Transformational Leadership

 Information is easy to find in today’s internet and device heavy world. Transformation, however remains as elusive as ever. That’s exactly why Nehemiah exist, to empower the Black community, redesign unjust systems, and transform the face of leadership!

I was reading through our impact reports, looking over the myriad of stories and things that our work is making an impact, and I was struck buy how meaningful the interactions our staff have with our program participants.

In our Reentry program, a resident in our dignity housing celebrated a zero balance on his rent due, because he was utilizing better financial management techniques! They had a past due balance, and worked diligently to pay it off. The resident was so excited they sent a picture of the last payment to our staff so we could celebrate with them!

In another program, M.R. (Male Responsibility), a program focused on missile school boys, we saw the boys cheering each other on in a presentation where they judged each other and competed for the grand prize. Our staff saw the work they’d done with the boys take shape as they listened to each other, expressed encouragement for each project, and created a welcoming environment for each other to compete in. There are adults who struggle with this posture when a prize is on the line!

So how do we create these moments in our programs? Well, we strongly believe we need to develop our staff as transformational leaders before they can develop others as leaders.

One example is at our regular Monday morning meetings (9:45a-11:45a), I presented a topic, Healthy Helping, where I explained the various ways people apply compassion to their work, and the ways that can be healthy or hurtful.

Together we examined active, supportive, environmental, and network compassion. We discussed where each of those types of compassion were best used and how. Then, I asked them to answer a few questions about their empathy rhythm, an idea that people need to rest and recover to truly serve others. 

I’ll leave with a few reflections we wrestled with that morning. Hopefully, these will be transformative for you too!

• People of the opportunity to grow.
• You can care without action.
• You can be caring and harmful in your helping.
• You can be empathetic and lose yourself in the
• torrent of another’s emotions.
• You can be an empathetic enabler.
• You can be a compassionate bandit, robbing

This article was written and contributed by Harry Hawkins.