160 – Leadership Principles for Sparking Change – Part 1 with Jenni Field

May 1, 2025

Episode #160: Leadership Principles for Sparking Change – Part 1 with Jenni Field 

In this episode of Volunteer Nation, Tobi Johnson sits down with leadership and communications expert Jenni Field for an insightful conversation about what it really takes to lead with credibility in the nonprofit world. 

Jenni shares practical, research-backed strategies for building trust, fostering supportive team cultures, and leading with clarity—especially during times of change. Drawing from her extensive experience and her latest book, she unpacks how values-driven leadership can guide organizations through uncertainty and strengthen internal culture. 

This is part one of a two-part series you won’t want to miss! 

Leadership Principles – Episode Highlights

• [01:42] – Leadership and Influence with Jenni Field 
• [05:56] – The Importance of Trust and Credibility 
• [14:22] – Navigating Trust Challenges in Nonprofits 
• [18:08] – The Role of Credibility in Volunteer Recruitment 
• [23:17] – Eight Practices of Credible Leadership 
• [24:26] – Diagnosing Training Program Failures 
• [25:47] – The Importance of Visionary and Supportive Practices 
• [34:56] – The Role of Values in Leadership and Culture 
• [42:23] – Practical Tips for Volunteer Managers

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 wecare@volpro.net.

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Episode #160 Transcript: Leadership Principles for Sparking Change – Part 1 with Jenni Field 

Tobi: Hey friends, thanks for tuning in. Before we get started today, I just wanted to let you know that we have. Split this episode into two. I am joined by my friend Jenni Field. We talk about leadership and influence, and it is such a good episode. We got to talking for a long time. So, in the end, we cut this into two episodes, so get ready to listen to part one and in this first part of our interview and our discussion, we talk about trust. We talk about her eight principles of leadership. We talk about organizational culture. It’s a great episode to get you started thinking about how your organization can build trust with the public.  

And then in part two, we’re going to talk about individually, how do nonprofit leaders, how do volunteer managers, how do volunteer leaders boost their trust factor, because if people don’t trust us, they don’t follow us. And so trust is a key to buy-in and influence and getting things done. And so, it’s a fantastic conversation. I just want to kick it off and let you know, we didn’t think we’re going to split this into two, but we did because it was such a great convo. Here’s part one. Enjoy.  

Welcome everybody to another episode of The Volunteer Nation Podcast. I am so pumped. I know I say I’m pumped a lot, you guys and gals and other folk, but today I’m inviting a good friend of mine. I. Someone who knows so much about leadership throughout her career, and I know many of you struggle with really convincing people and influencing people to follow your lead, whatever it is, whether you’re a leader of volunteers, whether you’re an executive director, whether you’re a program director, whether you’re a volunteer leader, we often have ideas and projects and initiatives that we need other people’s support around, and other people are not always enthusiastic about it. And Jenni has an absolute wonderful way of explaining why this is but also giving us a framework. About what to do, and it’s not just about arguing harder or coming up with a better solution or a better argument. 

There’s more you can do to be credible and influential. She’s also going to talk to us about. What isn’t helping us with our credibility, so I hope you’ll really enjoy this conversation. We’re going to do leadership principles for Sparking Change with my friend Jenni Field, and let me just introduce Jenni, but first, I just want to give you a shout out. Jenni, welcome.  

Jenni: Thank you. It’s lovely to be here.  

Tobi: We just saw each other in London, what was it, three weeks ago? So, we’re like, yay, we get to spend time together again. So, let’s talk about Jenni. I’ll just give you a quick introduction and then we’ll jump into it. But Jenni Field is founder and director of Redefining Communications, as well as a few other side projects. 

She is an expert in leadership, credibility and internal communication. And she is host of the popular Redefining Communications with Jenni Field Podcast. So, check that out, gang. We will put a link to it in the show notes and author of Influential internal Communication. And nobody believes you. Her work as an international speaker and coach helps leaders and their organizations become more efficient and more engaging. 

And her newest book, Nobody Believes You, you need to get this book, and I will put a link to it in the show notes, but I just finished it. It was amazing. It’s a short read. It’s a pithy read and you can absolutely have practical takeaways right away. After spending 13 years working inside organizations at the, as the head of Internal Communications and communications director, I don’t know if you know this, Jenni, I used to be a communications director at one point. 

Jenni: Ooh, look at that.  

Tobi: Yes, paths crossed back in the day. Back in the day, Jenni set up the consultancy redefining communications to help organizations and teams use communication to go from chaos to calm. Since 2017, Jenni has published two books, hosted two popular podcasts that discussed leadership, communication, and wellbeing, and conducted research into communication with deskless workers, some of you are remote. The role of line managers and why we follow some leaders and not others. Did I not tell you she was going to bring it? Couple other things about Jenni. In 2020, she was the president of the Chartered Institute of Public Relations, and she holds qualifications and accreditations in internal communication company directorship and facilitation. 

She is an impressive speaker. I know because I’ve seen it. She’s, she’s coached us. We used to be in a mastermind together and she would get up and coach us with the flip chart on the fly and is globally recognized in the communication industry as a force for change in the way leaders and organizations as a whole communicate with their teams. Welcome Jenni Field. You come on some music then I needed like a little. 

Y’all we’re going to laugh a lot because we are, we’re because we do. Anyway. So, I want to kick this off because we are in a transitional time societally. It is a global change. There’s division, there’s economic influences, there is technology changes that are changing so quickly. 

We are in a time of absolute change and anytime there’s a change. In the world, you must shift and, and you, you really must think about what worked before and what you got you here probably isn’t going to get you there. Mm-hmm. You know, you think about, I remember back in the day when I was a grad student, we had a telephone in the hallway. 

Because I was living in a flat with a couple, a couple of other students, and it had a line. Remember those princess phones? I don’t know if you had those in the UK, you, you’d have a phone line that was, I don’t know, about 20 feet long. Mm-hmm. And you’d take it into your room so you could have privacy. And the cord would get really wrapped up. And so, you’d be swinging it around to try to like. I don’t know. Some of you may have been born in the time of, of cell phones and have no idea what we’re talking about, and then we had a little pad of paper where people would take down notes for anybody who called. 

Hey, Tobi, Maria called, she said, meet her at the club at 11, or whatever. That was a different kind of communication. Yeah, and then we got cell phones, and we were all calling each other and leaving messages. Well, then we started to be able to text, and nobody really wants to talk on the phone anymore. We want to be able to text, and as technology evolves, we must change how we communicate and the tone of how we communicate. 

I think also, not only technologically, but also. The way, the way that society is, or we become tone deaf. We also know a lot more about how the human brain functions and how human beings work in concert together. You know, we’re clan like as the way we’ve developed as a a species. This is a time of intense change, intense pressure, but we can still do things. To be more credible in this crazy environment because I think that there’s also a crisis of trust. Would you agree, Jenni?  

Jenni: Yes.  

Tobi: That there’s a crisis of trust right now?  

Jenni: Yeah, definitely. Yeah.  

Tobi: So before we get started though, and get into this, and I am going to guarantee to you all, you will have key practical takeaways. Tell us a little bit about the work you do. How did you, I like to hear people’s origin stories. We know about your business and your books and all, and your podcast and all the amazing work you do, but how did you get into leadership and internal communications in the first place?  

Jenni: So, I always want to say it was very intentional and I had this big grand plan for my career, but I did not, so I did a degree in marketing. I always wanted to do something in kind of business marketing, PR, something like that. So, I did a degree in marketing and then from there, managed to get a job with a government organization doing communications, very general communication. So, looking after the press office, doing some internal comms, doing some digital stuff. So, all different, all different things, and I really enjoyed. The press office stuff. So, I went off and worked for a defense organization to look after media relations for part of that business. Mm-hmm. And, and I loved that because it was so different from a public sector organization to a government funded organization to being in a corporate world. 

I mean, yeah, there was milk in the fridge – it was mind blowing and I did that for a while and it was very trade press heavy, and I, I kind of missed the connection to people and I think that’s where my, in my interest in people at work really started to develop. When I did my degree, I looked at consumer behavior for my dissertation, so my interest in people was always there. 

But this now became something I wanted to do for work, to have more purpose. Mm-hmm. So I moved out of that and into an organization where I was just doing internal communication, which I loved because you could see the impact you have on people coming to work every day, and it’s such a huge part of what we do. 

And that’s where it started. I then went to work in an agency for a while. I was doing business development for them and helping kind of sell the services of internal comms. And then I started working in London, in the UK and doing internal comms for an organization and then sort of working my way up through that. 

I’ve always sort of set up functions of communication, whether it was both internal and external or just internal, and that’s sort of what I did. I did that for sort of 15, 16 years before. I got to the point really where it was now or never for doing a consultancy. I didn’t have a big grand plan to create one. 

I certainly didn’t have a grand plan to write books or anything. It was just, I’ve got an opportunity here and if I don’t do this now, when would be a good time to do it? And that’s where in 2017 I decided to set up redefining comms and just sort of see what happened and, and eight years later, we’re still going strong, which is amazing. 

Tobi: It is amazing. You know, it’s not easy. I think my, my business started in 2009 and then we started the digital side in 2015. Yeah. And yeah, there’s ups and downs. You also did some volunteer leadership. I’m going to post because if my long time OG supporters and listeners will probably remember Advita Patel, who was going into the leadership role at the Chartered Institute of Public Relations. 

And you were, you had already been in that role, and so we talked a lot about volunteering as a leader. For you, what, why was it important for you to get into volunteerism in a leadership role?  

Jenni: So, I strongly believe in, in giving back to people that are coming through the profession, and I also strongly believe in acting for change. I don’t like sort of shouting at the sidelines but expecting other people to do it. And I started volunteering for the Chartered Institute of Public Relations in 2012. I did about 10 years of volunteering for them. I loved that because I was being the voice of the membership. I sat on the council, I was chairing a, a group that was specialized in communication and then. 

Gradually over the years of being involved, I sort of became more involved in some of the, the bigger committees, if that makes sense, that were setting more of the mm-hmm. Policies, and then I was elected to the board, and then I became the president and stayed on the board until that term finished. But for me, it’s very much about how you can shape the future of, of a profession or an industry or whatever it is, and being part of that change, I don’t think you can just moan about things and hope someone else will sort it out. And depending on what that is, we all have different things we care about. And I think that 10 years of volunteering for them in various roles was brilliant. 

I’ve made some of my best friends Advita Patel is my best friend, and I met her through doing that and, and it’s, it was a great experience.  

Tobi: Yeah, and a total leadership pipeline. I do a tr a lot of training on leadership, pipe building leadership pipelines, where folks can start. Somewhere and start to build their experience with the organization. They don’t start out as the president of the organization. They learn and grow with the organization. It’s, I, it’s so funny because folks think volunteer leaders just, you can just plop them down in the highest position or the leadership role. And I, and I’m thinking, well, nobody does that with paid staff. 

We have people work their way up. Let’s give people some grace and place to learn, you know? Yeah, totally. But that’s fantastic. You know, the Edelman Trust Barometer, I’m sure. Yeah. And if folks don’t know about it, it’s a, it’s a PR firm, a global PR firm, and they do this trust barometer every year, and they look at different aspects of trust. 

One of the things I always look at is the trust in NGOs and nonprofits, non-governmental organizations and nonprofits as well as compared to business, government, the media, et cetera. And this year, trust in NGOs went down 1%. And it’s 4% below. Get this you guys, 4% below. B level trust levels in business. So, businesses, corporations are more trusted than nonprofits. And given that reality, Jenni, what should nonprofit leaders be thinking about when it comes to navigating these challenges? To funding and sustainability in a, in an environment where trust is not where it should be?  

Jenni: Mm-hmm. It’s so interesting, isn’t it? Because the barometer changes little bits change every year on that in terms of where people feel they, they can put their trust, and when I talk about trust and credibility, there’s always a kind of cause and effect. So, mm-hmm. Where we see the trust going down, that’s linked to the behavior of integrity and the gap of integrity in the organization. 

So, if I don’t trust you, then we have an integrity. Problem. And so that’s the area to look at. It’s that say do gap if you like. So, if we’ve got integrity, then you know, we are accountable, we’re genuine, we’re all those things. If we are not those things, we won’t be trusted. So those are the areas to look at is how much we are letting our actions, and our words align, and where we’re saying we’re going to do things, we are doing them. And that sounds easy. There’ll be people listening to this going, well, yes, of course. That just makes complete sense. But because the world is so communication heavy now, and you touched on this in the introduction about how technology has evolved, how much we can communicate, how we say things, quickly move on to the next thing, and we are running and running and running. 

It’s so easy for us to say things and they’re not followed up by action because we’re running from the next thing to the next thing. It’s easy to say things and not follow it up. We do it all the time, not intentionally. There’s not like a bad intention, but we just might forget or we’re doing something else. 

And those are the things to think about. When you are looking at your trust and you’re looking at funding or things like that is. I’ve got to trust you as an individual and I need to believe that you have integrity for me to do that. And if I’m not seeing that and I you’re not proving that, or my perception is not that, then that’s what we need to work on. It doesn’t mean that you don’t have integrity, it just means that you’re not demonstrating that.  

Tobi: Yeah. Do you think it’s more about the individual, like for example, nonprofit workers and leadership, or is it the communication out of the Marcos office? In the newsletter or in the, in, in what the media’s saying about that organization? How they’re covering that organization? Or is it a little bit of both?  

Jenni: I think it’s a bit of both. And I think it depends on the group of stakeholders that you are talking to. So, mm-hmm. If you are, if I think about any organization, they will have people that we know that work there and they might have their own sense of brand or they might not. 

And then there’s the organization brand, depending on my relationship to that organization, whether. I’m a volunteer for them. Whether I’m a customer, whether I’m an investor, whether I’m an ally, like whatever my relationship is, that will determine how much I care about those different aspects. And for some of those, it might be much more about the person rather than the organizational entity because of what’s being asked. If I’m someone that can give funding, for example, that’s for me, would have to be a person. Like, it doesn’t matter what’s kind of coming out from the organization, it’s a, it’s a relationship thing, and that relationship must be with people. But this is the bigger challenge of brands and organizations is. 

That, that sort of gets in the way of those relationship building pieces of the human-to-human piece and rehumanizing that workplace and society. So, the more we can rehumanize things, the better. So even if you are talking as an organization and it’s coming out the mark on side, make that more human and make sure that’s coming through so that we build that connection. But I think it depends on the relationship and the outcome in terms of the importance of those different elements.  

Tobi: I think it’s important. Yeah, it, it’s there. I think the nonprofit sector suffers from a build it and we, they will come kind of mentality. Like our mission exists, it’s a good mission and therefore you automatically will want to donate or volunteer because we just happen to be a great organization and we do good things, but. 

Even when I’m doing comms audits, for example, of volunteer recruitment webpages and a volunteer recruitment, all their digital strategy around volunteer recruitment, almost a hundred percent of the time the volunteer, the landing pages on the website have nothing or very little to do with the mission and everything to do with the 50 million in one thing someone has to do to become a volunteer and. 

That is a, that’s, that’s a break in credibility because then it, there’s nothing about why I should volunteer in the first place. And I think, we think folks who work in our industry are very sort of humble, don’t want to feel like they’re bragging, et cetera, but you almost must over communicate mission moments. 

Mm-hmm. Whether it’s. Through stories, data, whatever, quotes from volunteers about their impact and what they’ve seen in in clients or whatever. Whether you work in direct service or arts and culture even, I feel like we’re, there’s just not even enough. Not even I. 25% enough discussion of, of impact of the mission. 

And it’s like impact on, like you’re saying, make it more human. It doesn’t have to be like 30, 85% of our kids gain two grade levels from tutors in six months. It’s much more impactful to hear a parent talk about their child. Yeah. How their child is suddenly more outgoing, has more friends, is doing better in school. That’s just a much better story.  

Jenni: Yeah. Right? Yeah. And it’s the outcome, right? It’s the, the outcome that happened and the impact that had. And in a world where it is fast paced. Technology is a big part of our, our world, which, which is making it harder for us to find that connection, to find that purpose, which is having an impact on wellbeing. 

Like it’s all interconnected. In terms of if you want me to come and volunteer for you, if I’m already on your website, then I’m already interested. I’m already, you’ve already kind of got me here because I, there’s something I want to do. This is something that’s about my values and my beliefs. If I’m already there, you should just be able to kind of turn that switch over where I can go. 

Yeah. This is definitely for me because I can see exactly how I’m gonna be contributing and I’m volunteering not really for myself. Like it’s not always to do with an ego or something like that. For some people it is, but I think for the most part, volunteers are volunteering. Volunteering because they want to do something. They want to contribute, they want to give back, and that should be an easy flip over when I can see exactly how I’m going to make a difference.  

Tobi: Yeah, I think your point is so well taken that it’s about credibility. And the credibility is walking your talk. Yeah. And it, it, walking your talk is showing how that, that impact is happening. Walking your talk is not giving people 50 million things they have to do to become a volunteer. In a way, I think that degrades trust a little bit because you’re, you’re. Sort of on a subconscious level telling people we don’t trust you, and so you’re going to have to do all of these things to build to, for us to trust you and allow you, not that we don’t need, you know, if you’re working with children alone Yeah. 

Individually, of course you gotta do background checks and whatnot, but the way we’re communicating all that Yeah. Instead of communicating it as a, as an opportunity, it’s a gauntlet.  

Jenni: Yes. Yeah. And, and, and as you were talking then I was thinking what is it about the credibility practices that mm-hmm. That I talk about that is, is part of this for this volunteer? And I think that the, the piece here is being supportive. So, to be a credible leader, you need to be supportive as one of the eight. And that means you are being inclusive, you are humble, and you are creating that safe space. If during that process. There’s this big list of stuff to do and all of that, that supportive element just isn’t coming through in terms of you being here for, for me like you are, you are valuing me. 

You want me to come and do this. That’s missing because it’s become so focused on the task and less focused on the people. So we find ourselves, if we are panicking or we desperately need people, often the process overtakes the people side of it. So. We’ve gotta bring that supportive piece through. That’s really important for people when they’re looking at leaders. 

They want to follow and believe. I wanna feel supported, you know that they’ve got my back, like they’re with me. If at the first point of entry that isn’t there, I. I’m, then I’m probably not gonna come in because I don’t feel like you’re gonna support me in this. And as a volunteer, I’m gonna need way more support than if I was an employee because it’s free time, right? 

You’re, you are giving away something and you need something back. And that has to come from that supportive piece. And I think that’s the key that’s missing to be perceived as a, as a credible organization or a credible role or whatever aspects of that that has to be in there.  

Tobi: Yeah. Yeah. Let’s get into this. Eight practices of credible leadership, because in your book you really do a great job of laying these out, helping people diagnose if yeah, this is what you’re, and then what to do. It’s so, it’s such a great compact, like. Okay, I’m going to go through this. I’m going to figure out where my credibility is lacking. 

Obviously for mission-based organizations, we just talked about that people need to walk the talk and be really follow through on what people perceive them to be promising. Yeah. The second thing you talked about was support. Yes. And being people to P feel supportive. One of the other things that comes through. 

We hear a lot of complaints from leaders of volunteers is they’ll get the volunteer through and get them to the training and then they’ll never come back after the training. It’s total ghost town. After that, they’ll go through the training and then it’ll be like calling them to try to to, so, uh, any of the other eight, maybe there’s one of the other eight practices of leadership principle or your leadership principles that you think might impact that. I’m asking you do this on the fly. I know,  

Jenni: I know it. My brain’s, it’s already going. So if, so they’re coming for the training, but then they’re just disappearing. Yeah. Is the training something that they, that they could use somewhere else? Probably not. Okay. So they’ve given their time to come to that training and then they’ve gone away. 

Tobi: Yeah. It’s usually an orientation. Here’s the organization, here’s how you’re gonna volunteer.  

Jenni: Okay. And, and then we get to kind of what happens to your point, kind of the symptoms or the outcome, if you like.  

Tobi: So, so people don’t sign up for a shift after that? Yeah, they don’t, they don’t raise their hand and say, I’m okay. 

I’m ready. I’m ready to go now. I mean, obviously gang. There may be something wrong with your training. It may be how people felt. Welcome there. There’s a lot of like, you know, Jenni is like doing her best to diagnose. We don’t know the whole situation, but it is a general situation that people often complain about. 

Jenni: Okay, so as you mentioned in the book, I’ve got a table that talks about when one of these eight is missing, this is what happens. And I’ve talked about supportive already. When that isn’t there, you get rejection. So, what you are describing is people kind of rejecting. Moving forward with that. So it might be that they, there isn’t enough in that training to talk about how we will support you, that we’re making this inclusive, that we are with you, we’re doing this for you. 

So that supportive piece might be missing. It might just be a bit too factual. It might just be less emotional. It might be a bit more task focused. The other thing that happens when you don’t have the visionary practice. Which is one of the eight is apathy. So to have a visionary practice is where you are inspiring. 

You’ve got good communication skills and you are passionate about what you’re doing. When you have this as a, as a practice and you are clear about where you are going and that vision and where you want to take people, you will get significant movement in that. When that’s not there, you get apathy. So you might be in a situation where. 

We, the training element isn’t doing enough to show where we are going, how you are going to be part of that, and how we’re going to do that together, and how I’m going to be here to support you. If that isn’t there, then you’ve got apathy and rejection, which it sounds like it could be part of the challenge. 

And that’s just about looking at how do we do this differently, like you said about your comms audits, it’s, it’s having some time with an expert like you to say, right. Could you just come and have a look at our, our training, because this keeps happening and probably similar. We do similar work, but it’s that, okay, we’ll let me just look at a recording or let me come along for, for one, and. 

I can tell you exactly what we need to do differently just by being in the room. And that’s such a quick win around we could, you know, we can just change how we say this or just change this slide. Or you need to do some training with the person doing this so that they can communicate better and it’s more engaging. Or we need to make this just, you can, there’s so many ways you could do it, but those are the two things I’d be looking at. That visionary piece and the supportive piece and making sure that those are doing what you need them to do.  

Tobi: Yes, absolutely. I also think, and I recommend a lot, bring your volunteers, your most passionate volunteers along your most dedicated volunteers, and have them present part of the training. Even just have them tell their story of how they got involved and why they continue to volunteer you. They don’t even need to be prepared for this. They’ll just riff because they know if you volunteer passionately, you can talk about it for hours. Yeah. Your, your friends and family already know, you know. 

Let’s take a quick break from part one of my conversation with Jenni Field about leadership principles for sparking change. We will be right back.  

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Tobi: We’re back with my conversation of leadership principles for sparking change with Jenni Field part one of our conversation this time, let’s get to it. I think it’s interesting about how, how you came up with your model of these eight leadership principles. Talk about that for a minute. Because people might be wondering, where do these come from? How does she know? These are the things, you know, out of all the things, why these out of all the things that it could be? Why are these eight things? Why is it these?  

Jenni: Totally. So I started looking at credibility in about 2019. So I started to look at. The focus we had on leaders being asked to be authentic, and I didn’t really like that. I didn’t feel like authenticity was the right thing, so I started to look at things like genuine, and I started to look a bit more at credibility. 

Then the pandemic happened in 2020, which obviously had a huge impact on the world, and leaders were being asked again and again to be more human. Be more authentic that came up, loads in the pandemic, be more vulnerable. All of these big words were coming out, but nobody was really talking about what they meant. 

And the reason I say that authenticity didn’t really sit right for me is because I think it’s a very easily weaponized concept. It’s very easy to say and shout at somebody and then say, oh, I’m just being authentic because I’ve had a bad day or whatever. And I just, I’ve experienced some of that and I know other people have. 

And when you’re in a position of power, which you are as a leader. You can’t kind of behave like that. So that’s why I wanted to look at what it was that made people follow people. So it wasn’t just about what makes you authentic or what makes you credible, but why do we follow those people? What is it? 

So I looked at these big words like vulnerability, empathy, credibility, all of that. And I came up with nine big words that I thought, based on all that reading and insight, it’s these nine. This is what this is, what’s gonna do it. And I did a survey with leaders where I asked them to rank them to tell me what stopped them being credible, what got in the way. 

And I asked them just to, to answer a set of questions about them so I could see what was important. And I did that looking also at demographics. So I looked at where people were based, their backgrounds, their genders, to see if we had any difference there as well. And then I did the same thing with people that follow leaders. 

So, if you follow a leader, have a look at these words, and then also tell me in your own words why you follow some leaders and not others. What is it about this? So, I gathered all of that together, and then those nine words became eight principles. Some of them are the same, some of them are different. And then within each word, I’ve got things that sit underneath that, that bring in elements of the language from some of that research as well. 

So, for example, supportive. Wasn’t one that I had on my original nine. I had psychological safety as the thing on the original nine. But being supportive came through so strong in the research with people about why they follow leaders. And that’s why things like safety and being inclusive fits underneath that because that’s really what we’re talking about. 

So, that’s how they came about from, from that research and that’s where the book kind of came from. I was like, well, there’s an, there’s so much here that is just practical. It’s not just, hey, just be more vulnerable because I don’t know what that mean. And leaders will say, I don’t know what that means. Am I meant to cry? And we have to explain what that is about. It’s the balance of being personal but not intimate. It’s because you want to establish connection. And then let’s talk about what that feels like for you. Based on the outcome you’re trying to trying to create. So that’s where they came from. 

And then blending all of that insight with my 20 years experience in communication and working with teams. Means that it’s kind of this sort of perfect blend of leadership development with communication that helps people be believed and followed and, and organizations thrive really?  

Tobi: Yeah. So, leadership principles that are evidence-based Thank you. You know, I wanted to make sure everybody knew Jenni’s not just making this stuff up. She’s done some work here, people, but I also, I did find that when you called out authenticity as not what it’s cracked up to be. Ear early in the book, I was like, Ooh, go throw down girl in the leadership, because you know what? 

If you go online, I also wanna just put this out there. Props to Jenni. Because if you go online and look at leadership books, it’s all older white dudes from like, whenever, and it’s all dudes. And I’m like, where are the women? There’s like Brene Brown, maybe she’s more psychology, but also leadership. There’s just a few people out there. So I’m like, I’m, I’m happy to see women starting because it’s. It is a, I think a little bit different. Our view of leadership having had to make our way up, you know, organizations and we didn’t get automatic. Hey. Yeah, sure. We’ll have you at the top. Well, sure. Let’s talk about organizational culture a minute. 

So these principles of credible leadership, are there any that you think have a big impact on organizational culture in terms of executive leaders? Because they are ultimately responsible for culture in my mind. Yeah. Yeah. Often the volunteer manager, it always cracks me up when the volunteer managers asked to diversify their volunteer team and yet the organization has done zero work to create in a more inclusive environment. 

And I’m like, how is it all on you? You are supposed to do this. How? How? Because the, the culture is, is such an interesting thing because it’s, there’s so many interconnected, what’s your insight around culture and for the executive leaders who are listening, what can they do or what is one of the leadership principles that makes the most sense when it comes top down? 

Jenni: Yeah, so I mean, you are right. I agree. The culture is set. At that senior level, there’s a great book called The Fish Rocks from the Head, and it’s very much like, I love it. You kind of have to get it right at the top. And that’s also partly where the book came from. Like all the work I do, helping organizations communicate better. 

There’s only so much you can do with a campaign if your leadership team aren’t believed. Like you have to go, you have to go to the top for that. So. The one practice that I would come would, would kind of start with from a culture perspective is the visionary, right? Because this is about people knowing where they’re going and culturally we have to, we have to know that we have to have that anchor point. 

We have to know where we’re going. If you can get that sorted and there’s the passion behind that, it’s inspiring, you’ve got the communication skills, then everything else should be able to kind of come from that because it’s like, okay, well how are we gonna do this? And what does that look like? What I haven’t done is taken the, the kind of credibility wheel of the eight and then sort of mapped that against her culture framework, which I think I could easily do as I’m thinking and talking at the same time around, if you were to look at vulnerable, for example, which is about being more human, more courageous, more open, I think that really nicely sparks a conversation with the leadership team about, okay, well what does that mean here? 

Because again, you could easily say, well, being open. We don’t wanna be too open because there’s things we do that we have to keep back and we don’t wanna be to. But I’m open to feedback. Like I’m really open to hearing what people have to say. Okay, well how does that play out? Do we wanna have listening sessions once a month where people can come and, and talk to us? 

And we don’t. We don’t say anything. We just listen. What does that mean? And I think you could use it in that way to kind of map. The real practical elements of culture and how that builds credibility through the organization working your way through that. But I think you’ve got to have that visionary piece as your starting point, and it’s probably the biggest gap I see in teams at the moment in organizations because there’s so much strategic change going on. 

That people kind of don’t really know where they’re going, and then we get into a state of threat and then that’s very uncomfortable. So that’s the piece to start with from a culture perspective.  

Tobi: Yeah. You know, when you think about chaos, it’s almost like your organizational values, they’re fairly, I mean, people do evolve, obviously. Because there’s a need to, they’re called to, but you know, if you’re staying true to values. That you believe are right and true for the time, that’s a place you can go to as a leader and say, look, I’m going to talk about vision around our values as, as the sort of litmus test for all the decisions we’re going to make strategically in this crazy environment if we can. And, and just over communicating those values so that everybody knows that they’re. Is a place that is fairly rock solid at the like foundation.  

Jenni: Yeah.  

Tobi: Right? Yeah. And that, and whatever comes our way, we’re gonna be looking at, okay, how does this fit within our values? Yeah. And you know, here in the US that’s so important because we’re under attack in the sector, honestly. 

And folks are like, well, how do we respond? Well go back to your values. Hmm. For number one question, are they right for the time? And if they are for this time, let’s not be wishy-washy about our values and then let’s like litmus test off of that and just test each strategy.  

Jenni: Yeah. And if you’ve got behaviors with your values even better. Because your values, like you said, they must be that anchor point in the absence of anything else, come back to that. When I’m talking to people even about things like their governance strategy for their intranets and digital platforms like. Well, what are your values like?  

If you don’t have anything, if your value is fun, for example, then where is your community-based groups on your digital platforms that are fun? You can’t be all about work if that like, so it must all interconnects. Yeah. And if you’ve got behaviors. That sit underneath those values even better. 

Because that’s where it brings it to life. And it starts to link into appraisals and competencies and all the things that make an organization flow. So, if you can, if you’ve got the values, like you said, check them, make sure they’re right. And I. And then have the behaviors. There are some people that are shifting their values now more because organizations have changed and things like that. 

For me, they shouldn’t. They shouldn’t change that much, but they should also be proper values. I remember someone saying to me, if honesty is your value, then something’s gone really wrong ’cause that should just be a given. And it’s always stayed with me. I love it. That’s fair. That’s. So it’s always made me chuckle when I see them sometimes ’cause I’m like, oh, it should be a given. 

And so your values have to be about your values that make you different. And, and again, if we come back to that volunteering and recruiting volunteers and, and that, why would I go with your organization versus another one? Well, it’ll be your values and your culture. That’ll probably swing that for me because if you’re doing similar things, then that’s what’s gonna make me go to the right place based on my own values, which you can’t control, and that alignment being there. So it really important to get those right.  

Tobi: I love that. I love that. A quick copywriting tip, we believe dot, dot, do. Just putting that on your volunteer recruitment page, we believe, bullet, bullet, bullet. Then people can quickly come to your, you know, they’re already attracted to your cause. They come to your, they go, oh yeah, they’re talking to me right here. Mm-hmm. This is absolutely what I, I align with Absolutely. I, I love it. That value’s a given. Yeah. You guys. Can all think about, think, look at your organization values and vision and go, yeah, that should be a given. 

We can knock that one off. Oh my goodness. But your point taken though, it is important to have behaviors aligned with those values because the values are usually big words that are interpretive differently by different people. So I love that. And I think your volunteers too, volunteers are part of the culture. 

Jenni: A hundred percent.  

Tobi: Yeah. It’s, it’s a stressful time, but I think, I almost think too. When you, when you touch back to your touchstone of your values, it, it re reinforces your, conf your confidence in what you’re doing. It reinforces your mission. We have mission organizations and nonprofit. They have mission, vision, values usually. 

And it’s just a place to go back to and say, yeah, yeah, we’re still here and the work still needs to be done. No matter what’s happening in the chaos around us, the work’s still being done. We still have people we’re serving. Totally. So we’ll talk about more about leadership principles and influences, and we’ll talk more about some things that volunteer managers can do. So, for our audience of leaders of volunteers, and see what they can do to be more credible because they also suffer.  

I think as middle managers, as every middle manager in every organization does leaders of volunteers have challenges? But I think most middle managers are, you know, are squeezed between leadership and those they’re serving or supporting. So we’ll do that when we’re right back.