Are You Flying at the Right Altitude?

My first administrative job in a nonprofit was running a theater education department.

Running is inaccurate, really.

I was the theater education department. I signed up every child, talked to every school principal, hired every teaching artist, wrote up every contract – you get the picture.

I knew every nook and cranny because I built every nook and cranny.

The program grew at a dizzying pace, and I got to hire an associate. I learned a new management skill then: coordination. We divided the work and checked in regularly. I still knew everything that was going on because we discussed everything.

This management thing I’d heard about seemed simple.

Then I moved to a new organization, and I had eight people reporting to me.

That’s just the same work times eight, right? Hah!

The new role was exciting, but more accurately, bewildering. The job was different from anything I had done before. I knew my focus was supposed to change. I just didn’t know exactly how.

I knew I needed to fly at a new altitude – one where I could see the big picture, not count the individual shrubs.

But how was I supposed to do that?

I gorged myself on management articles. I wanted to commiserate with good colleagues, but I was afraid to reveal that I might not know everything I was supposed to know before I got the job. And they all seemed so confident.

Despite the bewilderment of it all, I enjoyed learning how to manage a team (and am incredibly grateful to that team for their good humor in watching me learn while doing).

When I did my graduate work (an executive program I completed while I was in that role) I finally saw what had kept me earthbound. The cohort program gave me the gift of peers who were living the same bewilderment at the same time across the sector.

We were all feigning confidence and privately overwhelmed.

There was no memo I had missed. No one knew how to step up to the next level.

A question centered me throughout that experience and has ever since: What altitude should I be flying at?

Why Altitude?

 

On a flight to some conference, I heard the pilot say that we had reached our cruising altitude of 35,000 feet. I wondered what would happen if they had said 1,000 feet. How would that be different? Would there be a problem with that? Wasn’t that the discussion my cohort was having amid all the talk of big picture and being in the weeds?

Some research seemed in order. I found four concepts that apply in aviation and leadership.

• Higher altitudes provide a broader view. At 1,000 feet, you can read the terrain in detail. At 35,000 feet, that isn’t possible. Instead, you rely on data, information from those who know the terrain, and clear communication systems.

• Flying too low is dangerous. Obstacles and turbulence are more common at lower altitudes. Traffic is more congested and more time is spent managing factors that decrease at higher altitudes.

• The right altitude isn’t static. External and internal pressures require shifts in altitude. The gift of cruising at one altitude is an occasional treat. You need outside input on how changing conditions affect your altitude.

• Climbing higher means leaving comfort behind. At each altitude, you lose ground-level information – the details of the program, the knowledge of what every person is doing, the feeling of being close to the action.

Two changes trigger the need to ascend, the first more obvious than the second:

• Formal promotion. This is the clearest signal that something is different, even if no one tells you exactly how. Beyond the title, this is a profound psychological shift (also with no operating manual).

• Organizational growth. This one can really sneak up on you. The title stays the same, while the four-person team becomes five, then six, then twenty. The old bag of tricks isn’t magical anymore. But you’re busier and don’t have time to think about what ascending to the next altitude requires.

We’ve all lived this. The role evolved but our focus didn’t.

In my coaching practice, I see how the differences between mission-driven organizations and money-driven companies exacerbates this issue.

• Due to chronic underinvestment in infrastructure, many nonprofit leaders are more involved in day-to-day operational details, whether because of lack of managers or lack of frontline support.

• Nonprofit workers stay connected to community in ways that corporate employees do not connect with customers. The bonds are often personal and hard to transition to newer staff members as the organization grows.

• The same is true for donors and volunteers. For those who contribute to the mission, sending the message that their gift no longer warrants the attention of the departmental or organizational leader may be a relationship damaging shift if handled poorly.

• Finally, nonprofit leaders embody the mission. Before individuals give their time, money, or trust, they need to believe that the leader authentically lives the mission and values. We don't typically judge a corporate leader in this way before we buy a product.

These unique aspects of managing the nonprofit are issues that pull leaders away from the altitude where they can be of greatest service. The degree to which we can minimize these issues, though, opens space for a higher-level focus that serves the mission.

Wherever you lead, the shift in role eventually demands a shift in how you measure your own performance. If you’re not sure how the job has changed, how do you know if you are succeeding?

• The measure of success is no longer your individual output. At higher elevations, your job is to create conditions in which others can do excellent work. The output you’re responsible for is theirs. For people who built their professional identity around individual contributions, it can feel like losing control.

• Vision and culture are the primary work. You model culture in every interaction. At higher altitude, people are watching you for signals about what matters, what’s allowed, and what the organization actually values when things get hard. You can’t send high-level messages while trudging through mud.

• Evaluating people from a distance is just different. When you were close to the work, you could see exactly how someone was performing. At higher altitude, you need different ways of knowing: better questions, clearer and more consistent feedback, and the ability to identify patterns. The goal becomes finding the midpoint between being too close to the work and flying blind.

• Knowing when to change altitude is a unique skill. Cruising at one altitude indefinitely isn't realistic – conditions change. The altitude that serves you well during a period of organizational stability may be exactly wrong during a crisis or a period of rapid growth. Leaders need to recognize when conditions call for a temporary descent and when it's time to climb back up. The danger isn't in moving between altitudes. It's in descending for a crisis and never climbing back up.

Are You Flying at the Right Altitude?

 

One issue that surprised me in my leadership and continues to in those I now support as an executive coach is thinking you are at a good elevation when you are not or thinking that it’s just impossible to rise above your current level of operation.

Reflection is the key to rising to the highest level of your performance. A few questions worth sitting with:

• What decisions did I make this week that someone on my team could have made without me? How can I handle those moments next time?

• How do I respond to someone bringing me a half-formed solution? What could I do other than solve it?

• How much of my mental energy is devoted to this week versus three years from now?

• Have I ever worked with someone who seemed to have this mastered? What did they do differently than I am?

• Has anyone — a board member, a senior colleague, a coach — ever suggested I was too deep in the weeds? What prompted that observation?

I’ve seen hundreds of nonprofit leaders navigate transitions – executive directors in growing organizations, managers who built something and now have to hand off parts of it, strong individual contributors taking over large teams.

What I keep seeing is something I recognize in my own career – the awareness that the job has changed but no one explained how. The sense that we’re supposed to know, so we’re afraid to ask. The fumbling that goes on longer than it needs to because it feels like a personal failing.

It isn’t a failing by any stretch. Every leadership transition requires a new altitude that doesn’t come with an instruction manual.

The fumbling I did in that theater education department, alone with a question I didn’t know how to ask, didn’t have to last as long as it did. It doesn’t have to for you either.

If something in this landed and you’re not quite sure what to do with it, I’d genuinely enjoy the conversation to think through it together. You can reach me at gary@garybagley.com.