Cultivating High-Performance Culture Amid the 'Great Exhaustion’

Economists and workplace observers have coined a few different terms to explain how the sustained upheaval of COVID-19 and post-pandemic life has affected employees. What was once labeled the “Great Resignation,” with workers leaving their jobs in droves, turned into “Quiet Quitting,” with employees doing the bare minimum for their jobs. Now, it has become the “Great Exhaustion.” 

Employees are disconnected and fatigued. Leaders across industries are facing increased challenges in maintaining team productivity, employee morale and organizational resilience. A recent Gallup study showed that employee engagement has hit an 11-year low, with only 30% of employees highly engaged.

This trend has impacted the nonprofit sector, where leaders and employees already contend with unique stressors, such as funding uncertainties, limited resources stretching into multiple roles and high emotional labor. This strain is exacerbated by the necessity to maintain high levels of service delivery amid limited resources and increased community needs, particularly following the pandemic. 

In fact, the latest report from the Center for Effective Philanthropy found that burnout — for nonprofit staff as well as leadership — is a top concern for most nonprofit leaders, with three-quarters reporting that employee burnout is at least slightly getting in the way of their ability to achieve their mission. Many of them point to staffing difficulties, with turnover and lingering vacancies making workloads unsustainable. 

The path through the Great Exhaustion lies not in groundbreaking strategies but in embracing the foundational leadership practices that are often sidelined when things get busy. Nonprofit leaders can steer their organizations away from overwhelm by fostering a high-performance culture — one in which people stay engaged and productive, both as individuals and as a team. One effective method is through strengths-based leadership.

What Strengths-Based Leadership Means

In a traditional performance management model, leaders focus on identifying and improving employees’ weaknesses. Strengths-based leadership, however, focuses on identifying and enhancing what employees excel at. Coaching and training are then targeted to helping build super-strengths that make employees more effective at their jobs. 

Decades of research by Gallup has shown that employees who use their strengths on the job are more likely than others to find intrinsic motivation in their work — it simply feels less like work to them. The benefits don’t stop there: Further Gallup research has found that employees who say they use their strengths every day are 8% more productive and 15% less likely to quit their jobs. A strengths-based approach also provides a North Star, helping employees stay focused and engaged as their jobs and the demands of the organization evolve. 

The Role of Strengths-Based Leadership in a High-Performance Culture

Implementing a strengths-based leadership model can help to create a high-performance culture within an organization. By identifying and nurturing the unique strengths of their team members, leaders create an environment where employees feel valued, motivated and empowered. This approach fosters continuous improvement, innovation and resilience. Here’s how a strengths-based approach can be applied to establish and sustain a high-performance culture:  

Ensure There’s a Thread Between Strengths and Outcomes

A strong greater purpose drives performance and forms the core of organizational culture. Nonprofits have an edge in this area, where their guiding vision, mission and values are typically well-defined and understood. To apply a strengths-based leadership lens, leaders should ensure that each team member understands their strengths, how these strengths contribute to their work and how their work advances the organization’s vision, mission and values.

Incorporate Diverse Perspectives and Voices

Embracing diverse perspectives strategic planning, problem-solving and innovation. A strengths-based approach leverages each unique viewpoint that each individual brings, affirming that everyone’s contribution is vital to the organization’s success.  

Leverage the ‘Many Hats’ Model

Nonprofit employees often juggle multiple roles, which, if managed well, can provide opportunities for growth and discovery of new interests and talents. Strengths-based leadership allows individuals to thrive in diverse responsibilities, enriching their roles and furthering the organization’s mission. 

Cultivate Psychological Safety and Trust

Recognizing, valuing and highlighting different strengths and individual approaches fosters an environment of psychological safety. A strengths-based leadership approach ensures that individuals feel seen and heard, promoting vulnerability and authenticity. This model helps leaders create a supportive environment where everyone can show up as their true selves, enhancing overall team cohesion and performance. 

Build a Supportive Culture With Strengths-Based Touch Points

Strengths-based work doesn’t lie solely with managers. To maximize the impact of a strengths-based model on performance, it's essential to build structures that incorporate the language of strengths and the practice of leveraging diverse strengths into the organization’s culture. Offer trainings and resources to help everyone implement strengths-based practices effectively. Develop peer-to-peer touch points where partnership and collaboration leveraging each other's strengths become the norm.

Getting Started With Strengths-Based Leadership

If you want to explore a strengths-based leadership model, the first step is to open up a conversation with each individual about their strengths — even if you think you already know what they are. Ask them a few basic questions, like: 

• What do you completely lose yourself in? 
• What do you love doing, and what gives you energy? 
• What do you feel like you do really well? 

Each of these questions gets to the heart of an individual’s natural strengths, so you can provide the coaching and opportunity to continue to improve them—and, ultimately, leverage those strengths to motivate not only the individual but also the team as a whole.

The preceding post was provided by an individual unaffiliated with NonProfit PRO. The views expressed within do not directly reflect the thoughts or opinions of NonProfit PRO.