Why Not-For-Profit Leadership is a Different Breed

Coming from a retail background, the most significant shift has been moving away daily/weekly/month sales targets toward a focus on a larger purpose. Moving to my current role for a change was simply because I wanted to make a tangible, visible impact.

At Break, we operate in an environment of ‘co-production.’ The people we serve are right there alongside us. This allows you to see the direct results of your work but also fosters a level of open communication that often gets lost in the corporate world. Where you can speak to those your work will be directly impacted.

In all honesty, I didn't choose the charity sector as a career choice. As with many founders I was driven by a sense of necessity to effect some positive change following my own lived experience.

Finnbar's Force was born from the loss of our son Finnbar to a brain tumour when he was five years old. There was no career plan, no real strategy for the charity, just the belief that I could make a difference to families in the future, by closing some of the gaps that we found in the support on offer. I think a big part of it, for me, was also the determination to keep Finnbar’s name alive – I think that it was my way of keeping a bit of him alive.
I have had experience of leadership from a few positions in my career in the NHS, including within the ambulance service and as the lead for the resuscitation area of the local emergency department – a particular challenge throughout COVID – and I have always had a keen interest in leadership styles and in how to be an effective leader.
I do think leading a charity has changed me as a leader. In my earlier career, leadership felt more transactional perhaps – a bit more about motivating a team to achieve goals, outputs, performance. Now I think it's more relationship driven. I think more of my decision making is focused through the lens of lived experience and in the context of; what does this mean for a family going through the journey of childhood cancer, the uncertainty of not knowing what comes next? That keeps you honest and I think leaves little room for ego.

My style has shifted from directing people to a more convening style, bringing people together around a shared purpose rather than driving them toward a target. When your mission is this personal and the impact of what you are doing can be life changing, authentic leadership isn't really a choice, it's more of a necessity.

I’m fortunate that my varied career has allowed me to see things from multiple perspectives; I can usually understand not just what stakeholders are asking for, but the more important why.

Within the Marketing team we are good at planning our projects, that said, the Care environment is uniquely unpredictable. Our care teams working are 24/7, 365 days a year with young people who are often navigating adversity so complex issues can arise without warning. It took time to adapt to that and accept that no matter how much you prepare, the unexpected is inevitable. Fortunately, the network of people at Break are incredibly uplifting I know there’s nothing we can’t tackle together.

It can be a struggle! And one that I haven’t overcome as yet, but it is a learning experience, and I think the honest answer is that it requires a kind of discipline that you sometimes learn the hard way. In the early days, I was probably more inclined to treat each stakeholder relationship slightly differently – I was more inclined to tell people what they wanted to hear, protect them from difficult realities, be cautious at times rather than bold, especially with trustees. I think it took a while to understand that more honesty is required than that.

What I've landed on is a kind of radical consistency, I suppose. The same honesty, the same values, the same version of the story - whether I'm addressing the board, speaking to potential major donor or thanking a volunteer at an event. I think that consistency breeds; it develops a positive culture within your team and inspires confidence in your followers, supporters and beneficiaries. People can tell when you're performing leadership rather than living it.

The other thing I'd say is that accountability to multiple stakeholders isn't actually a burden, it's a safeguard that provides reassurance that you are following the right path. Our trustees challenge, our donors ask hard questions, our volunteers tell us when something isn't working. When you embrace that rather than manage it, you make better decisions - it helps keep you sharp.

While the salary gap is a common talking point, we find that people increasingly value mental wellbeing and lifestyle balance factors that are often overlooked in other industries. We take great pride in offering an elevated benefits package, including a generous holiday allowance and access to counselling and wellbeing services, which are vital for our frontline staff who deal with emotional cases.

The fact that so many people choose to stay in the charity sector long-term proves that the fulfilment and support found here often outweigh a corporate pay check.

You have to be honest about it from the very first conversation. If someone is primarily motivated by financial reward, we're probably not the right fit anyway and that's fine. But the people who are drawn to this kind of work are often motivated by something deeper: purpose, autonomy, the sense that what they do genuinely matters.

What we offer instead is the chance to make a difference. Our team members aren't selling something for a profit; they're helping to change lives. They're creating the opportunity for a family going through one of the worst things imaginable to access support that makes a real difference. You can't put a salary figure on that.

We invest heavily in culture, flexibility and development. We're transparent about our constraints and generous with trust. We treat people as whole human beings, not resources. And we're honest about the emotional weight of the work, which means we take wellbeing seriously and build it into how we operate, not just as a policy commitment.

The people we retain long-term will be those who feel genuinely valued and connected to our mission and that falls squarely as a leadership responsibility.

The biggest misconception is likely about the level of talent. The NFP world is home to exceptionally skilled professionals who deserve the same recognition as their corporate counterparts.

People also don't realise how much variety there is behind the scenes. We are privileged to work on such vibrant, diverse projects like the GoGo Safari that are far from 'run-of-the-mill.' It’s a demanding world, but it’s also an incredibly fun one, where you can find yourself working on unique projects.

That’s a good question! I wonder if there is sometimes a belief that it's somehow easier, or less rigorous, than leading a commercial organisation.

In reality, you could argue that it's harder - you're balancing financial sustainability with ethical purpose - making difficult decisions about resource allocation when the stakes are a family's wellbeing, not a profit margin, and you're leading people who care deeply – all of which can mean the emotional load on a leader can be significant.

Another misconception might be that NFP leaders are purely altruistic and therefore shouldn't need to be ambitious or strategic. But this just isn’t the case - ambition and compassion aren't opposites. At Finnbar's Force, we have a three-year strategy, income targets, a development pipeline and a growth plan. We think hard about sustainability, scalability and impact measurement. We just happen to measure success in families supported and lives changed, rather than profit made or shareholder return.

If anything, the absence of profit as a guiding principle forces you to be clearer about your values and more rigorous about your impact. I don’t think that’s a weakness – it might just be a discipline that commercial leaders could learn from.