Supporting social sector leaders who want to go from surviving to thriving at work
Overcome obstacles and reach your career milestones — without burnout
You’re committed to building a better world. You deserve to enjoy your work.
Imagine if you no longer dreaded Mondays.
You’re hustling more than ever, and the grind is getting to you.
You sense it may be time for a change, but you don’t see any good options.
I’ll listen and affirm your accomplishments and strengths. Together we’ll clarify what’s holding you back. Soon you’ll see the path forward to a career of purpose and joy.
My name is Eleanor Smith (she/her). An experienced leadership coach, I partner with social sector leaders to clarify priorities and build confidence to fulfill career dreams.
I’ve been in your shoes. For the past 30+ years, I have worked in or with nonprofit and philanthropic organizations to help them meet their missions.
I will support you in envisioning the future you want and give you the tools you need to make it happen!
In ten 1:1 coaching sessions, you will:
Identify your personal burnout profile, its impact and the causes
Clarify your core values, the foundation for change
Identify your top career goals and strategies to achieve them without burnout
Create a detailed Beat Burnout Action Plan and timeline
Implement and stay on track with your plan with the support and guidance of an empathetic accountability partner
Tap into internal drivers as you build new habits and begin to enjoy your work and your life again
Beat burnout, gain confidence and build the career of your dreams
A la carte sessions and custom packages are available
“Eleanor’s coaching was instrumental to my career growth. I shared about organizational culture and workplace challenges.
She offered insight and practical suggestions—always with a sense of humor.
Working with Eleanor helped me gain confidence to stretch outside my comfort and reach for my goals.”
-Mia DeJesus, Grants Officer, Energy Foundation
Supercharge your self-confidence with proven strategies
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How you can be happier at work
Read Eleanor’s latest posts with tips and strategies
If you’re like me, you felt despair last week and more than a bit baffled how the election could have turned out the way it did. I know I traveled a long distance through a thicket of emotions.
Image: Cottonbro, Pexels
A student in my Nonprofit Management Certificate Course last semester asked, “Why are nonprofit workers paid so poorly?”
A clinical psychologist, she founded a nonprofit to provide subsidized therapy to low-income clients. In a discussion on nonprofit leadership, she said she’d
Photo: Nordic Overdrive, Pexels
I recently led a half-day workshop on staying well at work for 60 staff members of three nonprofits serving people affected by sexual assault, domestic violence and homelessness.
Photo: Fauxels, Pexels
Like you, I’ve been busy the last few weeks. Sitting down to share my thoughts about leadership, organization culture and workplace wellbeing has been challenging. More soon on what I’ve been up to—all good!
After listening to a recent podcast, I decided I just had to share it.
Photo: Pixabay, Pexels
After college, I worked as an entry-level staffer in a small nonprofit founded and led by an imposing, outspoken man decades older than me.
One day he came into the department where I worked to propose a sweeping change that would double our team's workload without adding new staff.
My co-workers agreed with me that the idea was terrible, but the head of our department wasn’t willing to challenge the boss.
Photo: Vitaly Gariev, Pexels
Last time, I shared several ways nonprofit executives can take good care of themselves and keep burnout at bay.
This post I'll talk about how to build and maintain a positive, healthy culture at work so staff feel supported to do their best work and stick around.
An organization's culture is not the list of values on the website, nor the mission.
Photo: Alexander Suhorucov, Pexels
I just heard about the CEO of a small nonprofit who took a month off recently due to burnout. She'd been hospitalized before because of work stress.
Back at work and starting to feel overwhelmed again, she doesn’t see a way out and seems ready to, once again, sacrifice her health for “the cause.”
Photo: Vlada Karpovich, Pexels
I wrote last time about how burnout – and burnout denial -- are rampant in our sector.
A new book offers hope to prevent everyday stress from burning us out.
First, let’s be clear what "burnout denial" means. Burnout denial is the tendency we have to ignore, minimize, rationalize or otherwise deny that our bodies and minds are hurting from chronic work stress.
Photo: Kampus Production, Pexels
I recently lost a good friend. Privileged on several fronts and super-smart, she had meaningful work, close friendships and warm collegial relationships.
But, like many of us, she risked her health by not managing chronic stress symptoms – which the doctors said contributed to her death.
Photo: Cottonbro Studio, Pexels
Among the reasons people come to me for coaching is to gain clarity before making a high-stakes decision.
Some need to figure out their next career move, when to leave a job, the best time to retire or whether and how to start a consulting practice.
How do you respond to work letdowns? Over the course of my long career, my initial reactions to setbacks have run the gamut from getting mad and feeling scared to beating myself up. I’ve also scratched my head and asked, “Huh? What just happened?”
Photo: Yan Krukov, Pexels
True or False: “If you love what you do, you’ll never burn out.”
Back in the day, I loved being a freelance journalist for magazines and newspapers. I’d get intrigued by a subject then get an editor interested too. To research my article, I’d follow every scent in pursuit of lightning-bolt insights.
Photo: RDNE Stock Project, Pexels
Echoing what my nonprofit management students and coaching clients describe, two recent studies paint a mixed picture of nonprofit leadership. BIPOC and white leaders alike are passionate about their work to solve important social and environmental issues, but often feel overwhelmed by their jobs.
Photo: Vlada Karpovich, Pexels
We may be perched on the edge of a radical shift in our relationship to our work. When Senator Bernie Sanders introduced a bill to reduce the national work week to 32 hours for full-time pay, he noted that Americans work longer hours than workers in any other wealthy nation.
Photo: Andrea Piaquadio, Pexels
Quiet quitting. The 4-Day Week. Slow Productivity.
How can we make work sustainable?
If you’ve been following my posts, you may know that I am obsessed with how people relate to their work. While I write specifically to social sector leaders, I’m really speaking to myself and anyone else who struggles to balance their passion for mission-driven work with taking good care of themselves.
Photo: Monica Silvestre, Pexels
An early coaching client was a nonprofit leader who was feeling pinched between her boss’ exacting standards and a new employee who was having trouble settling in. During our sessions, the client identified ways to communicate clearly what was expected of her new staffer as well as training to grow her technical skills. Bigger challenges were the different personalities
Photo: Yan Krukau, Pexels
A colleague recently shared her secret to success as a long-time nonprofit leader: She errs on the side of kindness with her staff. On many occasions, she hired women who were several months pregnant after they’d been passed over by other employers.
Photo: Andrea Piacquadio, Pexels
Ever wondered why some bosses are both more likeable and more effective? Their secret may be a cluster of skills known collectively as “emotional intelligence.”
Photo: Mental Health America, Pexels
We’ve all been there. We’re speaking with a colleague, a friend, our child or our partner about something they’re uneasy about. At some point we feel uncomfortable or pressed for time. To end the conversation quickly, we offer insensitive advice, such as “Here’s what you need to do”.
Photo: Ron Lach, Pexels
Last time, I introduced Gretchen Rubin’s Four Tendencies (4T) framework -- the different ways we respond to others' requests and expectations, as well as our own. Here I’ll offer ideas for getting the most from our teams by customizing how we work with each person’s tendency. First a brief story.
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The start of a new year is a great time to consider ways to create new habits to advance our goals -- and an opportune time to learn new leadership skills.
Photo: Sora Shimazaki, Pexels
“Trust is the coin of the realm,” former Secretary of State George Schultz said on his 100th birthday. “When trust was in the room … good things happened. When it wasn't, good things didn't happen. Everything else was details.”
One of my clients told me that the chance to move up in her career had been a key reason for taking a job a few
Photo: RDNE-Stock-Project, Pexels
I led a session recently on preventing workplace burnout. Participants -- nonprofit executives -- understood the famous Peter Drucker quote: “Culture eats strategy for breakfast.”
Knowing it’s on them to set the tone of their workplace, they shared some of the ways they are promoting their employees' well-being:
Invite the whole person to show up by including personal checkins at staff meetings
Educate yourself so you’ll recognize signs of overwhelm and burnout in your team
Photo: RDNE-Stock-Project, Pexels
You may not have a boss who yells, bangs on tables or insults you. But you likely had one -- at some point -- who occasionally made you feel unsafe in other ways.
Photo: Andrea Piacquadio, Pexels
We’ve all been there. Something we’d hoped and worked hard for didn’t pan out. We fell short.
“What went wrong? Was it my fault—or was it due to a weird wrinkle in the universe?”
Photo: Christina-WOCintech, Unsplash
Do you sometimes feel like a fraud? Or fear being outed for lacking the abilities, experience or qualities needed to properly do your work or shift to something new?
Photo by Prateek Katyal
What do you do when your supervisor asks you to take on more work than you can manage without overwhelm? What if the work isn’t related to your core work—or is "uncompensated cognitive labor”?
Photo: Yan Krukaw, Pexels
When you’ve made the tough decision to leave your job, what lessons about yourself and what matters to you will you take with you to ensure success at your next situation?
Photo: Cottonbro Studio, Pexels
How do you respond when your boss asks you to take on more work than you can manage? How risky does it feel to ask for what you need?
Photo: Kampus Production
How cautious are you when learning something new? Do you prefer to feel 100% competent before trying it out in the real world or do you like to wing it and see what happens?
Photo: Maja Kochanowska, Unsplash