The Case for Softer Leadership With Young Staff
In this age of rank-and-file unrest, nonprofit leaders must bridge differences of class, race, ethnicity, sexuality, religion, and more, says a former executive.
By Greg Berman
Contributor
January 13, 2026 | Read Time: 7 minutes
This is one of two essays that argue from opposing perspectives how to mentor and manage young workers. Read a defense of “tough love” leadership from Interfaith America’s Eboo Patel.
When I entered the nonprofit field more than 30 years ago, I had the good fortune to work with someone who became the most important mentor of my career. John Feinblatt is now the long-standing president of Everytown for Gun Safety, but back then, he was the head of the Center for Justice Innovation. (I would succeed him as executive director and go on to run the organization from 2002 to 20.)
I have had a chance to work with hundreds of people since I first met John, including famous academics, high-ranking government officials, and powerful foundation executives. John remains the most impressive professional I have ever encountered. Smart, strategic, and driven, he is the rare person capable of both articulating big-picture vision and thinking through the gritty details of implementation.
John played a crucial role in my career, helping to promote me, both literally and figuratively. But John wasn’t always kind. In fact, sometimes he could be quite tough, judging my work harshly and demanding more time and effort.
This tough-love style of leadership — which expects excellence as a matter of course and scorns pats on the back — is unlikely to succeed in today’s nonprofits. Young people have grown up in a world of instant feedback online. They are accustomed to measuring their beauty or popularity by collecting likes and retweets and swipes right.
Unlike previous generations, millennial and gen Z staff also expect their workplaces to align with their values. When they do not, trouble often follows. In recent years, staff unrest has come for good and bad leaders alike; as Atlantic writer Thomas Chatterton Williams noted on X, “Basically no one is willing to accept simply being a junior member of the hierarchy anymore.”
No More Tough Love
Leaders have little choice but to figure out how to work with this reality. Successful strategies will likely look very different from the tough love that Gen Xers like me experienced on our way up the ladder. Today’s staffers require understanding, compassion, and patience.
Mentoring almost always requires bridging differences. Most mentors are older than their mentorship partners, and both sides must overcome an age gap to connect. In addition, mentoring these days often involves bridging differences of class, race, ethnicity, sexuality, religion, and gender, among other divides.
How can leaders forge effective mentoring relationships with young staff in an age of nonprofit unrest? Three things are critical.
Trust. Trust is the lubricant that greases the nonprofit machine. Perhaps because trust is such a precious commodity, many nonprofit leaders take a “wait-and-see” approach with their teams, essentially demanding that staff prove they are worthy of trust through their performance and loyalty.
While this approach is understandable, it can be an impediment to effective mentoring. Generally, nonprofit leaders should make the first move — giving trust to engender trust. Demonstrating trust is particularly important given the cynicism about institutions common among young employees.
Make no mistake: It’s a risk to trust staffers to do the right thing and perform at a high level without undue scrutiny or accountability. Some will inevitably disappoint. But most will not.
In my experience, the advantages far outweigh the costs. Taking this leap of faith — giving staff members room to operate and make decisions without constantly looking over their shoulders — will offer benefits in the long run. It’s particularly critical to building the internal credibility that leaders inevitably need when making and communicating hard decisions about the organization’s direction, priorities, and hiring and promotions.
Reciprocity. Edwin P. Hollander, who died in 2020, was a professor of psychology who wrote frequently about organizational leadership. In particular, Hollander was obsessed with the relationship between leaders and followers. How is power won? What gives leaders legitimacy? How do they build credit with supporters to generate compliance, even enthusiasm, when they want to move a group in a new direction?
As an answer, Hollander advanced an inclusive brand of leadership that focused on doing things with people rather than to people. His ideas suggest that the best, most influential, and longest-lasting mentoring requires give-and-take. Mentors want to see their proteges absorb and enact their wisdom. Proteges might not have the same expectations in reverse, but effective leaders should stay alert to what they can learn from their young staff.
“The people you mentor may be junior to you professionally, but they often have skills and insights you don’t have,” says Amy Barasch, who served for a decade as the leader of Her Justice, which provides free legal services to women living in poverty in New York. “They can also serve as a reality check, letting you know if the messages you are sending don’t make sense or aren’t landing with staff.” I have found that making small changes in language, gesture, or orientation can have powerful symbolic value, signaling to mentees that they are valued and that their voice matters.
Generosity. Bill Gates has said, “There are two great forces of human nature — self-interest and caring for others.” As mentors, nonprofit executives must lean into the latter. When you lead an organization, you are a magnet for information. You have access to every department. You understand the finances. You know the proposals to fund future projects. You have a catbird seat that provides a unique perspective on organizational dynamics.
But that’s not all. You also are your organization’s first point of entry for reporters, government officials, potential partners, and others. Such interactions often bring with them news and gossip from the outside world. Who is thinking about running for office? Who just accepted a new job? What were they saying at the big national conference? As a result, the best nonprofit executive directors develop a strong sense of their field.
To do right by mentees, executives must be charitable with some (but by no means all) of this information. Nonprofit executives often have to be self-protecting. It is not always possible to explain a specific decision, for instance. And there are bright lines to observe around personnel and HR issues.
But there are also lots of gray areas. Figuring out how to navigate them prudently is an important part of being a good nonprofit mentor. The goal should be to present mentees with a window into the real-life pressures and tradeoffs that come with the job, rather than a sanitized version of executive life.
Opening up your contact list is an important part of generous mentorship. According to Amy Ellenbogen, who served as the director of Neighbors in Action, a community safety program in Brooklyn for 17 years: “Some mentors have created a ‘place at the table’ for me by inviting me to events for which I was not originally on the guest list, offering me opportunities to speak, and publicly and privately acknowledging my contributions.”
Finally, perhaps the most important — and most uncomfortable — part of generosity is providing honest feedback. As John Feinblatt showed me, it can be incredibly valuable when someone who is senior to you explains what you are doing wrong. At various points, I have been told to change the way I dress, to tweak my public speaking style, and to spend more hours in the office, among other constructive criticisms. While sometimes painful, this feedback was delivered in a generous spirit, with a goal of improving my performance. I was fortunate to receive it.
Creating nurturing, mentoring relationships will not, by itself, lead to harmonious and effective nonprofits. But it can be a valuable piece in the puzzle that helps humanize executives and provide concrete evidence that they care about more than their own advancement. At a time when trust in nonprofit institutions is flagging, this kind of effort is all the more important.
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