An Inspiration Trifecta | Inatai Foundation

Inspiration One: Mission in Action

Recently, I was privileged to work with a leadership team of the Inatai Foundation. Their mission is to transform the balance of power to ensure equity and racial justice across Washington and beyond. Not only is their mission inspiring, but their clear 50-year vision and values in action reinforce deep commitment to the communities they serve now and into the future. Given the current national and political climate, these endeavors are extraordinarily challenging. Yet the Foundation is growing and unyielding in their commitment, and that is reflected by the people they employ and the people they are attracting. (https://inatai.org/)

Inspiration Two: Leading through Learning

Introduced by a previous client ('Amelia') that had recently joined the organization, I was invited to meet with a senior leader to talk about development for her leadership team. Most often, these initial leader conversations focus on team and organizational ailments. Challenges with team/cross-team collaboration, trust issues, relationship friction, conflict, and communication breakdowns in general. (The good news for me is that I specialize in working with those issues!) However, this initial conversation was wholly different. The first question asked by this leader, was both reflective and inquisitive. She asked:

“How do I work to bring out the best in teams?”

In nearly twenty years of doing this amazing work, I was stunned. What made this first question unique was her ownership, self-responsibility, and inferred “rightness” of her existing team. She was seeking to develop her team through developing herself as their leader. That is true leadership.

Inspiration Three: Fostering Unity through Trust and Agency

Through our conversation, I learned more about the leader, her team and its role serving the foundational pillars of the organization. The current state of this small but mighty team held tension. On one side, there was a group of experienced, dedicated, hard-working individuals driven to support the Inatai Mission by serving the employees with day-to-day infrastructure, culture building, and communication. On the other side, the organization’s obligatory response to the intense and even combative political climate was taxing on every level. The associated time requirements impacted staffing levels and often created a state of overwhelm for everyone, which created risk of burnout and potentially turnover.

As we talked about the team needs now, the leader mentioned that they were coming together for their first all-day retreat. She had decided to prioritize a full day of team development even in the face of time and schedule scarcity. Her planned agenda focused on four areas:

1. Clarifying the department’s “north star”
2. Transitioning culture from “start-up” to “grown-up”
3. Forming cascading goals for the upcoming year
4. Building culture on the team

Her culture building goal was simple and straightforward; to leverage all to move forward more powerfully. She envisioned deepening understanding of personality styles, strengths, and communication preferences as a pathway, even though this team already knew each other and got along well.  

Again, I was struck by the uniqueness of this leader and this conversation. She was not wanting to “fix” anyone or anything and she did not have any biases, judgments, or assumptions about anything personality related. She wanted to strengthen the connections of her team and unify their strengths and styles to both set the direction and reinforce partnering support to tackle tough challenges together.

This leader decided to shift her retreat agenda and prioritize culture building. She invited me to join the team to facilitate and allotted 60% of the agenda. As if I wasn’t already astounded, she then entrusted me to design and deliver a session that would strengthen her team and support their planning session in the afternoon, with no additional direction from her. I offered to draft the day for her review, and her response was, “Amelia said you do great work and that working with you would help us be a better team. I trust Amelia, so I trust you.” Can you imagine how seen, valued and trusted Amelia felt? And how much it reinforced her decision to join this organization?

This level of trust and agency is what most leaders, managers, and professionals long for in the workplace today.

Different from autonomy (freedom from control and micromanagement), agency provides the ability to shape goals, challenge existing processes, influence strategies, and have a real voice in decisions. Both are important, but agency goes deeper by giving people genuine power to actively participate in choices that affect their work. True agency fosters trust, stronger relationships, and enthused teams.

Every day, I get to learn, grow, and receive inspiration through the conversations and engagements I am so fortunate to experience. May this organization, and in particular this leader’s example, encourage all of us to action, learning, and trust that encourages others to shine today.