8-year-old.

Recently, Seth Godin wrote about valuable contributions and the fact that so many leaders and organizations don’t actually know what value they're creating.

It’s an important read, no matter what industry you work in.

The word value itself has become so overused that its meaning is entirely subjective.

In the nonprofit world - for organizations large and small - we tend to see "value" as "impact."

But our value may come from an entirely different place.

Throughout my 20 years of advising and supporting executives across a variety of industries, here are 3 common traits that the best leaders share.

These traits set them apart, help them retain talented team members, and set their organizations up for success.

The hardest part about learning to swim in the ocean is getting past the breakers.

You might be a great swimmer in a pool.

But if you're not used to the relentless rhythm of waves breaking at the shoreline, it's easy to get caught up and thrown around in the churn.

You get knocked down, and before you can catch your breath, another wave pulls you under.

The thing about breakers is that they're ever-present and relentless.

The same is true of the day-to-day challenges of organizational leadership.

Last night, my husband and I did an escape room in complete darkness.

If you're an escape room lover, you'll know that this is unusual.

So many of the strategies for solving puzzles in typical escape rooms require the ability to look around, observe patterns or connected problems, and literally see ways to put puzzles together or decode mysteries.

We've done escape rooms many times, but never one like this.

And it was clear from the moment we walked in that many of the strategies we were used to relying on - ones that had helped us successfully complete dozens of rooms before this - were not going to work here.

Here’s what we had to do to win as a team.

Helping nonprofit leaders understand new tools and approaches that can support their strategy, culture, and success never gets old for me.

Last week, I had the pleasure of speaking at the Sarkeys Foundation Southwest Leadership Forum in Oklahoma City.

In two hands-on sessions over two days, I had the opportunity to share with and learn from nonprofit leaders seeking easier, better, more effective ways of working.

Here are 3 key takeaways from last week.

Halloween is a really special day for me.

In 2014, I was vice president of communications at Food Allergy Research & Education and had the privilege to work with my amazing team to bring an incredible community idea into the national spotlight.

I’ve shared some of the lessons we learned from building a global grassroots movement - the impact of which is still so clear today - in previous writings.

One of those lessons has been on my mind of late because it's critical, yet often underutilized in our sector.

It’s about how we drive corporate investment in social impact movements.

Are you incentivizing your team to build the wrong skills?

As leaders, we’re not just working on our own skill development – we’re influencing and incentivizing the skill development and behaviors of our entire organization.

Some of this skill development is straightforward based on the role and responsibilities of the position.

But sometimes, we encourage our teams to spend time and energy developing the “wrong” skills – ones that meet an immediate need but ultimately detract from our overarching mission, effectiveness, revenue generation, and sustainability.

What does it look like to focus on the “wrong” skills? Here are two common examples.

How do you manage unrealistic expectations from your board (and even your donors) during important planning processes?

Last week, I wrote about a big mistake nonprofit leaders make in their organizational planning processes – overcommitting the team beyond their true capacity. I also described how knowing key data, like your vacancy rate, can help you begin to get a better handle on your true capacity.

But what happens when it’s not you, but the board – or your key donors – who are pushing you to do more or exceed the organization’s capacity?

During planning processes, here are some actions that can help you provide helpful context, right-size expectations, have candid conversations about how the organization can do its best work.