161 – Leadership Principles for Sparking Change – Part 2 with Jenni Field

May 8, 2025

Episode #161: Leadership Principles for Sparking Change – Part 2 with Jenni Field 

In this powerful follow-up episode of The Volunteer Nation Podcast, Tobi Johnson continues her insightful conversation with Jenni Field, diving deeper into the leadership principles that drive meaningful change, especially for those managing volunteers. 

Together, they unpack the nuanced differences between authenticity and vulnerability in leadership, highlighting how empathy, flexibility, and consistent action can earn trust and credibility with both volunteers and colleagues. 

Tobi and Jenni also offer guidance on recognizing signs of credibility challenges and what to do about them. Whether you’re a seasoned leader or new to volunteer management, this episode is full of practical wisdom you can use right away. 

Leadership Principles – Episode Highlights

• [01:50] – Authenticity vs. Vulnerability in Leadership 
• [05:40] – The Importance of Being Genuine 
• [11:51] – Diagnosing Credibility Issues in Organizations 
• [14:35] – Navigating Challenges in Inclusivity and Belonging 
• [19:58] – Volunteer Managers: Gaining Buy-In and Credibility 
• [22:53] – Building Credibility and Respect 
• [25:02] – Strategic Planning for Volunteer Engagement 
• [26:43] – Addressing Challenges in Volunteer Management 
• [32:05] – Empathy and Flexibility in Volunteer Leadership

Helpful Links

• VolunteerPro Impact Lab  
• 2025 Volunteer Management Progress Report – The Recruitment Edition 
• Volunteer Nation Podcast Episode #84: Building an Inclusive Culture at Your Volunteer Organization with Advita Patel 
• Edleman Trust Barometer 2025  
• The Fish Rots from the Head: The Crisis in Our Boardrooms: Developing the Crucial Skills of the Competent Director  
• Find Jenni on LinkedIn  
• Find Jenni on Instagram 
• Jenni’s Website  
• Buy Jenni’s Book 
• Take the Credibility Gap Assessment: How credible are you? 

Contact Us

Have questions or suggestions for the show? Email us at [email protected].

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Episode #161 Transcript: Leadership Principles for Sparking Change – Part 2 with Jenni Field 

Tobi: Hey friends, if you didn’t join us for part one of my conversation about leadership principles for sparking Change with my friend Jenni Field, go ahead and check out that episode first. It’s episode 161,this is part two of that conversation, so you’ll want that introduction. And in this episode, part two, we’re going to talk about how we can use leadership principles and build leadership and influence in our organizations and outside of them. We’re going to talk about how her principles apply to individuals and organizations, so leaders, volunteer managers, volunteer leaders, and we just talk so much in our conversation, we had to split it into two separate episodes, so I hope you’ll enjoy part two. 

In the first episode we talk about trust, the crisis of trust and how organizations can build trust in communities. So it’s a fantastic conversation. I hope you enjoy it. Take care. Okay, we’re back with a conversation about leadership principles and influence with Jenni Field. 

This has been so awesome so far. I hope y’all are taking notes because we are, we are throwing the value bombs here. You know, we talked about authenticity and and vulnerability a little bit before, when folks are thinking about being vulnerable.  

Jenni: Mm-hmm.  

Tobi: I know Brene Brown talks about this a lot, but. Let’s tease this out a little bit. How is this different than authenticity? Because I think people might, we talked a little bit about it, but I also think people may be a little bit confused about that because we kind of throw them both out together, authentic and vulnerable. But they’re actually not the same thing.  

Jenni: No, they’re not. Being authentic and being genuine are often considered similar things, but they are also quite different. So, when we are genuine, we are being much truer to ourselves, whereas authentic, traditionally, as a word, is more linked to sort of the authenticity of a document or something like that. So, it doesn’t always work for a human being element, but if we think about being authentic and being vulnerable, for me it’s about the outcome we’re trying to get to. 

And when we talk about being authentic. It’s quite often a very selfish reason for doing that. There’s often not a, I’m going to be authentic, so that dot, dot dot, it’s more like I’m just going to be my authentic self and to hell with what happens. As I come back to the leadership element of this, which is what we’re talking about, and the power dynamic and relationships that exist because of that leadership position. 

Whether you are a middle manager, leadership, wherever you are. You will be in a position of power and for volunteers, almost anyone in the organization is probably in that position of power because of those relationships. And that’s what we are considering here, is that that power dynamic does play a role. 

And being authentic in that way when you are in that position of power is what doesn’t quite work. Whereas if we think about being vulnerable. We are thinking about being more human. We are thinking about being courageous, which is the work of Brene Brown around, you can’t be courageous without being vulnerable, and you can’t be vulnerable without being courageous. 

But we’re also talking about being more open, but all of that is to establish connection. If I’m not vulnerable, there will be a disconnection between us. So, my reason for being vulnerable is to create a connection. It’s not just so that you get to know me a bit better and you feel like you see more of me, or whatever that is, it’s about connection. 

So, it’s about that balance of creating a relationship that’s personal but not intimate. And it’s about finding ways to connect with the people that you work with. And one of the examples I always give around vulnerability is using your out of office on your email, like when you are away, if you’re on vacation or you’re at a conference, quite often people just use their out of office and say, I’ll be back next week. Like there’s just nothing.  

But you can use that to share where you are and what you’re doing, because it will help create connection and it will help you show more of your human side and you’re being more open. So, my out of office always says what I’m doing, if I’m on holiday, if I’m at a workshop, if I’m speaking at an event, if I’m just taking some time off to just not do anything for a couple of days, like whatever it is. 

Or, when I was writing the book, I’m taking some, some time out to go and write the book. Whatever it is, it’s enough to establish maybe a conversation, but it’s gives people enough information that allows there to be a connection that is slightly deeper, that’s transactional. And that’s the best example I always use about being vulnerable. 

It’s not about crying or showing all your issues and challenges that you might be having, because as a leader, that’s difficult to do. You want to create connection. That’s the outcome and focus on that because being authentic doesn’t help you create connection. Yeah.  

Tobi: Yeah. Genuine. So, I’m going to break this down. Genuine is more being true to who you are, right? Yes. Ge genuine is about who you are as a human being and being. Some people say the more genuine, the more aligned you are with who you are, the better leader you are.  

Jenni: Exactly. And that’s being genuine, right? Because you are. Your alignment to yourself is so tight. And when I talk about having integrity, the genuine and sort of fits in there because you know who you are, it’s easier to do that. I’ve had people say to me when I’ve turned up at events to speak and they’ve said, oh, of course you’re just how I imagined you be from your photos and how you talk online. 

Because I do live a life that’s very aligned to my values. I’ve worked hard on that. I do focus on obviously all these eight principles because I can’t, I can’t write about them and not try and do them all. But it is that being genuine and if you do have that congruency, I would say about living with your values, being that aligned, it does make it much easier. 

Tobi: Yeah, I think one of my genuine I’m direct, and I know this is a set, so I let people know, like if I’m doing a coaching session, we’re doing a membership huddle, and we have a new person, a new member, I’ll just say, listen. And I had a point where folks would not sign up for my hot seat, so we stopped doing that. 

I said, all right, I’ve gone too far. But I’m not mean, I’m just, you know, straightforward and people really appreciate it once they realize, because I’ll say when I’m reporting out on a comms audit, for example, I say, look, before we even get started, yeah, I have zero value, zero value judgment about your organization. 

Whether it’s a bad organization, good organization, doing bad work or good work. This is not what this is. This is me helping you quickly and. In a focused way, laser focused way. Figure out what your next steps are. Yeah, and I’m going to be super direct about it, and I’m going to tell you what your low hanging fruit is, and I’m going to tell you what may take longer. And this report is really long. You’re never going to get through it. You’re not going to get it done in a week. But that’s, that’s me being me, right?  

Jenni: Yeah. Yeah. But that’s you being genuine. That’s you being genuine. Exactly. And it’s also about being aware that that’s your style. And I think that’s such a big thing about. I always say to people when I do workshops really like you, like, I will challenge you in this, but that comes from a place of respect and kindness. If I challenge too much, then just tell me, but I’m here to get you thinking differently, and that’s contracting our roles and what we’re here to do to make sure that. 

We are kind of, we are likable. That’s an element of being credible. Like I don’t want to be liked, that’s different, but I need to be likable. And making sure that people see that genuineness and that vulnerability in saying that gives you that humanness and that connection. So, it’s all part of that.  

Tobi: Yeah. And then the authenticity. I like your take on power. We have power. We can choose power over or power with. Yeah. But the power is still there. It’s still there. Yeah. It’s still there. You can’t do it. Folks think they folks are uncomfortable when they have power, especially if they’re understanding about how our power can be used. 

To the bad. But you know, I love this idea of authenticity. Being something that almost creates a space where you don’t have to have accountability. Yeah. Well, I’m just being authentic, so therefore hands are up. Jenni and I, you don’t see us because we’re talking on the, on audio, but her hands are up. Hey, I don’t have to, and my hands are up now. Hey, I’m being authentic, therefore I don’t have to be accountable. Yeah. So that’s, that’s the critique on that one. So, I’m hoping everybody, we’re parsing this out a little bit and then vulnerable. Really choosing. I remember when I worked with young people, young adults and, and teenagers. 

In order to get trust with teenagers, especially, I worked with kids, you know, who are at risk, who’d been through trauma, who, who were living on the streets, lots of challenges in their lives and they didn’t really trust adults for lots of really good reasons, and they were quite good at manipulating adults as well because they’d learn how to be survivors. 

There were times, moments where you would divulge something about yourself personally so that they would know you were human. You weren’t just there to do an intake or whatever, but you had to be careful. Yeah, because you don’t want to make it about you because it’s always about the client. It’s not about you. 

So, I see that when people are being vulnerable with volunteers or whatever, sometimes, or, or we’re just having a bad day and we want to vent with our volunteers, and we think that’s being vulnerable and that’s going to create connection, but it doesn’t. It’s more like finding, like even when we, we made a connection early on when I was introducing you and I said, oh, by the way, I used to be a communication director as well. 

And we’re like, what? We have another thing in common, we, it’s another point of connection. So that’s like a simple, that wasn’t that vulnerable, obviously, but you know, it, it, I think it is, it’s not easy to figure out what your, and then individuals have different levels of comfort in terms of their privacy. 

Jenni: But it’s interesting for you when you say, like, sharing that about your background isn’t particularly vulnerable, but it’s still a part of you being human and, and a part of you. Being able to share that and sharing that in an environment that maybe you haven’t shared that before, like that is doesn’t, vulnerability doesn’t have to be something raw and maybe slightly sad and right, because I like, we’ve got to sort of dredge something up from our past, oh crikey, I’ve got to bring this story out. And I really wasn’t planning on it. And it doesn’t have to be that, it’s just, it’s just sharing that something else to create connection or to, and, and that’s what it was in that moment. It was something a bit more human. Being very open, oh, I did this too. Great. And, and it’s making sure that you are finding the thing that will connect with the people that you want to connect with. 

And I share in the book some examples where it hasn’t worked when you share certain stories with certain groups of people. And so, you’ve got to be mindful of that. You’ve got to think about that connection and that outcome, and then what’s the right story, which is why using your out of office is so easy, because it’s such a nice way of just showing a bit more of that human side that makes it come forward. 

Tobi: Let’s talk about warning symptoms. Now in your leadership principles, you’re diagnosing what’s going on, what are warning symptoms that people should be aware of that that may indicate that your credibility is in question inside your organization?  

Jenni: So, there’s lots of different symptoms, and I think for each of the eight, I talk about different symptoms that could be showing up for each of those, and. That will be different depending on your culture. Someone said to me the other day, I was reading your book, and I was just like ticking things off at the back and I was like, oh, cry. Okay. There will be different things that will be happening depending on which element might be missing, but if you have, as a general kind of premise, if you’ve got any survey data that’s showing difficulties around engagement, or you are seeing any data that shows kind of negative stuff. If it’s things around engagement, then the issue is trust. If you are seeing people leaving a lot, so if there’s a lot of people that are leaving your organization, that’s the rejection that we talked about. So that’s the supportive issue that we need to look at and how we are creating that sort of space. 

If you’ve got people taking a lot of time off. For illness of any kind, physical or mental, then that’s another thing to, to look at in terms of your credibility. But you’ve got to investigate what’s, what’s going on, what you, what you want to see and to kind of flip it on its head is people I. Believing and following their leaders and managers. 

So, when that’s all working very well, things will be very efficient. People will feel quite engaged, and people will feel trusted. They’ll have the trust extended to them, and they will enjoy coming to work. Whether that’s coming to work via home, whether it’s coming to work in a location, whether it’s volunteering, whatever it is, that is an enjoyable experience. 

If that is not, then we have an issue around credibility because sometimes. We, we kind of look at it as being a culture problem and as, and we’ll say, oh, we need to fix our culture. We need to look at our culture. But actually, it’s a credibility issue. It’s, it’s, that’s what’s driving it. It’s, you can do whatever you like to try and fix the culture, but if people don’t believe you or want to follow you, then it’s not going to change things and it’s being able to recognize that difference. 

And you can only really recognize that when you start to work through the eight and sort of go, actually. I think it’s because we’ve had so much change in the last year and we’ve had to change our mind so many times that people don’t think we have any integrity anymore, and that’s what we need to fix. Rather than, oh, we’ve had all this change. We really need to set our culture and make sure that’s clear. Because you’re just masking the symptom and you’ve got to get to that root cause.  

Tobi: Yeah. Yeah. I think one of the challenges here in the States right now is. Folks who are really going full bore with inclusivity and belonging in their organizations, and equity work and with cuts in and challenges to federal funding, et cetera, folks have been a little quieter. They’re trying to figure out what’s going on, if they lose the funding. It’s a, it’s a tough situation. Because if you lose your funding, then your people that you are. Here to serve may not get served. So, it’s a difficult juggling act. And so, I think now almost over communicating some of your, I don’t know, people are being very quiet. It’s been a very kind of, yeah, quieting,  

Jenni: And I think that’s, that often that quiet will come from. From either just nobody says anything. Exactly. And we’re just, we’re just going to stay here for a bit and just see what happens. 

Right. And I get that. Okay, I totally get that. But also, you can be quiet and then say, say to people that we’re going to be quiet because we’re going to review things and this is what we’re going to do. And I think if you just go quiet, people will fill that quiet with a lot of noise. That’s not true. And I think that quietness has to be coupled with action. 

If the quietness is just quiet, then no good comes of that. Because there has to be a reason for that. Quiet for the people that you are working with, and if you are not sharing that reason, then you are going to damage your credibility because it, people will, like I said, they’ll fill it with noise and that noise won’t be good noise because we’ll always think the worst thing. 

Tobi: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, even if it’s. About here’s, here are the things we’re thinking about and we’re trying to make decisions around. Yeah, the decisions haven’t been made yet, but here’s what we’re working on. Here’s what we’re researching, here’s what we we’re waiting for; sharing the process a little bit more. Almost vulnerably. As an organization. It’s a type of vulnerability to say, hey, we actually don’t know. 

Jenni: And we’re going to just stop. Even if I think about some of the recent news around, things like tariffs and things that are going on across the world and some organizations are, are, are, are making big decisions. Others are saying, we’re just going to stop for a minute and we’re just going to take stock and make some decisions. And that was for me, I was like, this is so good to hear. Like not everyone’s rushing, like some people are communicating. We are just going to pause and reflect and see what we’re going to do. 

And I think that that shows how sometimes we can, this urgency that can come with this digital fast-paced world that we live in, that stopping and taking a breath is incredibly powerful.  

Tobi: Yeah. And saying, you know, we’re doing this so that we make sure that the people we’re here to. Yeah. Support and serve are going to get, you know, we want to be strategic here. We don’t want to be knee jerk. I think that’s strong. That’s a very strong way to come out of the gates. Hmm. Rather than total silence, radio silence behind the closed doors of the boardroom. Yeah, don’t do that. Yeah, don’t, don’t do it. Don’t do that. People, I know. It feels scary. I mean, it’s scary. Let’s not lie. 

I am not going to lie. It’s scary. You don’t, you don’t know what’s going to happen. Crazy things are happening. Let’s take a quick break from part two of my conversation with Jenni Field about leadership and sparking change. We will be right back.  

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Tobi: We’re back with my conversation with Jenni Field about leadership and sparking change, credibility, influence, and how to build it. Let’s talk about volunteer managers. As middle managers, they often have influence without authority. We talked about power. They do have power over volunteers or with volunteers, depending on the way they approach it. We always, we always recommend with and involving volunteers in helping form decisions and informed decisions that directly impact them. 

I think that is the way to go. I’ve always said that’s the way to go. But what leadership principles or approaches do you recommend helping them gain buy-in from coworkers and executive leadership? And I’ll split this out a little bit. We do our annual volunteer management progress report, and we ask, what’s your biggest challenge? 

Open-ended question. Get 1200 responses this year. I hand coded them all myself. And there was a lot in terms of coworkers, of coworkers being resistant. To accepting volunteers in their programs. And so, there’s a buy-in issue and there’s a lack of credibility between, I think it’s a credibility issue. 

I don’t think it’s just because sometimes the leadership will say, yeah, our cultures, we, we are a volunteer driven organization, let’s do this. But then we get down to the other departments and they’re like, eh.  

Jenni: And this happens in organizations. All over the, all over the place where people are sort of, you know, yeah, we’ll include everyone and then it doesn’t happen and people go, I want to be included. I want to have be in the conversations at the right time. Like all those things, when we look at the credibility practices, it’s the capability that’s missing there. So, ah, when capability is missing, we get disrespect. Disrespect can show up in lots of different ways, but often this way where you are kind of being a bit excluded and capability, again, this is the perception of your capability. 

It’s not because you’re not capable, but within that we’ve got three areas. So, for someone to be seen as capable, and whether that’s a volunteer or someone in the organization, so either side, if I want to see you are capable, you need to have enough knowledge about the. Industry that we are in or the role that you are doing. 

So as a volunteer, I need to know that you know enough about what this industry and this world that we are in as an organization is, or that you’ve volunteered before and you know how this works. That’s what I’m looking at. And I want to make sure that if you are capable, you will be respectful. So that respect kind of works both ways, but you are showing that you value the other person, and you act. 

This is important. I am someone who has volunteered, and I’m someone who has LED volunteers. And let me tell you that action is the biggest thing that used to frustrate me about volunteers. I would lead yes. The best of intentions in a meeting and then things don’t happen. And then that, for me, reliability is a big value for me. 

So, it was frustrating, but it was the action that was always the hardest thing to get people to do because other things happen, right? Life. So those are the things. So that will be what people want to see to come together. So. This means we must be very clear about our knowledge, so how much we know, and make sure that people are aware of that, and make sure that we are acting, we are moving things forward. 

We are demonstrating that capability through doing that. If we can do that, then people will bring us more to the table, but ultimately the reason that they won’t be including. Them or you are because they don’t, they can’t see how you are going to help because they don’t believe that you are capable. 

True or not, that’s their belief. And so, we must work on changing that. So, I always talk about how when I used to have a desk and I was a. Global head of Communications. I think at that time and on my desk, I’d have about four or five books about Neuroscience for Organizational change by Hillary Scarlet. 

I’d have other books on there from the Economist, or I’d have all different staff that was able to just be little signs to demonstrate my capability and I’d talk about conferences that I’d been to, or I’m at this event, or I’m at that, not to diminish my opinion. So it was always my opinion when challenged. 

I could say, well, it’s not just me. I read this report, and it said this or stuff like that. So, I was able to demonstrate that. And I was very well known for someone that just gets stuff done and that’s just, that’s just me, right? I just get stuff done. And so, I was able to be seen as capable and therefore able to be in all the conversations and all the right places and included in all the right things because. I was capable. They could see that I proved it, and it was something I worked hard to demonstrate regardless of, of, of what they were believing. It was a big part for me to prove that,  

Tobi: That is such, so valuable. I hope you all heard this, because the word respect comes out in our report every year. Respect. My coworkers don’t respect the volunteers, and they don’t respect you.  

Jenni: Yeah.  

Tobi: And my leadership doesn’t respect the volunteers or the volunteer program, and then they don’t respect you. And it’s difficult because we do a Vision week every year in November, we do a Vision Week, weeklong strategic planning bootcamp. And it’s really to get an annual plan for volunteer engagement together. And I’ll. I’ll, you know, recommend to folks get a handle on your organization’s strategic plan so that you can align your activities and that they, your goals are rolling up to the organization’s goals and you can demonstrate that. Folks will be like; I don’t have that. They’re not giving it to me. They won’t give it to me. And it’s like, well, you’re in a guessing game then. So, it’s not easy, right? 

Jenni: It’s not easy. It’s not easy. And I think where you have some of those challenges there, there’s an element of getting control of that situation that you can get. So, if people aren’t giving you something then ask them why. It’s not about going, why aren’t you giving it to me? Because that won’t work. But just say, can I just check what the rules are around sharing it? Because for some reason I haven’t seen this document. So, is there a reason why I can’t see it? 

That’s an easier way of saying, why don’t I have this? And exactly. But it’s also, as I say to people a lot, we must remember that we have control over ourselves, and we have agency over the things that we’re doing. Like we don’t have to just be done to by someone else. If we feel like that’s happening, we can shift our behavior and we can do things differently to get a different outcome. Yeah. And that’s important to remember that this is within our control to do that.  

Tobi: And then maybe you just ask our boss, hey, if I can’t see the document, can you give me the top lines?  

Jenni: Yeah, just let me, yeah, just these are the five questions I have. Can you answer these? And that would help me. Get stuff done that I need to get done. 

Tobi: And the other thing is, I think I also recommend knowing if you’re having problems, challenges of people saying, look, I’m not going to accept volunteers either They do it. Straight out, or they do it passive aggressively by just blowing us off. They don’t want volunteers. And we’re a leader of volunteers and our job is to get as many volunteers as possible into all parts of our organization, helping us out, building our capacity. 

And we’ve got coworkers that like blowing us off and. I always recommend when we’re doing this strategic planning is also figure out what are the grants they’re working on, what are the projects they’re working on? What are the things that they’re responsible for that you can see a volunteer contributing to. When you said credibility, part of this is knowledge of the sector as well as knowledge of the organization and the department. Yes. Right. Yeah. Tell me about, I have a, I have a volunteer pro member who does this so well. She’ll go around and sit with every department and say, what are you working on? What are your biggest goals this year? Let me see how we could work together, and I can help you reach these goals. 

Jenni: Yeah, and it’s, it’s addressing the symptoms as well, right? Where you were saying, we’ve got all these volunteers, but people don’t want the volunteers to help. Is it because they think it’s going to take too much of their time to talk to them? What’s it that’s stopping them? Find out that root cause and address that rather than kind of guessing what it is. Yes. But you are spot on around the. What is it that’s important to you? So, I always talk about kind of a couple of things when it comes to influencing leaders, but it’s really for any sort of function. 

What are the things that you are working on? What are you measured on? And where are you spending most of your time? And once I understand that about you, I can then map, I. Myself right into that, a bit like your pro member and saying, how can I help with this? But you’ve got to find why they’re not doing it in the first place. 

What is it? Because if it’s, if people have created a story and we create a lot of stories in our mind about what something is, if there’s a story in, in, in the culture of the organization that. Well, if you have a volunteer, they’re going to do this wrong. They’re going to do that wrong. It’s going to take us ages to get them on board, and then they’re just going to disappear. If that’s the story, that is the internal story about volunteers, then there’s a PR problem internally to shift around volunteers and what volunteers can do. But you’ve got to find that root cause to know how to address that.  

Tobi: Yeah, and I think that does happen too, right? The reality is volunteers sometimes aren’t as reliable as paid stuff because they’re not getting paid. Yeah. But and life gets in the way, but there are communication norms around that. Yeah. That you can set up. There’s training to make sure they feel, are they capable? What are the competencies that you need our volunteers to have before we send them to you, and can we figure out how to get those? 

Collaboratively. Make sure those base competencies are met around skills. And then the other thing is. Sometimes it’s a self-defeating, you know, we talked about credibility and influence in, in, in the way that people are supporting others. Mm-hmm. If those staff in that department don’t know how to support volunteers properly Yeah. 

They’re going to experience. A break with the volunteers and the volunteers may stop showing up, and it’s not because they don’t want to help, it’s because they’re not being supported and their trust and the credibility of the employee. So it’s not just like one sided, I, it, it drives me crazy when everything is blamed on volunteers. If volunteers aren’t showing up, it’s because of volunteers. Well, partly, maybe. Maybe not.  

Jenni: Yeah. Maybe they’re just exhausted by trying to give their time and nothing happening. Yeah. Like sometimes you are trying to do so much, but you, it just goes into, into this world that just doesn’t ever come back out or when, you know, whatever it is. There’s a lot of things that will be going on.  

Tobi: Or I reached out and no one ever got back to me. Or I showed up and I sat on a desk for three hours doing nothing. Yeah. Or everyone ignored me. Nobody even said hello. Yeah. Like all of these things we’ve got to look at. But I am going back to the foundation here is know what you’re dealing with. Understand what the root causes are. Yeah. So, you do have influence. You don’t have to have authority to have influence. That’s my key takeaway. Yeah. From everything. Any pa Since I’m working on a book for volunteers who lead, so I’ve got to ask you about this. Are there any approaches specifically that help volunteers? 

Who lead? We talked about leaders; we talked about volunteer managers and other staff. What about volunteers who lead? Is there anything that they should focus on? I feel like they have this bias talked about in a recent podcast where I was talking about. Volunteers as entitled. I’m like, well, they kind of are entitled to be treated well, come on. 

They’re contributing their time. Yeah, their time and skills are valuable. They are entitled to be treated well. So I don’t think that’s a credible kind of complaint, but there’s this acting entitled and all that, and I, I kind of. Discuss that and why it’s a problem, but there’s some of this bias against, so they, they themselves must think about their own leadership using leadership principles. What would you recommend to volunteer specifically a volunteer leader who’s kind of working against some of these dynamics? 

Jenni: And the volunteer leader is leading volunteers, just so I’ve got that right?  So, the things to kind of dial up on the wheel in that way would be more of the empathetic. The reason I say that is because being empathetic is about being caring. It’s about being compassionate, and it’s about being flexible. Flexible is important for empathy in a post covid world where we need more flexibility. The reason this is more important from a volunteer leader perspective is because we’ve talked about the perceived reliability of volunteers, right? 

And we’ve talked about some of those challenges and the very nature that as a volunteer. Life gets in the way. Your priorities shift. You’re trying to do something, sometimes it can’t always happen, and lots of different things in there. So that empathy must be high. Yes. So, there must be an element of caring, being compassionate and being flexible around what those people need and being able to flex to that depending on what’s happening. 

If you don’t have empathy or if empathy is quite low or that empathetic practice is quite low, then people just dislike you. Which is, is okay. But empathy and supportive are closely linked. So, if my empathy, if the empathetic practice is low, the dislike kind of comes in, which naturally leads over to feeling a lack of being supportive. 

So, the supportive piece goes, and when we don’t have supportive, we get rejection. So, it follows that sort of. Path generally. So that for volunteers is, is more important because it’s a volunteer role. So that empathy is, has got to be high.  

Tobi: Yeah, and I will give an example, last week we had a bunch of, so we do, every Saturday we do a gardening tips live with our master gardener group, and we go online. It’s a remote volunteering. We jump online, we talk about gardening, we do presentations, we have guest speakers. We, it, it’s a gardening show. It’s fun. And I’ve been doing it now for four or five years now. I can’t even remember, but I’ve been a master gardener for 10 years. This, but next year will be my 10th year. 

So, I obviously feel I’m supported. I feel like there’s all the leadership principles you’ve talked about. Yeah. I feel like in my volunteer team, and we are a hundred percent volunteer in our small team of the larger organization, we are self-sufficient. And so last week nobody could come except me and one other person. 

And so, I said that’s fine. And I knew it was coming up and I said, I’ll be flexible. And when I’m in London, I’ll take pictures of gardens, and I will do a talk on gardens in London, which I did. It was fantastic. Early spring gardens in London, the physics, Chelsea physics garden. I mean, it was so fantastic. 

Then this weekend I’m getting ready and packed up to go to Washington State where I’ll spend the summer and there’s a lot going on this weekend to get the house in order and all this. I said to my volunteer leader. Would you mind if I step back this weekend and somebody else filled in for me? On our team, we have a, we have a team so people can come and go, and she said, absolutely, I’ll take over. 

Don’t worry about it. I’ll host the show and we’ll see you next time. That’s the level of flexibility. Yeah, and for that reason, we are a long standing team. Nobody has left our team since we started. Yeah. Well, one person because of illness, she’s had a, a chronic. Well, she had a heart attack and had, she’s going through therapy and whatnot. 

She couldn’t, can’t volunteer right now. And everybody’s cool with that. And we’re all like, so having enough people to be flexible, but also being, and like no harm, no foul. Yeah. Nobody, nobody’s upset about it because it’s a give and take.  

Jenni: It’s mutual because there is respect, there is trust, there is integrity. It’s going to be paid back. The relationships have been established. I think that’s the important thing in all of this is. The relationships have been built on a foundation that allows for that flexibility, that supportive nature, all of that. If the time isn’t spent to invest in the relationships, in any relationship, whether it’s a, a leader and a, and a volunteer, whether it’s the organization and the volunteer, if neither of those parties or if one of those parties doesn’t want to build that relationship, it’s going to be really hard to do that. 

But it works when you. Invest the time and we must give it time because we are all in relationships with each other, which means that we must spend time doing that. And being empathetic shows that caring, compassion, that flexible, which is everything you had there. There was compassion, there was care, there was flexibility. 

All those things are important, but it really comes down to that investment of time and that want from all parties to create the relationship and that’s important.  

Tobi: Yeah. Yeah. And I think that’s a great. Way to end our conversation. So fantastic. Your framework works so well in the nonprofit sector and within volunteers and leadership and credibility. It works so well. I mean, when I read it, I was like, oh yeah, I. Oh yeah. Yeah. I was like, this doesn’t have to be, you know, because you’re, you’re mostly working with corporate folk, but you also, this is absolutely, so gang, get your hands on this book. I’m telling you right now, you will be able to go through the book and just identify immediately, oh, this is the problem. 

And then the wonderful thing is I’ve always said we are architects of the volunteer experience we’re architects of our own experience and it’s, there’s purposeful, I love the way that the book approaches this as a purposeful, it’s not about someone failing. Mm-hmm. It’s not about someone’s a bad push person or a good person. 

It’s about being purposeful in how we are building relationship with one another. And you have it so well in. You have the evidence to say, look, it’s these eight things. This is all you need to worry about. Yeah. And so, this has been fantastic. So thank you so much for joining me today. So one last question as we wrap up. What are you most excited about in the year ahead?  

Jenni: Oh, what am I most excited about in the year ahead? Do you know what I’m most excited? I think a couple of things that are coming up for me where I’m getting back to being able to travel across to the US and Canada. Yay. And I went through a bit of a spell of getting over to speak and do things, and it’s lovely to be able to be doing that again. So, I’m really excited about spending some time in Toronto in the summer and sometime in Nashville later in the year as well. So really looking forward to that.  

Tobi: You know, you’re in maybe Nashville in what October? Yes. So we are definitely gonna hang out.  

Jenni: We are! 

Tobi: ‘m only a couple hours away. I will be back in Knoxville by then. So where can people learn about your work? We’re obviously going to post some links. I’m going to post a link to my interview with Advita Patel, who is Jenni’s best friend. Course because, and the current, I think she’s the current president of the association. You’re both members of as a volunteer leader, but we talk a lot about becoming a leader, inclusivity. It’s a great conversation. So, I’ll link to that as well. But where can people find you if they want to connect with you and want to talk about working with you. 

Jenni: Perfect. So, the best way to find me is my website, which is thejennifield.com, which we can put a link to that in the show notes. And from there you can grab the book, and you can find out a bit more about how we could work together. You can get the book on Amazon as well, which is always quite easy. If you want a lovely hardback signed, personalized version, then let me know and you can order that direct from me so we can put links to all of that in the show notes. 

We post those out around the world for people that order them. So, lots of places. And we’ll also put a link into the credibility gap assessment, which is a free assessment you can take, and it’ll give you a report to show you which one of the eight you need to start working on first. So nice and practical stuff to really get you off the ground if you want to work on one of these sorts of first and get cracking on building that credibility. 

Tobi: That is awesome. I love it. All right, everybody, you’ve gotten the real deal from Jenni Field. Anyway, gang, I hope this has been helpful for you. Really, it all is not lost. All is not lost. This is all a skillset that we develop as leaders, and sometimes things work, and they don’t work, and we’re not sure why. Well, Jenni’s book tells you why. So, get the book, start working on stuff and let us know how it goes. All right. Take care of everybody. We will be here next week, same time, same place. And also, if you think anybody might benefit. Whether it’s an executive leader at your organization or a fellow volunteer manager or leader of volunteers, go ahead and share this episode with them. Alright, gang, we will see you next week on The Volunteer Nation. Take care everybody.