In non-profit organizations, leadership is not only tested when programs expand, donations increase, or performance indicators improve. Leadership is initially tested when employees begin to ask difficult questions: Who decides? On what basis? Why are some voices absent from the decision-making table? Are the values we proclaim in our messages, on our websites, and in our annual reports truly present in the details of daily work?

This article, adapted with limited alterations from the platform Nonprofit Quarterly by Dax-Devlon Ross, does not treat internal conflicts as mere administrative disruptions, but sees them as a mirror revealing the deep relationship among power, trust, and justice within organizations with social missions. Although the article has an American backdrop related to historical contexts linked to racial justice and civil rights movements, its managerial lesson is broader than its context: every organization that promotes the values of transparency, accountability, and fairness must ask itself how these values are translated into decision-making structures, in management's relationship with employees, and in the organization's connection to the community it claims to serve.

When Power Becomes a Question, Not a Position

In recent years, many organizations have begun to reconsider the traditional hierarchical leadership model; a model that centralizes decision-making at the top while those closest to actual work remain distant from areas of influence. In the American context from which the article emerges, this discussion is connected to a deeper accountability of historical structures that allowed inequalities to persist and reproduced privileges within institutions even when those institutions raised slogans of justice and change.

However, the idea does not stop at that context alone. Every organization, regardless of its field or environment, may find itself in the same paradox: it talks about empowerment while being managed internally with a centralized mindset; it calls for participation while sensitive decisions are made in narrow circles; it asks its employees to believe in the mission, but does not provide them with enough clarity about their roles, limits of authority, and what is expected from them.

Here begins the challenge of power, not necessarily as a rebellion, but as a legitimate organizational question: Is leadership practiced in accordance with the values the organization declares?

Young Employees Do Not Reject Leadership; They Reject Ambiguity

One of the key ideas of the article is that many employees, especially from younger generations, do not engage in internal conflicts because they oppose leadership or reject the system, but because they feel they entered the organization with a promise different from what they found in reality.

They were presented with an image of work, meaning, mission, and values, but later discovered that the systems were unclear, roles were overlapping, and an employee might be assigned a job only to be asked to perform another job, and putting in extra effort is expected without adequate compensation or recognition. Meanwhile, the values of transparency and accountability that appear in public discourse may seem incomplete, postponed, or open to inconsistent interpretations internally.

From here, employees lose trust and begin to demand clearer systems, more transparent decisions, and broader participation in what affects their work. The issue is not in the essence of the demand, but in the way it is perceived. Some leaders view these demands as nuisances or disruptions, while mature leadership sees them as early indicators of a gap that needs to be addressed before it turns into a deeper crisis.

Similarity in Identity Is Not Enough to Build Trust

In the background of the article, the author discusses the emergence of leaders from marginalized backgrounds into leadership positions within organizations working in social justice. It was expected that this rise would ease employee tensions, as the new leader shares an experience, identity, or historical background with them; however, what happened in many cases was more complex, as similarity in identity was not enough to build trust.

This is an important managerial lesson that can be understood outside the American context; having a leader who is close in age, background, language, or experience to the workers does not automatically mean the organization has become more just or clear. Trust is not built solely on symbolism, but through practice: How are decisions made? How are they explained? Who is consulted? Who is excluded? What are the limits of participation?

Leadership is measured not only by what the leader represents but also by what they do when they are in power.

Conflict Is Not a Deviation from Work

The article asserts that the history of social movements, including civil rights movements in the United States, has not been a history of constant agreement, but also of conflict. Disagreements over direction, means, and decision-making ownership were an inherent part of the change process, and it is erroneous to treat every internal conflict as a threat to the organization’s prestige or a deviation from its mission.

Conflict can be annoying, but it is not always harmful, and at times it can be the way through which the organization reveals areas of ambiguity, accumulation, and silence. Conflict may be a sign that there are employees who still care enough to object, question, and demand a course correction.

The real danger is not always in the raising of voices, but at times in their complete silence; when people stop asking because they have lost hope that anything will change.

Justice-Centered Leadership Begins with Safety

The author introduces the concept of justice-centered leadership, which recognizes that many people enter the work environment carrying past experiences of betrayal, exclusion, ambiguity, or unmet promises. Therefore, this leadership does not start by demanding immediate trust from people, but begins with building the conditions for trust.

The first of these conditions is safety: not emotional safety in a superficial sense, but institutional safety: employees know their role, what is expected of them, how decisions are made, what they have the right to influence, what is not within their authority, and what happens if expectations are not met.

A mature leader does not pretend to have all the answers but acknowledges what they do not know, seeks help, and shifts from the image of “the all-knowing authority” to that of a responsible partner in the work. This acknowledgment does not weaken the leadership, but rather grants it greater authenticity, as it tells people: You are visible, your presence matters, and your voice is not merely a marginal detail in the organization.

Clarity Is Not an Option

In the absence of clarity, people create their own narratives and fill gaps with expectations, assumptions, interpretations, and perhaps doubts. Therefore, a justice-centered leader makes clarity a daily responsibility.

They clarify where they seek consensus, where they need commitment, where the decision is conclusive, and then specify who has decision-making authority, how the decision-making process works, and what the limits of participation are. They also explain roles, expectations, consequences, and draw boundaries gently, providing information without overwhelming.

Here, clarity is not just an organizational procedure but a form of respect; an employee who knows their position and boundaries can succeed or consciously decide that this place is not suitable for them. Ambiguity keeps everyone in a state of continuous exhaustion.

Getting Closer to Actual Work Instead of Managing from Afar

The first practice proposed by the article is for the leader to get closer to actual work. As some organizations grow, they build layers of accumulated management: managers overseeing managers, with long distances and many intermediaries between the decision-making center and daily work. Over time, those closest to needs and impacts become the farthest from decision-making.

The justice-centered leader recognizes this gap and seeks to minimize it, which may require difficult decisions, such as removing bureaucratic layers, redesigning structures, or bringing frontline managers closer to the decision-making table. These steps are not easy as they may affect existing roles and beloved individuals within the organization, but they are sometimes necessary if the structure itself prevents the true voice of work from reaching authority.

The goal is not to confuse the organization, but to ensure that those closest to the problem are also closer to the necessary resources and decisions to address it.

Empowering Collective Solutions

The second practice is empowering collective solutions. Many employees demand participation in decision-making, but they may lack the practical experience to engage in this participation effectively. This does not mean excluding them, but rather training them, empowering them, and building their capacity for collective thinking and problem-solving.

The article indicates that democratic work within the organization is not just a slogan, but rather a skill that people need to learn alongside how to articulate the problem, sort through options, disagree without collapsing, vote, bear the group’s decision, and sometimes accept an incomplete answer. Participation is not an endless open meeting; it is an organized process that requires patience, tools, and clear boundaries.

When leadership offers shared learning spaces, they do not just address decision-making but also address the relationship and the people who sit together to solve a real problem and learn how to listen to each other, thus becoming more capable of carrying the message together.

Accountability to the Community, Not Just to Funders

The third practice is rebuilding accountability to the community. The article highlights an important shift in the American non-profit sector: many organizations that were once based on grassroots members and communities have become closer over time to networks of professional employees, boards of directors, and donors, and the communities for which programs are raised are not always genuinely part of the decision-making process.

This idea is crucial for any non-profit organization; accountability should not only flow upward to the board or funders or annual reports but also descend to beneficiaries and the community. While the organization has the right to benefit from administrative and funding expertise, the risk arises when the perceptions of elites or donors replace an understanding of the people for whom programs were designed.

Some methods mentioned in the article to bridge this gap include involving the community in research, organized listening, and designating seats or advisory councils for beneficiaries, youth, or relevant groups.

While these solutions may not always be ideal, they represent serious beginnings in reconnecting the organization with those it works on behalf of.

When the Community Participates in Planning

The author presents an example of a strategic planning process led by community members themselves, not just the board of directors. A group of community individuals designed the research questions, identified whom to listen to, reviewed the findings, and then selected the organization's strategic priorities.

This step was fraught with risks: What if the community came up with priorities that the organization does not know how to implement? What if the board does not agree? What if donors are not satisfied with the new direction? But leadership accepted this possibility because it believed that a true connection with the community is more important than remaining within the comfort zone defined by a limited number of well-meaning supporters.

This example presents organizations with a fundamental question: Do we want to serve the community as we envision from our offices, or as it understands its needs from its reality?

Do Not Let Conflict Swallow the Message

Although the article advocates for listening, participation, and accountability, it does not call for the organization to remain caught in endless cycles of objections. The justice-centered leader knows that people can drain themselves and their organizations in side battles or conflicts that do not bring them closer to the primary goal.

Therefore, the leader does not merely listen to difficult feedback but steers it towards practical questions: What does this mean for our work? How does it bring us closer to our goals? How does it improve the reality of beneficiaries? How does it make the organization more capable of fulfilling its mission?

In this sense, justice-oriented leadership is not weak leadership; it is attentive without drowning, it opens the field without losing direction, acknowledges pain, and simultaneously redirects people back to the purpose.

What Can Non-Profit Organizations Learn?

The most important lesson from this article is that power within non-profit organizations is not just a purely administrative matter but a matter of trust. When trust evaporates, every decision-making process becomes questionable, every communication gap becomes an entry point for tension, and every small disagreement is subject to escalation into a crisis.

However, trust is not built through inspiring speeches or beautiful phrases about values; it is built when people understand how the organization is managed, why decisions are made, who participates in them, what the limits of each role are, how objections can be made without fear, and how disagreements can occur without leading to a rupture.

From a lateral reading, the mature organization is not the one devoid of conflict but the one that knows how to turn it into learning. It is not the one that grants everyone absolute power; it is the one that distributes clarity and responsibility fairly. It is not one that makes the community a title in its mission, but one that keeps it present in understanding needs, prioritizing, and measuring impact.

Leadership That Rebuilds Legitimacy from Within

In conclusion, this article does not provide a ready-made recipe for managing power within non-profit organizations but poses a crucial question: How can leadership remain strong without being closed? How can it be just without losing its decisiveness? How can it listen to people without allowing conflict to swallow the message?

The answer begins with three interrelated practices: getting closer to actual work, empowering collective solutions, and building deeper accountability to the community.

All of these practices do not eliminate leadership; they redefine it so that the leader does not become less authoritative when clarifying, engaging, and listening, but rather becomes more legitimate; their authority does not rely solely on position but on trust, meaning, and the ability to direct collective energy towards impact.

This translation is non-exclusive, adapted with limited changes from an article published on the platform Nonprofit Quarterly by Dax-Devlon Ross, while preserving the author's and original source's literary rights.