Developing Emerging Nonprofit Leaders: Building Tomorrow’s Leadership Today

Last month, I sat across from an executive director who was wrestling with a familiar dilemma. “I have someone on my team,” she said, “who’s absolutely brilliant at grant writing. Donors love her. She hits every deadline. But when I promoted her to manage our development team…” She trailed off, shaking her head.

I finished her thought: “She struggled. The skills that made her exceptional at doing the work didn’t translate to leading others through it.”

This scenario plays out in nonprofit offices everywhere. We spot talent, we reward it with promotion, and then we watch in frustration as our star performers flounder in leadership roles they weren’t prepared for. The problem isn’t the people—it’s our approach to identifying and developing potential leaders before they’re thrust into positions that require entirely different capabilities.

What I’ve observed across years of working with nonprofit leaders is this: the organizations that build sustainable leadership don’t wait for leaders to emerge. They intentionally cultivate them, starting long before anyone has “manager” in their title.

Why Emerging Leader Development Matters for Nonprofits

The nonprofit sector faces a leadership challenge that’s both urgent and often invisible. According to research from Bridgespan, over 40 percent of voluntary turnover among nonprofits stems from lack of opportunity for upward mobility and career growth. Your emerging nonprofit leaders aren’t just looking for bigger paychecks—they’re looking for paths forward. When they don’t see those paths, they leave.

For small and mid-size nonprofits operating with lean teams, this creates a painful cycle. You invest in talented people, they grow restless without development opportunities, they depart for organizations that offer clearer advancement, and you start over. Meanwhile, your institutional knowledge walks out the door, your programs suffer disruption, and you spend precious resources recruiting rather than mission delivery.

The organizations that build sustainable leadership don’t wait for leaders to emerge. They intentionally cultivate them.

But here’s what often gets missed: developing emerging leaders isn’t just about retention. It’s about building organizational capacity that compounds over time. When you invest in someone’s leadership growth, you’re not just preparing them for their next role—you’re creating someone who can develop others, who can carry institutional wisdom forward, who can eventually step into senior positions with deep understanding of your mission and culture.

This is the foundation of any meaningful leadership development pipeline. Without attention to emerging leaders, that pipeline runs dry.

Identifying Leadership Potential Beyond Performance

Here’s where most nonprofits get it wrong: they look at their highest performers and assume those are their future leaders. This assumption leads directly into what I call The Star Performer Trap.

Your best grant writer may have no interest in managing people. Your most dedicated program coordinator might thrive on individual contribution and wither under the ambiguity of leadership. Performance in a current role tells you someone is good at that role—it says almost nothing about their capacity to lead others through different kinds of work.

So what should you look for instead?

Curiosity about systems, not just tasks. Emerging leaders ask questions that go beyond their job descriptions. They wonder why processes work the way they do. They notice connections between their work and other departments. They think about how decisions ripple through the organization.

Ownership of outcomes, not just activities. There’s a difference between someone who completes their assigned tasks and someone who takes responsibility for results. Emerging leaders care whether the grant gets funded, not just whether the proposal was submitted on time. They follow up, they problem-solve, they close loops.

Comfort with ambiguity. Leadership rarely involves clear instructions and predictable outcomes. Watch for people who can function—even thrive—when situations are uncertain, when priorities shift, when there’s no obvious right answer.

Influence without authority. Some people naturally rally others around ideas. They don’t need titles or formal power to move projects forward. They persuade, they enroll, they build coalitions. This is leadership showing up before any promotion.

Learning orientation. Do they seek feedback? Do they adjust based on what they learn? Do they reflect on what went well and what didn’t? Leaders must continuously evolve, and the capacity for that evolution is visible long before someone takes on a leadership role.

The Center for Creative Leadership has extensively researched what distinguishes high-potential employees from high performers. Their work on identifying leadership potential consistently shows that potential is about trajectory and adaptability—not just current capability.

The Mindset Shift from Doer to Leader

When someone moves from individual contributor to leader, they must undergo a fundamental transformation in how they think about their work. This isn’t a minor adjustment. It’s a complete reorientation.

As a doer, your value comes from what you personally produce. You’re measured by your output. Your satisfaction comes from completing tasks, from seeing your direct impact, from the quality of your individual work.

As a leader, your value comes from what others produce through your guidance. You’re measured by your team’s output. Your satisfaction must shift to seeing others succeed, to removing obstacles, to creating conditions where the people you lead can do their best work.

The hardest part of becoming a leader isn’t learning new skills—it’s letting go of the identity that made you successful as an individual contributor.

This is an identity shift, not just a skill upgrade. And it’s where many promising leaders stumble. They’ve spent their careers being rewarded for doing things well. Now they’re being asked to step back, to delegate, to let others do things perhaps differently than they would—and to find fulfillment in that.

Without intentional support through this transition, emerging leaders often default to what feels comfortable: doing the work themselves, micromanaging to ensure things are done “right,” or burning out trying to lead while still performing at their previous level as individual contributors.

Creating Safe Failure Spaces

Leadership is learned through practice, and practice inevitably involves mistakes. But nonprofit environments—with their limited resources, public scrutiny, and mission-critical stakes—often feel like the worst possible place to experiment.

This creates a paradox: the situations that would most develop emerging leaders are also the situations where failure carries the highest cost.

The solution is intentional design of what I call safe failure spaces—opportunities for emerging leaders to stretch, experiment, and sometimes stumble in ways that build capability without jeopardizing the organization.

What does this look like in practice?

Bounded leadership projects. Assign emerging leaders to lead specific, contained initiatives. Maybe it’s coordinating volunteers for a single event. Maybe it’s managing a small pilot program. The scope is limited enough that missteps won’t derail critical operations, but real enough that the leadership experience is genuine.

Shadowing with debriefing. Have emerging leaders observe you in leadership situations—board meetings, difficult conversations, strategic planning sessions—then debrief together afterward. What did they notice? What would they have done differently? What questions did it raise? This creates learning without risk.

Stretch assignments with safety nets. Push people slightly beyond their current capabilities, but build in checkpoints and support. Let them know they’re being stretched intentionally. Make it clear that struggling is expected and that you’re available to help when needed.

After-action learning. When things don’t go as planned—and they won’t—treat it as development rather than failure. What happened? What can we learn? What would we do differently? This transforms setbacks into growth opportunities.

The goal is to create an environment where emerging leaders can take meaningful risks, make real decisions, experience genuine consequences—but in contexts where recovery is possible and support is available.

Navigating Peer Relationships and Authority Without Title

One of the most underappreciated challenges emerging leaders face is the shift in peer relationships. Yesterday you were colleagues, equals, commiserating about workload and organizational frustrations together. Today you’re somehow in charge, expected to hold people accountable, make decisions that affect their work, possibly even evaluate their performance.

This transition is awkward at best, painful at worst. And in small nonprofits where teams are tight-knit, it can feel nearly impossible.

Some emerging leaders try to maintain their friendships exactly as before, avoiding the authority that comes with their new role. This leads to unclear expectations, inconsistent accountability, and resentment when leadership is eventually required.

Others swing to the opposite extreme, becoming distant and formal to establish authority. This damages relationships that were genuine assets and often breeds resistance from former peers who feel suddenly abandoned.

The path through this is neither retreat nor overreach. It’s transparent acknowledgment of the changed dynamic combined with consistent, fair behavior.

Coaching emerging leaders through this looks like helping them have honest conversations: “Our relationship is going to be different now. I value what we’ve built, and I want to figure out how we work together in this new reality.” It means establishing clear expectations while maintaining genuine care. It means being consistent in how they treat all team members, including former close colleagues.

Leadership isn’t about being above your former peers—it’s about being beside them in a different way.

This is where cohort-based development programs become particularly valuable. When emerging leaders can connect with peers from other organizations facing similar transitions, they gain perspective that’s impossible to find within their own teams. They realize they’re not alone in navigating these awkward dynamics. They learn from how others have handled similar situations.

Development Program Options for Resource-Constrained Nonprofits

Not every nonprofit can send emerging leaders to expensive external programs. Budget constraints are real. Staff capacity is limited. The work doesn’t pause while people develop.

But limited resources don’t mean limited options. Effective leadership development programs can take many forms, and some of the most powerful approaches cost little more than intentional attention.

Mentorship relationships. Pairing emerging leaders with experienced leaders—either within your organization or from partner organizations—creates developmental relationships that cost nothing but time. The key is structure: clear expectations, regular meetings, specific development goals.

Job rotation and cross-training. Exposing emerging leaders to different functions within your organization builds systems thinking and organizational awareness. Even temporary assignments—covering for someone on leave, joining a cross-functional project—expand perspective and capability.

Peer learning circles. Gather your emerging leaders regularly to share challenges, brainstorm solutions, and learn from each other’s experiences. Facilitated well, these become powerful development spaces at minimal cost.

Stretch assignments with coaching. The work itself becomes the development program when you intentionally assign projects that push emerging leaders beyond current capability, then provide coaching support as they navigate the stretch.

External cohort programs. When budget allows, cohort-based programs with emerging leaders from other organizations provide both skill development and network building. The investment often pays returns in retention and accelerated development.

The Bridgespan research recommends a 70-20-10 approach to development: 70 percent on-the-job learning, 20 percent coaching and mentoring, and 10 percent formal learning. This framework acknowledges that most development happens through experience, not classroom training—which is actually good news for resource-constrained nonprofits.

Building Competencies That Matter

What specific capabilities should emerging leader development focus on? While every organization will have unique needs, certain competencies consistently matter for nonprofit leaders at every level.

Self-management. Before you can lead others, you must lead yourself. This includes time management, emotional regulation, personal accountability, and continuous learning orientation. Emerging leaders who can’t manage their own work and reactions will struggle to manage anyone else’s.

Team collaboration. Leadership in nonprofits is rarely solo work. Emerging leaders need to work effectively across functions, build coalitions, navigate conflict, and create alignment. These collaborative skills become increasingly important as responsibilities grow.

Project leadership. The ability to plan, organize, delegate, monitor, and adjust—these project management fundamentals form the backbone of organizational leadership. Emerging leaders should have opportunities to lead projects of increasing complexity.

Mission understanding. Nonprofit leaders must be deeply connected to organizational mission and able to articulate it compellingly. This isn’t just knowledge—it’s the capacity to inspire others, make mission-aligned decisions, and keep the work grounded in purpose during challenging times.

Communication. Clear, honest, adaptive communication becomes more critical with each step up the leadership ladder. Emerging leaders should practice communicating with different audiences: staff, board, funders, community members.

As emerging leaders develop these foundational competencies, they’re preparing for next stage development into middle management and beyond.

Measuring Progress Without Overwhelming

How do you know if your emerging leader development efforts are working? Measurement matters, but it shouldn’t become bureaucratic burden that overshadows the development itself.

Focus on a few meaningful indicators:

Behavioral observations. Are you seeing emerging leaders demonstrate new capabilities? Taking on challenges they would have avoided before? Handling situations with more confidence and skill?

Feedback quality. What are peers, supervisors, and those they’re learning to lead saying about their growth? 360-degree feedback, even informal, provides valuable perspective.

Self-assessment. Do emerging leaders themselves feel they’re developing? Can they articulate what they’re learning and where they’re still growing?

Retention. Are your emerging leaders staying? Advancement opportunity is a primary retention driver—if development efforts are meaningful, you should see improved retention among high-potential staff.

Pipeline flow. Over time, are you filling leadership positions internally? Is your organization’s leadership bench deepening?

Consider using development planning tools that help emerging leaders track their own growth goals and progress. This puts ownership where it belongs—with the developing leader—while providing visibility into how efforts are translating into capability.

Quick Win: Start Identifying Potential Today

Here’s something you can do this week: Take out a piece of paper and make two lists.

First list: your top three performers. These are the people who consistently deliver excellent work, who hit their goals, who you can rely on.

Second list: your top three potential leaders. These are the people you could imagine leading parts of your organization in five years—regardless of their current performance level.

Now look at those lists. Are they the same people? Different people? Where do they overlap?

If the lists are identical, you might be conflating performance with potential. If they’re entirely different, you might be overlooking leadership capability hiding in plain sight. Either way, this exercise surfaces assumptions worth examining.

For the people on your potential leaders list who aren’t already in formal development, what’s one opportunity you could create for them in the next month? Not a promotion, not a program—just one stretch experience that lets them practice leading in a safe failure space.

That’s where emerging leader development starts: not with budgets or programs, but with intentional attention to potential and deliberate creation of growth opportunities.