121 – Intuitive Leadership in Volunteer Coordination with Fran Horwich

August 1, 2024

Episode #121: Intuitive Leadership in Volunteer Coordination with Fran Horwich

In this episode of the Volunteer Nation podcast, Tobi invites Fran Horwich onto the show to discuss intuitive leadership in volunteer coordination. Fran shares stories from her extensive experience, emphasizing the importance of understanding volunteers’ personal motivations and the necessity of professional boundary setting.  

The pair also provide practical tips for integrating intuitive leadership into volunteer programs, balancing data with gut feelings, and ultimately enhancing teamwork, morale, and community connection. Whether you’re a seasoned volunteer coordinator or new to volunteer management, this conversation offers valuable insights into the human side of leading volunteer talent. 

Intuitive Leadership – Episode Highlights

• [05:07] – Fran’s Journey into Volunteer Management 
• [08:38] – The Importance of Volunteerism 
• [14:53] – Intuitive Leadership in Practice 
• [33:30] – Proactive Listening and Setting Intent 
• [34:50] – Examples of Intuitive Client Interactions 
• [36:47] – Balancing Intuition and Efficiency 
• [37:57] – Intuitive Leadership and Professional Boundaries 
• [41:05] – Volunteer Supervision and Safeguarding 
• [44:39] – The Importance of Volunteer Motivation 
• [47:49] – Implementing Intuitive Leadership in Volunteer Programs 

Helpful Links

• VolunteerPro Membership Community 
• Volunteer Management Progress Report 
• Volunteer Nation Episode #057: The Compassionate Instinct & Bringing Wonder Back to Work with Dacher Keltner 
• Volunteer Nation Episode #120 – 10 Volunteer Interview Questions for a Perfect Match 
• UK National Health Service, What is Social Prescribing? 
• Midlife Crisis Theatre Company 
• The Association of Jewish Refugees 
• Connect with Fran via Email 

Contact Us

Have questions or suggestions for the show? Email us at wecare@volpro.net.

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Episode #121 Transcript: Intuitive Leadership in Volunteer Coordination with Fran Horwich 

Tobi: Welcome to another episode of the Volunteer Nation podcast. Have I got a treat for you today. Still talking with folks from my trip to the UK. I’ve got a great guest for you today. We’re going to talk about intuitive leadership. Now, folks. Those of you who are super practical and don’t feel like you’re very woo woo, you may feel like this is a little woo woo. 

But I want to tell you that intuitive leadership and intuitive management is evidence based. So, I’ll tell you just a little bit about how the body works. You know, when you think about having a gut reaction to something, your kind of gut tells you and leads you sometimes. There’s been research that shows that trusting your gut as a leader is a very smart practice. 

And there’s some reasons why. One is that your gut, the nerves in your gut, there’s a nerve that goes to your brain and they call your gut your second brain. And so, you know, there’s so much emphasis on gut health lately and the microbiome of our, you know, stomach lining and our, you know, whole digestive tract and all of that. 

That’s because those hormones and nerves and all that infrastructure also connects to our brains. So, we may think that trusting our gut is a woo woo practice, but it’s actually, you know, based on our physiology. And so, we want to jump into this, and I’ve invited Fran Horwich, who I met in the UK during our Manchester, uh, Volunteer recruitment workshop, and we were just chatting on the side about intuition. 

And I said, you know what, I’ve got to have you on the pod, we’ve got to talk about this because it’s rarely talked about, especially in volunteer coordination. And so, I invited Fran to come on, we’re going to have a chat about this. And I want you to just reflect, you know, how does intuition show up for you? 

And maybe you’re using it already and you don’t know it. I’ve made. recent big decisions on my business, and a lot of it was driven by gut. Now, the other thing to note is your gut is also influenced by the information you collect, right? So, it’s sort of a self-reflective cycle, and we know that our, you know, our heart decides, and our intellect justifies 

Often the emotions that we feel about a decision are the first thing that really tells our prefrontal cortex or the reasoning part of our brain what decision to make. And so again, there’s the gut. You know, we feel a lot of our emotions in our body, in our gut in our, um, in our stomach area, in our diaphragm, in our chest, a lot of our key emotions we will feel there. 

I’m really excited to jump into this conversation and really start to think about, you know, because this is about the people side of volunteer engagement and the people side is so important. We are in a people business and so we’ve got to get better and better and better at making decisions and navigating that person-to-person relationship, which often causes and creates emotions. So let me introduce Fran. Fran, thanks so much for joining me today.  

Fran: I’m really glad to be here. Thank you for having me.  

Tobi: Yeah, it’s going to be fantastic. She’s head of Volunteers and Community Services at the Association of Jewish Refugees, AJR, with over 20 years of experience dedicated service and volunteer coordination. Fran has made a significant impact on communities across the UK through her leadership and commitment. She’s based in Manchester where I met her, and she manages a diverse team spread throughout the country. Ensuring that volunteers are effectively organized, supported and rewarded, and that survivors and refugees of Nazi persecution are provided with companionship and understanding in their later years. 

What a wonderful mission to work on. Before embarking on her journey in volunteer management, Fran was a primary school teacher, and prior to that, she was a professional actor and is a firm believer in career flexibility and evolvement. I’m with you, sister. She is married with three adult children and runs the Midlife Crisis Theater Company in her spare time. I love that. The Midlife Crisis Theater Company.  

Fran: Yeah, I think actually we’re probably 20 years too old to still be saying we’re having a midlife crisis, but we’re hanging on to it.  

Tobi: That’s fantastic. All right. Well, welcome to the Volunteer Nation podcast, Fran. I’m just really excited to have you here. So, let’s get started, uh, you know, tell us a little bit about yourself and the work you do. 

I talked a little bit about it in the introduction, you know, what piqued your interest or what sparked you to start to get into volunteer involvement? I love to hear people’s birth stories in our field, right?  

Fran: Yes, I would say that I, like many of my choices, I, I actually didn’t choose. I sort of fell into it. I think as far as my own career is concerned. I think I’ve always. I’ve known how I want to feel about what I do rather than know what I want to do. And I was looking, I had two of my kids, I had them very close together. And I was a primary school teacher. Primary school is like the early years, age four through 11, you say. 

I had these two very young kids and I felt that I was kitted out a bit and I wasn’t giving them my best and I wanted a change, and I knew how I wanted to feel. So, I wanted to make a difference. I wanted to do something a bit like teaching where when you go home at the end of the day, you feel like you at least scored one goal, you know, you may have missed 20, but you scored one. 

I was looking for something that would do that. And, um, a friend of mine told me, uh, about a job that was going in volunteer management, and I went for this job, not really knowing that much about it, but. This, the organization that I worked for was supporting people who were caring for a family member who was either disabled or ill and were under retirement age. 

So, these were the kind of families that were quite badly affected by the pandemic. One member being incapacitated, and the job was to find volunteers who would support either the person being cared for or family member. And I thought, yeah, that sounds great because I’ll be able to do that. And now when I’ve done that and I’ve made a difference to that family, I’m going to come home and feel really good. 

I went for the interview; I got the job. I have no idea why I had no experience at all. And it was the first, I think. I’m in my life that I turned up for work and I had no idea what to do and didn’t know what the job entails. And I sat there thinking, God, I really hope something comes to me. And it did. 

Tobi: Yeah. Yeah. Fake it until you make it. Right. Yeah. I’ve done that where I get, I get to a job and I, uh, I’m like, you know what, I’m going to spend, you know, I’m going to spend my evenings like studying on how to do this.  

Fran: I think what helped me was that I had. been a volunteer.  

Tobi: Yes. 

Fran: I think if you, if you’ve done some voluntary work, then you’ve got some idea what happens, but obviously from the other side of the fence. I think that did tell me, well, I did have, you know, great people around me who supported me. To get going, but I think even from a very early point, it was an intuition thing that I was going with.  

Tobi: Yeah. I mean, I was going to say that, you know, you were looking at, you were really paying attention to your intuition and your need, like what you wanted in your experience versus what job role. 

You wanted to have a specific experience or feeling when you got home, which is very intuitive. So. Fantastic. Fast forward to today. Why do you think volunteerism is so important? I love to ask people this question just because there’s so many reasons why it’s important, but I want to know why you think it’s important. 

Fran: There are two sides to that point, definitely. And I think that from the perspective of volunteers and giving their time, giving of themselves, I think what we lack today as a society is community. I think, um, we live very much in isolation. I mean, look at you and I now, we’re both, you know, we’ve got our headphones and our AirPods and we’re looking at each other through a screen. 

Our minds think we’re having a conversation and you’re across the other side of the world to me. And that, I think, how it is society at the moment, it is sort of, it’s tenuously together, but it is very much good and not living in communities means that people suffer greatly from isolation. And I think that having volunteer services helps to alleviate what a volunteer can bring to somebody else or to an organization or society is something that’s completely priceless. 

It’s not something you can buy or hire. It’s something completely different. When somebody volunteers and gives their time freely, what they’re giving is something that you can’t buy because it’s not viable. And I think that that is something that is so beautiful and nurturing to society that we really need it more than ever. 

And the flip side is that people need to volunteer. We have something in this country, I don’t know whether you have this, you probably have a different term for it, but it’s called social scribing. Have you heard of that?  

Tobi: No. No.  

Fran: The social prescribing in the UK is quite a new thing. It’s about people who are suffering with mental health issues. Anxiety, depression, they will, they will have someone work with them on social, right? And so, it’s not a pill and it’s not, it’s not necessarily a therapy. It’s something that’s going to enhance their life. And very often that will be something like exercise or more swimming, or they’ll have, they’ll give them a path to go to a gym or to a pool. 

One of the big things that people are doing through social. Describing is telling the volunteer and I think volunteering is the answer to so many ills because if you are struggling with your own mental health, but you find it within yourself, do something that helps somebody else. You’re going to walk home with a smile on your face. 

How long will the smile last? Who knows? Yeah. But you will smile. Yeah. And how amazing is that? 

Tobi: Yeah. The compassion gene is strong in us. Like we had Dacher Keltner on. He’s at the Greater Good Center in Berkeley, in California, at the University of California, Berkeley, and he did research on the compassion gene in, in people, and we have a, we actually, in our genetic makeup, we have this compassion gene that, that really, we, we can You know, read people’s level of compassion without even seeing them, just hearing their voice. 

There’s also, in terms of just social ability, the, uh, you know, just being with other people can, you know, provided they’re not toxic to us, right? But with family and friends, if we’re under stress or having mental health issues, just being around other people and getting out of that isolation can be very helpful. 

I did that. I just got back from two weeks of vacation, and I hadn’t taken a vacation for a long time. And many of our listeners know, you know, we had a very big flood in our house earlier this year and we were displaced for about four months. So, we were moving around, living out of boxes for about four months. 

It’s incredibly stressful. And I kept the business going, kept the podcast going, kept everything going. And when I took vacation, I, Purposefully, I had some girlfriends, they invited girlfriends up from the Bay Area to visit for the long weekend. I purposefully went and visited my family. I purposefully spend more time with people, because often I’m in my office doing work, you know, with the computer. And I did it purposefully to help me recover from all this stress. So, it’s absolutely, and it absolutely does make a difference.  

Fran: Yeah.  

Tobi: If you just pay attention to your gut again, after you hang out with people who are supportive and compassionate and, you know, they don’t have to be superheroes. They just accept you as you are. Yeah. That you, if you pay attention to your mood after that, there will be a shift if you’ve been struggling. Absolutely. It’s insane.  

Fran: It replants your feet. I think it replants you in the earth in a place rather than floating individually, especially if you’re working remotely, which so many people do now. And that has an impact on people’s health. But you are being with it, community, company, society.  

Tobi: Yeah, and it’s based also on our sort of history as a species, you know, if we were, we would not have survived if we were individualists. You know, if we were like, you know what, we’re not going to be with the Klan, we’re going to go run, you know, we’re going to run through the savannah on our own. 

We don’t need anybody like, well, no, you need, you need a society to protect you from, you know, predators, et cetera, to help you gather food, to build things together. I mean, you couldn’t do it without, so it’s genetically like also we’re programmed that way. So, it’s, it’s, it’s really fascinating the ways that. 

We are learning more in the past, I would say five to 10 years about human beings, how we function, you know, just psychology and physiology and neuroscience and mindfulness and even spirituality. It’s interesting. Well, let’s get into this. We’re going to talk about intuitive leadership again. 

This is a conversation that’s so rarely held in our space. We talk about, you know, whenever we’re talking about people to people, we’re always talking about how do we manage difficult people or, you know, how do we influence others? You know, those are the leadership topics that are commonly talked about, but intuitive leadership is a whole different thing. 

Today, we’re going to do that. We’re going to so let’s. Start with you, Fran, as our case study, because I just, we, we started talking about this in Manchester, and I was like, this is so fascinating. How has your own leadership style and leadership toolbox evolved over the years?  

Fran: In terms of a leader of another workforce, if you like, that for me has been recent. So, up until Three, four years ago, I was managing volunteers, but I wasn’t the head of a department. And what happened for me was quite difficult. We went into COVID and of course everybody was struggling at that point, but we were trying to keep the service going for our members. And I had the most wonderful head of department. 

I’d worked for her for eight years at this point. And we were. friends as well as colleagues. And unfortunately, during COVID she, and she was quite sick. And so, I became her deputy and was sort of managing the rest of the team. This wasn’t so difficult at the time because we were all, we were all working remotely. 

We were all online. And unfortunately, three or so years ago, she passed away. I’m going to name her. Her name was Carol Hart. She was just one. It just evolved at the time that we’d had so much upheaval because of COVID, and we were just coming back, and I’d been remotely managing the team. Now I live in Manchester, as you said, Manchester. 

Our head office is in London, which is 200 miles away, which I know in terms of the U. S. is like around the corner, but here is a bit of a distance here. It’s two different worlds. My organization had never had a senior leader who didn’t live in the capital and work at head office. So, it was a big gamble, but it, again, I think, it was, I intuitively knew that the best thing at that time, because we’d had enough people, was for me to just take over. 

So, I now run this team and I commute between London and Manchester, so I’m, I’m there and I’m here quite a lot. It was a big decision because my family, uh, here and there. And it’s a lot of traveling. So, when I first took over leading the team, it was more of, I need to do what she did. I need to keep everything calm, stay me, let’s together. 

I think once I’d settled into the role, I realized I needed to do it my way. That even though I’d learned so much from my predecessor, it, it must be your way. I also had to hire two new members of the team. And I’d never actually hired a professional before. 

I don’t, I’d hired. Many, many volunteers, but never a paid member of staff. So, I think it was during that process that I thought that the best thing really is to listen. And that’s the hardest time, I think, to listen to your gut, because you get somebody’s CV, you look at their CV, they look perfect, they’ve had the perfect experience. 

They come in and they give you all the right answers. And I remember I sat there with the HR lead, and we interviewed him. This one lady came in, she ticked every single box, every single box. And at the end of the, of the, the session of interviews, my HR lead said to me, she was the one, number three, she was the one, brilliant. 

What do you think? I said, yeah, yeah. I think she was really good. And I went home, back to my hotel room. I couldn’t sleep because inside, I knew she wasn’t right. And I got to work so early, I was, it wasn’t even open, the building, I was sitting outside the building. HR lead said, what are you doing? I said, you didn’t offer her the job yet. 

She said, no, I didn’t. I said, don’t, don’t, it’s not right. It’s just not a fit. Now, I don’t really know whether she may have been perfect, but something told me she wouldn’t be a good fit. And that fit was more about personality, about the team dynamic than anything on paper, on paper she fit. Yeah. In reality, she didn’t. 

Tobi: Yeah. And I think we question each other, we question ourselves. I’ve done a fair amount of hiring myself. And we’re questioning too, you know, is there any bias coming in that’s influencing our gut, right? That’s always my conundrum. Like if my gut is saying, nope, Nope, no way. Then I have to double check. Okay. Is there any bias that’s creating fear in you, you know, especially if the person’s very different than me, whether it’s personality style or culture or language or whatever, then I absolutely have to do that double check and go is that is the intuition about. 

My intuition about their fit and their qualifications, or is it my intuition about a fear? Because they’re different than me. Do you ever struggle with that? How do you manage that? You know, because we don’t want to let our own internal biases, you know, block us from because sometimes the person who’s completely different than you are the best choice 

Fran: I completely agree with you. And I, I do know exactly what you mean about, about, about bias, because I think you can sometimes just instinctively not get, you know, or they just make you. You’re not a, you’re not personally a good fit doesn’t necessarily mean that they’re not the right person for the job. 

And it depends how closely you’re going to have to work with. But I think there were, there are questions that I would ask somebody, and I would ask anybody who is working with volunteers this question. If you’ve got, you know, you’ve got, you’ve got six volunteers and you’ve got six people who are looking for a volunteer, how would you match them? 

What was the, what would be the best way to match? And I think that if you get answers like, well, you need to look how close they live together. Um, you know, if there are, if there are a bus route or a tram or a subway route, are they both available on Tuesdays? I mean, all these are perfectly sound answers, but if nobody, if they don’t say, and will they get on? 

Will they be the right fit? It says, I remember actually when I was interviewed, my, my late colleague Carol asked me that question and she said, you know, what, And I said, she said, well, would you not just try it out? And I said, no, because making the wrong match is worse than not making a match. If you get it wrong, you’ve, it’s, uh, you know, that person who’s accepted volunteer support. 

And I’m talking a lot about befriending here. This is the sort of volunteer I’m talking about. If that person doesn’t fit, doesn’t, isn’t happy, they may say, no, I never want to do that again. And that would be a real shame. So, it’s, it’s much better to get that right. And that, a lot of that is about intuition, not how near they live. 

Tobi: Yeah. I mean, so it’s, there’s the practical side of things, policies, procedures, the practical side of things. Needs for volunteers, et cetera, which are important. There’s also the, it’s almost like the emotional intelligence side of the applicant. That’s the side where you want to try to use your intuition and you want to try to suss it out through some questions. 

Yeah, I think you’re right. Also, intuition just isn’t about just looking at somebody and feeling their vibes. It’s about gathering information. Yeah. To see what your gut says, you know, it’s like, I’m going to consult my gut on this, but I need information first in order, you know, you don’t do, you don’t do intuition without information, right? 

Fran: Absolutely. And I think that, I mean, the way that I have always worked with, with volunteers is that when I, when a volunteer comes to see me, what, you know, wants to volunteer for us, um, we’ll sit down, we’ll have a coffee. I will, I will ask them any number of questions you have. Thanks. that have nothing to do with the volunteering. 

If I, I mean, very often I’ll go and see someone in their own home, I’ll go into their home, I’ll see pictures of their kids, are these your kids, are these your grandkids, how lovely, how many kids have you got? And, you know, just start off with stuff like, oh, the traffic was awful today, um, you know, I hate driving. 

You will have a real conversation, a conversation of two people chatting, and then you will know that what they’re really like, not what they want you to know about them with regard to their, you know, what they’re going to do for you as a volunteer, but who they are. I think I’m a really good chatter in that, you know, I’m in fact too much of a good chatter. 

I can talk about anything forever. The other, the flip side of that is you’ve also got to listen, and you’ve got to remind yourself halfway through your spiel to shut up and listen and listen. And the other bit is, what are they asking you? What are they asking you about you? That’s how you know what somebody is like, you know, not, and how often will I need to come? 

Do you reimburse people’s transfer? That bit, you don’t know anything, it’s like, in the other stuff, how long have you done this? This is a really interesting job. How did you get into this job, Fran? You know, I think it’s those sorts of things that help you to know a person. And if you don’t. Get a sense of the essence of a person, find who they’re going to match with. 

Tobi: Right. I just recorded an interview, a podcast episode on interview questions to ask,and one of them is to, to ask them, do you have any questions for me? So, I’ll post a link to that. I just recorded it, I’m not sure which number it’s going to be. So, I’ll post a link to that in the show notes, but yeah and then you want to hear, or do they have any questions at all, right? 

There’s no level of curiosity whatsoever. Hmm, you know, things that make you go, hmm, I don’t know about that.  

Fran: But you know that person might be ideal for somebody. You know that person, but not intuitive. That person who is quite prepared to sit and say nothing. You know, you may well have somebody who is. repetitive in their conversation, very domineering in their conversation, and they just need someone who’s going to sit there for, you know, forty five minutes, drink a cup of tea and leave, have you not said very much?  

Tobi: Don’t, don’t just do something, sit there. Well, let’s talk about the basics of intuitive leadership from your perspective, because I don’t think everybody’s listening necessarily knows what that means. 

In your perspective, you know, what is it, what is it not? How would you describe it to folks? How is it different than other leadership? tools or approaches, just give us kind of your basic, you know, intuitive leadership one on one.  

Fran: In terms of leading my team, I think my predecessor, Carol, who I’ve coached a lot, when she used to have a division with me or one to one session with me, she would always start that with, and how are you? 

Now, it was very different than normal British way of greeting someone. I see you. How are you? Do sit down. That how are you doesn’t require an answer. How, how, how are you did require an answer. And the answer was not about your workload. your caseload. It, it was not about that. It was about you. And I think that when, when, when we’re managing our teams and we are very stressed about covering enough bases, you’ve got a set of trustees who want to see, you know, greater productivity. 

You need to do more matches. You need to do more of this. You need to do more of that. And it’s so easy to start up your sessions with your team. data and data tells you a lot, tells you a lot about how your service is working but doesn’t really tell you what’s going on for them and what they might need to help them do their job better. 

Now, you know, for some people it might just be that they need, they need more flexibility than if they work more from home and that’s in the office that would give them a flexibility that would give them some peace of mind. Some people would tell you that out front, no problem. They walk into your office, and they go, I need to work at home more than this, I can’t do this, I’m struggling. 

But for some people, you need to tease that stuff out. I think that’s where the intuition comes in. I think you, you know, intuitively when something is not going that well, the other thing is who in your team works well together. And I think that is, you know, on paper, Jesus. He does that, that those, those things mesh, I think that they should take on a project together that’s going to work well because their skill set complements each other, not just about the skill set. 

I think that intuition is so integral to the way that you think about your whole work life, that it’s, but it’s very hard to put it down in, in, in, in bullet points. You need to do this, you need to do that, you need that. Most of our work you can put down in bullet points, you can be bullet pointing forever, but the intuition is sit quietly with yourself and think, and we don’t do that, do we? How often do you sit quietly with yourself and think?  

Tobi: Yeah, yeah. And people, you know, absolutely. I think that’s the key. That’s the entree into the tool into the insight is sitting quiet. It’s mindful practice, right? It’s when you say sit quietly, it’s a mindful practice. We’re paying attention to our body, our thoughts. 

And You know, folks will say, oh, there’s no way my, my, my life is so hectic at work, et cetera, et cetera. It just, there’s no way I can do this. This is just never going to work for me to, or I’m to action bias. I’m, I have an action for bias. I’m never going to sit or a bias for action. I should say, but I’ve used this where it takes me only, you know, a few seconds. I’ve been on calls, important calls or meetings with people, where I’m negotiating something, or I need to understand really well, or it’s a high stakes conversation, whatever it is. And I have purposefully said to myself before I have the call or have the meeting, I said to myself, sometimes it’s mindful, its mindful self talk about, I’m going to crush this, I’m going to do this well, I’m going to come out successful, all that. 

You know, there’s that type A kind of, you know, pushing forward. But there’s also a side of me that will sometimes say, okay, I’m going to pay attention during this call. I’m not, I’m going to listen more than I talk and I’m going to try to understand what this person really wants. Not what they’re telling me they want, but what they really want. 

And that’s going to help me make decisions about this, this collaboration or this relationship. And I remember once doing that. And I said to my, and after the call, you know, and it takes like, you must set your intention to do this. It, it, for me, it doesn’t happen on the fly. I must set my intention. 

I must be very purposeful prior to the call. But when I got off the call, I said, wow, this person really wants me to like them. And that completely blew my mind. Like what? Is that? Yeah. Yeah. Like, wow, like, because, you know, it was a high stakes conversation, you know, it was about an important collaboration and I’m like, this person really wants me to like them. 

And I was like, Oh, that changes everything, you know. 

Fran: It’s quite the revelation, isn’t it?  

Tobi: Yeah. And it just took me, I had to like zip it because I’m very, you know, very chatty. I had to zip it and pay attention to body language. And then, and then afterwards reflect. You know, that’s the second part of it, right? 

It’s not, you know, you got to stop and go, okay, what do I think? Or what do I feel? Or what do I intuit just happened?  

Fran: I think that is the second part. I think that, for example, when I go and visit somebody who wants a volunteer to support them, and I’ve done the chitchat, chitchat, very often the next stage for me is to talk to one of my colleagues. and talk through, she said this, she said that I felt this, she felt that, and as I’m reiterating that music, it’s, it’s coming to me what the kernel of it was. I think maybe perhaps I, I did that more before, maybe now I’ve got so used to listening inside my head, I don’t need to, I don’t need to do it with somebody else anymore, but I, I can just yeah, I’m just tuned in. 

And like, like you say, it’s the question of just turning your own volume down and letting their volume go up so that, you know, you’re just, you’re listening, um, you’re really listening. And I know that’s very sort of today’s parlance, isn’t it? Are you really listening? Are you really in the room? But it’s about proactive listening. 

Like you say, you must set your intent. I think when you do this a lot, um, and you do this with lots of different people, you almost know how to just ask the right couple of questions that will let it out. I’ve had some interesting times with, with, you know, meeting clients where I’ve sort of, you thought, oh, we, what you’re saying to me isn’t what you want. And when I’ve sort of spoken a little bit more and suggested what I think they want, they’re so happy. They didn’t want to, they didn’t want to say that to me. Would you like me to give you a couple of examples of that?  

Tobi: Yes, I think that would be good. I mean, thinking about when we’re working with volunteers, how to use this intuition. 

I love this idea of attuning, turning down your volume, allowing their volume, you know, and you’re, you know what, your conversation is probably, it might take a little bit more time, but not really. And you’re going to have the conversation. I mean, we do. Volunteer interviews. Yeah. All the time in our sector. 

So, you’re going to do it anyway. Why not do it in a way that’s more attuned, right? Yeah. Give me some examples. I think the audience would really benefit from this. 

Fran: I’m going to give you an example of a client as opposed to a volunteer because this happened only, only the other week. A lady contacted me because she was very worried about her brother. 

So her brother was suffering with, uh, you know, serious mental health issues. They were both second gen, so their parents were Holocaust survivors. And this can have quite a lot of psychological effects on the next generation. This chapter we use really, genetic trauma. It’s even passed down in our genes, trauma. 

Yes. And we’re finding that so much in, in our field that we’re seeing this a lot. I was chatting to this lady, and she was, she was his main carer, um, and she was, she was very stressed. I could see that she was very stressed. And I just let her talk and talk. And you know, once she sorts of talked out a little bit, I said, I think you need support. 

You’ve already listed to me the support going into him. Do you think I’m right? I might be wrong, but do you think I’m right? And she’s just the, it was like the air going through her like, Oh God, yes. And I said, okay, that’s what we’ll do. We will find some support for you. And if we, if we make you stronger, you’re going to be able to support him. 

But she didn’t come to me saying that that’s not what she came to me saying. You know, I could have had my tick list sheet in front of me. I could have been asking his age, his previous occupation, you know, where he lived, you know, where All of them, they were all there on the sheet, but we just have to put that to one side because I could hear her, you know, I could hear her crying. 

Tobi: Yeah. Really interesting. And there’s almost a speed to it as well. People, oh, this is going to take a lot more time, this is going to, you know, this or that. I can hear people saying, like, I don’t have time for this, I’ve got so much on my plate. How can I be? But on the other hand, you know, there’s a speed to it. 

Also, there’s an efficacy to this, to making this connection and getting directly to the source. Right.  

Fran: For sure. For sure. And, and look, you know, being quick isn’t always being efficient, you know, and it’s not about trying to get through so many in a week because the quality is more important than the quantity. 

Yes. If you’re not working in an agency where the quality is more important than the quantity, it’s time for you to look for another job. Yes. The quality has got to be right. So, you know, if, if, if you have a situation where you have somebody who needs a volunteer and it takes you three months to find the right volunteer, if you find the right volunteer and that person has a fantastic experience and your volunteer is overjoyed, it’s worth waiting. 

Tobi: Yeah, absolutely. Let me ask you along these lines. How do folks, you know, intuition. It’s management or leadership, you know, intuitive leadership is a tool we can use. How can we do this because we were just talking about trauma without traumatizing ourselves? You know, intuition is often, you know, I find I will, it’s what makes me a good trainer.  

I can feel the room. I know who’s with me. I know who’s confused. I know who’s anxious. I know who’s, I Against me and I need to go talk to them and put my hand on their shoulder and figure out like, why are they so res resistant to what I’m training? You know? So, it makes me, you know, I can read a room well. 

It also can take energy from us because it takes a lot of energy to pay attention and react. And so there is some, I think, professional boundary setting that we must do to not have this burn us out. We’re, we’re not supposed to be these empaths that take on, you know, every single. other person’s emotion, that’s just not, not going to work. 

I remember starting to realize that volunteers need, needed training on professional boundary setting. When I worked in situations where our volunteers were just taking it all on, taking it home. And I said, okay, you guys have not ever received the type of training that a social worker would receive about boundary setting. 

We need to do this because otherwise you won’t be here very long. Nope. So, when we think about intuition, we’re going to be feeling what other, or we’re at least going to be intuition. Is there a difference between feeling and intuiting? And is there a way to make sure this isn’t like burning us out? 

Fran: Boundary testing is a hundred percent part of what needs to happen here. Training on boundaries is always included in our initial training and when any of my volunteer coordinators say I’m going to get a group of volunteers together this week, we’re going to have a coffee morning. I thought I’d slot in a bit of training. 

What do you think I should do? Boundaries! do boundaries, because that’s the bit that gets so quickly forgotten. If you’ve got a volunteer who’s, who’s befriending and going in to somebody, and they go in once, once a week, every Tuesday for an hour, and they sit and have a cup of tea with somebody, within six visits less, they’ve forgotten, they’ve forgotten that they’re volunteers, and they’ve become mates. 

And when those boundaries go, then you’ve got a real problem. And I always remind volunteers that you think you’re doing them a favor by listening, taking them to the hospital or. you know, um, phoning their son to say, why haven’t you been to see your mother? You think you’re doing them a favor because you think you’re being their friend, but what will happen is you will burn out. 

You, you will turn around to your husband or daughter and they’ll say, what’s this boy? You stop doing this. And you will stop. And when you stop, that person doesn’t have a volunteer. So, the boundary must be there. But listening to intuition, we do a lot of training around safeguarding as well. So safeguarding, are you aware of things changing? 

Is there an issue with that person? And if there is an issue, if you feel something, and we often say, it’s just in your gut, that feeling that something isn’t right, then, then you come to us and then we deal with it. We take that away from you. And let’s suppose that the balance of being intuitive and involved and part of somebody’s life from a volunteer’s perspective. 

Is that volunteer needs to be supervised. They need to have regular supervision. The volunteer code needs just to be checked in. How’s it going? How often are you going? We are very lucky. We have a great volunteer platform, a database we have, every volunteer has an app. When they go to see their client, they let us know if there’s an issue.

They let us know. It’s wonderful. They let us know how long they’ve gone for. And if we can see like volunteers are going and they’re going three times a week and they’re there for three hours, you know, it’s like, whoa, this is, we must intervene. So, that is the basis of keeping it safe.  

Tobi: Yeah. I think boundary setting and remaining in your role, coloring within your, your, your lines, you know, and staying in your role, understanding your role well, being grounded in your role, knowing what’s outside of your scope. 

And, you know, we’re human beings, so we’re going to attach to people, and we’re going to want to be attached to people, because that’s how we are, we’re human. And we must remember that that attachment isn’t always healthy, especially when we’re in a, a service, you know, a direct service environment where at some point the relationship will end. 

Yeah. More, more than likely, you know, sometimes some relationship, like big brothers, big sisters, you might. Keep in touch with your mentee for years to come, but in general, the relationship will end at some point. And if that volunteer sees you more as a friend than a befriending volunteer, then they’re going to experience a traumatic break with you. 

They’re going to experience abandonment. We used to have to train on this when I worked with people. We would say the young person when you need to move on with your life, will experience this as another adult who has abandoned them. Now, whether you can explain it till the cows come home, but if you’ve been acting like their best friend, you can’t switch roles once you’re in it, you’re in it. 

I love this idea of supervision as well. If you think about men, uh, mental health professionals, they all have, you know, they’re, they’re trained in mental health counseling and they even have, you know, supervision, I think to making sure that when you’re being intuitive, you’re seeing it almost, there’s a kind of a fine line, seeing it as a leadership tool and putting it back in your toolbox when you’re done. 

So, say, you know, I don’t need to go through throughout the world, intuiting every experience, every interaction, I’m using intuition in this moment currently, because it’s exhausting. Like our feelers are, you know, our feelers can’t be up, and you know, our little antenna can’t be up like 24 seven. We’re never going to sleep. Right.  

Fran: Exactly. And if you’re the people that you’re working with, your volunteers, they’re not your kids. You know, you can’t turn your feelers off with other people that you can. There was one other thing that I really felt I should say that I think one of the things that you need to find out and intuitively is why does somebody want to volunteer if they want to volunteer because their mother just passed away and they missed Then that’s an alarm bell going off. 

They won’t tell you that. They’ll say, oh, well, my time is freed up because I’m not looking after mom anymore. And so, dad, you need to be totally sure where that person is going. Do not put them into another mom like situation. I think knowing, and also knowing why somebody wants to volunteer, helps you to be, to help them to the right volunteering situation, and also how much input they’re going to need. 

You know, you’ve got some people who, for example, have just finished a professional career. They really want to do something where they go in, do it. And leave like they used to. And so, you find them doing a job. They’re not necessarily, they don’t want to sit around chatting and have coffee. What they want to do is phone six people up and check that they filled in the form. 

That’s what they want to do. They want to be, and they will also not want to be managed by you because they were a CEO, a much bigger. That bit, I think is also, and, and they won’t always tell you that they, they’ll, they’ll, they’ll tell you what they think you want to hear. Yes,  

Tobi: Yes. Everybody does that. It’s no value judgment. We’re, we’re people pleasers. Whether we’re like people pleasers in a big way or in a little way. We all are. I mean, we must get along with the clan. Right. That’s just how I know that people do because I know I do it. Right. Exactly. Well, hey, let’s take a quick break. We only have a little bit more time on our conversation, but I really wanted to talk about sort of how do we balance intuition and data And maybe, you know, how do we start integrating more intuition if people are, you know what, I want to purposefully start using more intuitive leadership and maybe infuse it throughout my organization. 

How could I do that? So, let’s take a pause and we’ll be right back.  

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Tobi: Okay, we are back with Fran Horwich and our chat about intuitive leadership and volunteer coordination. This has been such a fantastic discussion. I again would encourage folks to think about where you already use intuition because I think we are in a people profession. 

And if you don’t enjoy Okay. Feeling people’s vibes, because there’s a lot of vibes going on in volunteers. You know, I had a, uh, a volunteer pro member once tell me that she felt like she was like air traffic control of people’s emotions, like she was like the nexus, you know, um, And, you know, we got to be careful about that because we don’t want to burn ourselves out. 

We talked about that before the break. We talked about setting boundaries. But let’s talk about how, if people wanted to implement more intuitive leadership in their volunteer programs, what would you recommend as some first steps? How could people start doing this more purposefully?  

Fran: I think the only way to do it is to lead by example. If you do it, if you do it that way, then, then your team will follow and do it your way. Now, everybody works with their own intuition in their own way, and everybody works, interacts with other people in their own way. And I think you must look at them and see intuitively what would work if I said this to you, what would work for you to get the best out of your volunteer, your volunteer engagement. 

What would be the right phrasing that would, for you, light that bulb. Um, and, and I think if you can, so it’s not going to be the same for every, every member of your team. It’s going to be. Slightly different because their whole way of working is slightly different from each other. I don’t go for homogenous, choose the right member of your team for the right job. 

So, if you, if you’re, if you’re all homogenous, if you all do everything in the same way, if they all do everything the same as me, for example, then you’ve got no choice. You’ve got nowhere to go with this, but you know, you’ve got somebody who’s better at chastising people who are more chastised. Somebody who works better with men than women, but you know, you need to know as a team leader who works. 

Tobi: It seems like, you know, from our conversation, there’s a few things I’m picking up on, you know, if you, you’re saying, you know what, I buy into it. I think intuitive leadership is an important part of what we do. 

I’m going to be flexible. We’re going to open it up and with our team, whether it’s volunteer leaders, paid staff, whatever, those of us who are leading other volunteers, we’re going to be more purposeful around our intuition and using our intuition, and we’re going to do it flexibly. Because we’re all different in the ways that we are, and a lot of this is taught, I think, and learned through school and through our interactions with our friends and our family and our faith, I mean, there’s different ways people use intuition, you know, I think what you’ve been talking about today is really, in some cases, is it, Getting good at asking good questions of volunteers so that you can gather the right information and tap that intuition you have. 

If you don’t have the data, you can’t, you know. So really, you know, being, you know, practicing the art of good questions.  

Fran: Yeah.  

Tobi: I think the other area that we’ve talked about is, you know, quieting ourselves, being, being able to, you know, kind of allow that, that volume of the other person to go up and our volume to go down and just to be very quiet and to be observant. 

Our optic nerve is the fastest nerve. It’s not our auditory. So, we think we’re just listening to people, but we’re actually watching people more than we’re listening. We’re watching body language, watching what’s happening with them. And we pick up a lot of cues. But if we’re not paying attention to body language, we’re not really understanding it. 

And then also reflecting, having time to reflect. And maybe even, as you talked about earlier, chatting with other, talking it through with other people. So making space and time for that talking through, and that’s not, you know, chitchat for chitchat’s sake. It’s actually helping you work through what in verbalizing what you just think you experienced with this other person. 

That’s a completely different way of approaching leadership in a lot of ways. Don’t you think? It’s rare. I don’t know, maybe it’s not, I don’t know, but it just seems like it in our world we’re like very like, uh, or maybe it’s just me. We’re like, okay, we’ve got our SOPs, we’ve got our processes, we’ve got our, you know, do, do, do. We’re making improvements here. This is a kind of a different thing.  

Fran: Yeah. I but it suits me and, and I think ‘ve been doing this for many, many years. Working with volunteers for many, many years. And I feel like, for me, it has, it has worked. Now, I just, so I don’t know another way of doing it. 

I couldn’t tell you another way of doing it. I’ve, I never have been, a tick boxy type of person. And I believe in the power of conversation. I also believe in the power of silence. And I, um, that’s something else that you need to allow for. So, you need to be, as we said, lower your volume also stop, because in that gap, that’s when somebody will feel will continue, you know, you’re allowing for someone else’s conversation, for someone else’s personality and for someone else’s need that, you know, come out. 

So, it’s the only way I know how to work and I, and I suppose I’m lucky because my trustees and my CEO are happy to let me get to do it my way. I don’t, they don’t work like me. So, they think, Oh, she’s in the volunteer department. That’s all very touchy feely. She must be like that all nice be nice and chatting away. But they’re not, they’re not bothered if we get the results. They want the data. I don’t need the data.  

Tobi: I’ll make a connection here. I’m connecting dots between, you know, volunteers, when they’re volunteering, are making meaning with their volunteering. It means something in their life. There’s a story that they tell themselves about their volunteering. 

It may be that I’m honoring my family’s legacy, because we all volunteer. It may be, I’m a good person that wants to make a difference. It may be, I’m outraged about this injustice in the world, and I’m going to step up and make a difference, and I am that person. People tell themselves all kinds of stories, and they’re making meaning. 

So, for us to be able to intuit what that is and to help them make that meaning through conversation and to reinforce that that meaning is being made, that’s where intuition can help with a very basic thing that happens with every volunteer, and we never even talk about it, that they’re making meaning. 

The other thing I think is this type of intuitive leadership can really help with both morale and teamwork, because it is a way of seeing people. You know, it’s like that movie Avatar. I see you. If you’ve seen that movie, there’s two characters, and then one says to the other, I see you. 

And it’s really seeing into people’s souls. And, you know, this is a type of, you know, volunteering is a compassionate activity people do with their souls. You know, they lead with their souls and their hearts. That’s why people are doing some very practical reasons for volunteering. I need to tick off boxes to get into college or university or whatever. 

There’s that. But in the end, it really is. Even if you have a practical reason, once you get into it, you get, you catch the bug, and you realize that there’s something more to it than just ticking off boxes. So, I think there’s a leadership, teamwork, morale aspect to this, where people are seen and heard in a way that feels good to them. 

And I feel like there’s a type of nurturing That as you kicked us off at the very beginning, you said, look, we’re in a society now where we feel very isolated in the U. S. It’s a very divided society on top of that. And so, when you’re bringing people together and they’re feeling seen and heard, we’re also, I think, providing a service to the community. 

When we get involved and start really being purposeful about intuitive leadership, we can provide a service to the community to help to knit back together meaning and connection in people and give them a tool or a self-reflect because I think people, there’s a fair amount of numbing going on, is it helping people like reflect and have, as you said, the light bulb goes off in people, like that’s important. 

Fran: Oh, for sure. You were saying just before about people, college students, you volunteer because they want to get into college. I used to run a volunteer program for 16- to 18-year-olds. And I, when I, I would get a group of them together and I would say to them about our initial chat, I know why you all volunteer. 

You’re all volunteering because you want this to help get you into a good university. And it will. You will volunteer and I said, but you will not continue to volunteer for that reason. You will continue to volunteer because you love it. Now, the only way they’re going to love it is if you put them in the right place. 

Tobi: Yeah. And I think if you put people in the right place, to put people in the right place, you must use your intuition. You do to figure out what’s the right fit. Yeah. Well, hey, this has been a fantastic conversation. I hope it’s given our listeners a different way of thinking about. You know how we approach our leadership and that being quote, unquote, touchy feely or quote, unquote, woo woo is a fantastic leadership strategy and has real benefits for us as you know, people who are leading other people and, in a people, oriented way. 

Profession that, you know, this is what’s needed and when people feel like they’re seen in here, heard, they’re going to come back because they feel respected, and they feel like they belong, and belonging is a very powerful feeling. One more question as we wrap up besides, uh, where people could find you, et cetera, but what are you most excited about in the year ahead? 

I always like to ask my guests this personally, professionally does not matter.  

Fran: Okay. I won’t tell you about what Midlife Crisis Theatre Company are going to do next, but I’m very excited by that.  

Tobi: Can we link to them? Can we link to them in the show notes? I think that’d be fun for people to learn more. 

Fran: Oh, for sure. I can send you our website. What I’m really excited about now is that we’re having a little bit of a switcheroo in our organization in how we’re using volunteers. In the past, we’ve done a lot of befriending. Now, one of the things that we’re looking at is using volunteers to run teams. 

There’s either a team of volunteers or little, little projects within our organization. So, I’ll give you an example too. We were recently asked, this is very unusual, this question that happened, that one of our clients wanted to speak German again. Now, many of our clients do a Holocaust. I was never wanting to hear German again, but as they’ve got older, I think some of them want to reconnect with their German. 

So, we found a lady who is a German speaker. And she is running online German conversational practice. She’s a volunteer. She absolutely loves it. The clients love it. And then, the next project we just look, we’re just about to start is we’re getting a team of volunteers together who are going to call up all our volunteers and ask them for their best volunteering story. What if you love, what if, and we’re going to gather this as just as evidence of what volunteering can bring to my organization. What does volunteering bring to my organization? Because You were saying before about the data and, yeah, so I can send the spreadsheets and all that stuff, how many people and how many hours, I can do how many minutes if they want. 

That doesn’t tell you how and what and what is it? How do you measure it? How do you measure the effect? And this, I think, will do it. But with, it’s a volunteer led project. Once we’ve, once we’ve got the volunteers going, there’ll be a team leader of those volunteers and they will be a part of it. And that will suit people who want to be, you know, working under their own steam, not necessarily touchy feely, but like, have a conversation. 

That’s what I’m excited about.  

Tobi: That’s fantastic. You know, volunteer led story banking, I love it. And it does, it does bring a bit of the more qualitative side of the volunteer experience that the numbers can’t really tell you, you know, there’s additional information that numbers just can’t tell you. The numbers are important. 

Well, Fran, this has been fantastic. It’s such a great conversation. I hope our listeners, and I’m sure they have enjoyed it. How can people learn more about you, your work? We’re going to link to your theater company or your theater group because I think it’s fascinating. 

And anything else, any other ways, and we will post these in the show notes, but just let people know, how can they get in touch with you and learn more?  

Fran: Anybody can get in touch with me by sending me an email. I’m always happy to talk to anybody who’s in the field as, you know, as volunteer managers. 

I don’t think we have enough spaces in which we connect with each other. Certainly not across the ocean. So, you know, I, I would love to speak to anybody who wants to get in touch and talk a little bit more. That’s fine. My email address.  

Tobi: Yeah, I’ll put it on the show notes page. Thank you. Fan. That’s very generous of you. 

Thank you so much. Gang. We’ve finished up this conversation, but it’s just the start. Think about it, and I would say, I give everybody a little bit of homework. Your next conversation with whoever doesn’t even have to be at work, just take a pause before you have the conversation and just see if you can better understand where that person’s coming from. 

Be intuitive and then reflect on what you learned after the conversation. It will blow your mind. You will notice something if you’re, if you’re paying attention and maybe, you know, think about some questions you might be asked to open up the conversation. Don’t have to, though. Just see what you learn from that. 

What does your intuition tell you about where that person was at and what they needed from you? That’s just really fascinating. I think, I think you learn something really, it’ll blow your mind. Sometimes the most surprising things come up. So, things that you don’t think that person was really thinking and you’re like, really that, like that conversation I had, they just want me to like them. 

So that’s good to know. So, Fran, fantastic. Thanks for joining me today. I’ve had a blast. Thank you. It’s been lovely. Thank you. Awesome. And, uh, hey gang, if you like this, uh, episode, please share it with a friend and join us next week. Same time, same place on the Volunteer Nation. Take care, everybody.