602. 2025 Social Impact Trends That Matter: The Rise of the Change-Leader. (Lindsey Fuller)

Welcome back to the 2025 Social Impact Trends That Matter Series! 🥳

Meet Lindsey, the Executive Director of The Teaching Well. 🤝 She’s all about turning ideas into action and creating real, lasting change. 

The world needs more change leaders. 💡 Join us as Lindsey walks us through some hallmarks of change leaders, the barriers that can hold organizations back from creating real systems-level change, and actionable advice for how to start transitioning to a change leadership approach. 

If you're ready to move beyond just generating ideas and start driving tangible change, this is a must-listen episode. 👏

💡 Learn:

• How to take your big ideas and turn them into real action.
• How to overcome barriers to enacting lasting change.
• The strategies you need to lead with confidence and sustainability + empower your team as a change leader.

Episode Highlights:

• The Characteristics of Change Leaders. (3:06)
• The Importance of “scaffolding” and Empowering Eeams as a Change Leader. (10:05)
• Steps to Becoming a Change Leader. (13:31) 
• Empowering Others Through Change Leadership. (19:53)
• “If you struggle with communication—whether due to anxiety, overthinking, or uncertainty—consider coaching and development. Clear, timely, and honest communication builds trust and alignment.”(24:24)

Learn More: 

Episode Shownotes: http://weareforgood.com/episode/602

Episode Transcript: https://otter.ai/u/mVwJqlHm47YumaZ01VWKx9dg2So?utm_source=copy_url&tab=chat&view=transcript

About our Sponsor Jitasa

Jitasa specializes in bookkeeping, accounting, and CFO services exclusively for nonprofits. If you’re looking for a financial partner who truly understands your mission, check out Jitasa. For a limited time, if you tell them Jon and Becky from We Are For Good sent you, you’ll receive your first month of services for free. 

Chapters

• 0:05 Change Leadership in 2025
• 13:53 Empowering Change Leadership Through Collaboration

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:05

What's the talent in your organization that's as committed as you are to enacting that change? And how do you get out of the way so that not only the folks you're trying to serve are leading their own community towards freedom? But your team is not dependent on you. Change leaders develop others so they can get out of the way. Thought leaders want to stay on the mic year over year, decade over decade.

Speaker 2: 0:36

Welcome to. We Are For Good's Social Impact Trends that Matter in 2025. In partnership with our friends at iDonate, we have hundreds of conversations each year, both on the podcast and offline, with incredible changemakers around the world. In this limited series, we're lifting the eight trends that have cut through to us over the past year. These ideas and shifts hold the power to transform your mission from the inside out, and so, in these eight episodes, we're breaking down the trends, one at a time, and inviting a subject matter expert in to take us deeper and to put it into practice. All right, let's get started. Hey, becky, what's happening?

Speaker 3: 1:11

Hey, John, like favorite human alert, probably one of my favorite trends that we're talking about today. Welcome back to the podcast. We are here in the 2025 social impact trends that matter and this one is personal this week and I want to give a special shout out and thanks to I donate for sponsoring the series. But, John, we got to talk about the rise of the change leader.

Speaker 2: 1:40

I'm so here for this and y'all know, if you've hung around, we are for Good. You know that Lindsay Fuller, the executive director of the Teaching Well, the host of the Gather at the Well podcast, which has been dropping in feed at the end of last year, she is not just like a friend and a change leader herself, but she is a teacher. She's a guide of how we actually do this work, and I remember circling into my notebook the first time that I heard her say this and we thought how can we put amplification behind this? And it's that we don't need more thought leaders, we need change leaders.

Speaker 2: 2:09

And y'all, 2025 is off in a way that we need this now more than ever, and so it's such an honor to have Lindsay back in the house to take our hand, be our guide and kind of show us the way. Lindsay, welcome back to the show.

Speaker 1: 2:22

Thanks so much for having me, hey, everyone.

Speaker 2: 2:25

I mean, lindsay, let's just get you a permanent seat around here, let's be clear. But I mean, we're going to talk about thought leadership, change leadership today, like what's the difference? And I want to just kick it to you and say how would you define change leadership? How does it differ from, maybe, this traditional idea of thought leadership that we see all over the interwebs at all times? But what are some of the characteristics and hallmarks that really you want to lift?

Speaker 1: 2:47

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I think. First, change leadership encompasses thought leadership. In my mind, while we're able to be in rigorous dialogue and talk about the many approaches we could take, the change leader is also the voice in the room that can translate those ideas into operationalized plans. They can enact solutions, they can fine tune and then amplify their impact. When I think about change leadership, I think about them as sort of the engineers of organizations or the engineers of social movements. They're designing the blueprint but then they're going to manage the implementation. It's something that can mobilize your team, mobilize people and resources and strategies towards that measurable impact.

Speaker 1: 3:37

I think that whether you're a school leader or an ED or a board chair, whatever role you hold, you don't just see a path forward. You're ready to go and walk with your community to get there. So I think that's that's some of how I think about change leadership. Some of the characteristics okay, so it's giving actionable. You've got to be results driven. I think you're consistent, not just um in your patience, but also in your ambition. I think you need to know when to go. It's not about the volume of ideas. I'd say it's more about the efficacy of your interventions.

Speaker 2: 4:16

Ooh Heck, put that on a quote card and read that every day, do you know? What I mean yeah.

Speaker 1: 4:23

I don't know, and I just want to underscore it's about galvanizing the people around you. Change leaders don't make change by themselves. They know that's impossible. They would never attempt that. In my mind, change leaders are collectivists, so they're finding aligned, brilliant people, they're celebrating them, they're developing them and ultimately, they don't just talk about it, they walk about it. And I don't know. I think they're professionally about that life.

Speaker 2: 4:49

Well, I mean, I think you know we're a fan club of your work and we know a lot of the team members of the teaching well, and something that always just sticks out to me not only are you a nonprofit doing the work, but like you only teach the things that you have like lived through and moved through and challenged and had the messy middle which we talked about at the end of last season that you it's not that you needed the permission per se, but it's like you've had the life experience to actually lead somebody through this. It's not just theory, it is actually like come with me, like there is a way, and I think that's so powerful and especially in a time like now, we need people that do have a way to step up and to raise a hand, and I just think I look at your team as a beacon for that. So just really grateful.

Speaker 3: 5:37

I do too. We're talking about how are we moving the needle, how are we inviting in the change that we want to see? And we're doing it from a place of lived experience. We're doing it from a place of I've been there and this is what I've seen. And you're inviting in a bigger conversation, and so this year we really want leaders and organizations to really get into what you're talking about, lindsay, which is driving that actionable change, and not just talking about generating ideas and being a talking head. So what do you think is really holding us and our teams back from creating that systems level change that you talk about so beautifully?

Speaker 1: 6:18

I mean, it's all the things.

Speaker 3: 6:20

First of all, it's hard.

Speaker 1: 6:23

It's hard. First of all, it's hard. It's hard and, to be clear, you know we do talk about kind of African tradition and black tradition around freedom dreaming. It is important, and I know in the nonprofit there's some folks that are like we no longer use paradigm shifting. It's too cliche. That's a part of thought leadership that we can go ahead and end in 2025.

Speaker 1: 6:43

The policing of language and kind of the like self-dedicated terminology, police no thanks. Don't need to be told what terms are in or out. I'm really not interested in that. What a waste of time and energy. I think that what we need to be focusing on is who are our people, what's our lane, what's the change that we're responsible for enacting, and how are we going to do that without burning out? Because literally, I have the rest of my life to bring about educational equity. That's it. So I'm not sprinting about it. I'm not telling other people what terms they should or shouldn't use. I don't have time for that, because children are illiterate across this country. Frankly, I think 2025 revealed that adults are as well, and educators and the staffing crisis is too big of a deal. We all need to be mobilizing around this.

Speaker 1: 7:37

So I'm not worried about whether you think paradigm shifting is in or out. I'm worried about whether I'm getting results, but there's a lot. There's a lot that gets in the way of us being able to enact change. I think competing priorities. You've heard it all. Too many cooks in the kitchen Talk about thought leaders, the amount of consultants in the educational field that have not taught, that have not been a school leader, that have not worked in a district team. You actually don't get to read a book or watch a YouTube and decide you understand what it is to walk in the shoes of a teacher, and that actually goes to our credibility and it enhances our ability to enact change. Actually, because there's nothing that busts trust more than having folks that have no real lived experience in the work trying to guide the change. We've really got to be more disciplined with who we're partnering with in the field.

Speaker 1: 8:34

Scarcity mindsets we could go into a whole thing about that y'all, but I think too access to resources, and I know nonprofits and schools everywhere right now are experiencing quite a bit of uncertainty and anxiety around. You know, where are the funders? Where's philanthropy? Where are the donors? Because by some measures, donations are going down in some kind of sectors. I'm really looking for the funders, as an aside, that want to fund the year six through 15 org. I actually think there's a piece of philanthropy right now that's perpetuating thought leadership by only funding new and innovative. Where are the funders that are saying our portfolio is so solid, we only fund change leaders and organizations that are bringing their mission to fruition? Where are those funders? And so I think there's an ecosystem and an interdependence between philanthropy, between large institutions like school districts, like nonprofits. But that's something I'm trying to lift the veil on is how is money driving action as opposed to results driving funding?

Speaker 2: 10:51

There's a disconnect here for me, I mean you're stacking up the trends that we lifted on this series, because not only do I think there's a serious truth-telling component, which we talked about in owning your narrative, but also that we have to redefine impact measurement and getting really dialed in about not just the surface level numbers, like what actually connects to our North Star of what we're trying to accomplish, connects to our North Star of what we're trying to accomplish, and that is such a sweet spot that I think this change leader can be the translator to that, because you talked about this in episode two of your series, so we'll link this up in the show notes. But I love this Lindsay quote, by the way, and I will have quoting you to you.

Speaker 1: 11:30

But what?

Speaker 2: 11:31

happens when we spend all of our time trying to influence others with wild ideas and not actually scaffolding that brilliance, making it actionable, teaching people the way to achieve that change. I think this word scaffolding, for whatever reason, like jumped out at me and it kept coming up in my life. The team can attest they're probably like really tired of hearing me say the word scaffolding.

Speaker 3: 11:53

I love it, keep going.

Speaker 2: 11:54

More of it.

Speaker 3: 11:55

We need it.

Speaker 2: 11:56

That it's such a beautiful word picture of like there's no way to grow without some of those foundational pillars to like help us in the in-between, and so I want you to kind of break that down for us a little bit Like what does that look like for you? You're a teacher. How do we take something abstract that maybe we understand deeply and turn it into and this is an actionable step or a framework or a way to think about life?

Speaker 1: 12:19

Yeah, I mean. One thing I want to first do is just stamp what scaffolding means, in case you are not an educator and you're listening to this. So in teaching, scaffolding is sort of putting resources and supports in place as students learn something new, a new skill, a new concept, and then it's gradually releasing those tools to cultivate more independence and resilience, right. So at its core it's a strategy for the educator to get out of the way and it's still providing those guard rails and access, but it's letting the young person be the primary driver of their education and their learning.

Speaker 1: 12:59

And so I think, when we translate that to the nonprofit sector or to philanthropy, it's what is the mission, what's the talent in your organization that's as committed as you are to enacting that change? And how do you get out of the way? What are the supports and the resources and the tools that are put in place? How are you providing rigorous professional development? We talked about that in our recap episode. How are you coaching and then measuring to your point the impact and the results you're getting, so that not only the folks you're trying to serve are leading their own community towards freedom, but your team is not dependent on you. Change leaders develop others so they can get out of the way. Thought leaders want to stay on the mic year over year, decade over decade.

Speaker 2: 13:54

Oh, wee Did you feel that one as deep as I did. That's powerful.

Speaker 3: 14:07

It is really, really good, and I got a lift, in layman's terms, like what I'm hearing you say. That is such to me, a beacon for us and we have been talking about nonprofits it's time to let go of control, like the death grip that we have on systems, on comms, on I'm using my air quotes the way it's always been done. That is actually holding us back. It's keeping us small, it's keeping us in our own head and in our own world. And what I actually hear you saying is a very liberatory practice, which is let's empower others, let's make the story and the solutions bigger. And guess what happens when we do that?

Speaker 3: 14:46

When we give that gift to someone, they feel ownership, they feel connected, they feel like there is purpose and that there is something bigger behind it. And so I think what I want to say to everybody is I'm like distilling down as it's processing for me is that letting go is not you losing control. It's actually sharing this mission, sharing the story, sharing the opportunity and the solution. And guess what? We're going to get there a lot faster to whatever that solution is. If we can do it together and if I can see myself as a part of the solution, I am empowered in a completely different way and I'm wondering for someone who says yes, this is resonating, I am all in in this change leader concept. What would you say to them as a place to start today?

Speaker 3: 15:40

Like where could they truly start in this journey?

Speaker 1: 15:45

Well, first I'd say you, you really need to get to know your org. I think of the teaching well as a living organism, like a being that is comprised of so many moving parts. Right, but your 30-day listening meeting as a new leader is not going to prevent radical changes from happening prematurely, like you can't come in and just make swift change. So I wanna put a cautionary tale. This doesn't mean you come in and you gut every system and you let go of the entire team. That was there right. It's not just about market best practices. It's about knowing the mission, the vision, the values, the team and those who you serve really intimately. And why I recommend that as the starting point is. I think you know when I arrived at the teaching, well, I actually supervised all but one teammate, which was a large undertaking for the entire first year.

Speaker 1: 16:40

Yes, I know, and some folks were like, why would you do that? Okay, it allowed me to really individualize supports, because change leaders have to discern what are the learning gaps that exist? What systems are inefficient? What is my talent? What do my teammates need in terms of development to be able to really bring our mission to life? And then, how do I teach with rigor but scaffold appropriately and then get out of the way? You can't just jump out and drop people out to do the work.

Speaker 1: 17:11

In my opinion, that also breeds kind of like imposter syndrome and feelings of being ineffective in the work or worse, they go out and they do harm, right Trying to save folks. And so I think when you really deeply understand your organization and and who it is, then it's easier for you to be clear about your lane, where you're guiding your team and the change that's yours, what's your responsibility team, and the change that's yours, what's your responsibility, right? So that's the first part. I would say also, you should deeply study change management. I'm kind of floored by how few leaders actually understand how to enroll their team, their supporters, to galvanize and to move the work forward. Okay, what change leaders want.

Speaker 1: 18:02

And I think one indicator that you're shifting from thought leadership to change leadership is when your staff is not acting out of compliance, they're acting for community. So their team right, the clients like the next generation. When talent is stable and you're able to maintain institutional knowledge or integrate new perspectives with each hire and then retain and and kind of grow your team year over year, your organization will become stronger. I'm trying to be a good professional ancestor. So for the next wave of change leaders, right Like I, make sure that I'm trying to communicate with transparency, with consistency, with containment. I want to enroll my team because it impacts their ability to lean towards the solution with me. They're going to see things that I can't. To see things that I can't. It's not my job to have every solution. It's to amplify their brilliance, to work harder and not smarter, and to stand by each other in moments of uncertainty like this one. Right?

Speaker 3: 19:05

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 19:06

It just feels like connecting to bigger themes that we see across the sector is like that's connected to the retention crisis.

Speaker 2: 19:14

Yeah, I was thinking the exact same thing, and like there's toxic management, but there's also, like this disconnect of like how do you actually do something that's purposeful and impactful? And the like, the enrollment in what you're doing. Because when that's switched off, that's when you have the quiet quitting or you have people that are just disenfranchised in the work and I just think that we can't sleep on this. And you look at y'all's team that has had really strong retention. Well, it points to that people feel that enrollment in what you're doing. So I just think that there's something there.

Speaker 1: 19:48

Yeah, and I'm not an expert in succession planning, trust me but I do think that a nonprofit for the founders out there, for the executive directors out there, a successful nonprofit, lives beyond you In the same way that a successful school lives beyond the principal that's there.

Speaker 1: 20:20

The only way an organization can live beyond you and thrive truly is, in part, sure, getting out of the way, but it's also cultivating the next set of leaders inside of the org or preparing a staff that's so clear on the north star that if a leader is hired externally, like in my case, the team is like this is who we are and we're down to be led, we're down to be shaped, we're down to come together and to imagine new possibilities.

Speaker 1: 20:41

But the core identity of the organization can weather leadership transitions. So, again, change leadership is really thinking about. If the ultimate goal is for every educator to feel respected, healthy and for them to be able to create stable schools for our most marginalized youth, then we've got a lot of work to do and this will take longer than I am in leadership. So how do we strip ego and say I'm going to equip wellness warriors, even if they leave the organization, to go? Continue this fight, because this is the movement of our time, this is the social justice issue of our time is that education is the way to collective liberation. We only do that with a stable educator force.

Speaker 3: 21:30

And I definitely think that the word movement goes completely in alignment with change leader, and I mean that on the metaphorical sense, in the literal sense, if you are a change leader, you're inviting someone into a journey that is not the journey of one, it is the journey of so many, and I think that that is hopeful and it's also freeing, and so that's why we want you to get there and, ps, we absolutely need you in this movement in this moment in time, and never before have we needed so many people to rise into being the activating change leader Like now is your time.

Speaker 1: 22:13

Ashe. I think there's one other note I just want to share about steps to take, because I wanted to say, yes, internalizing your org's identity and then change management. But the third piece that I was brainstorming and I was like, what else would I recommend? And truly, if you're familiar with socio-emotional learning, many of our kids are receiving it in school and there's a lot of misinformation about what it is. I won't go into that, but one of the core concepts in true SEL is the idea of going first. It's the idea that teachers who model vulnerability create more psychological safety for students to do that as well as well. Teachers who are clear on who they are invite an identity forward classroom environment that helps kids have pride in who they are, and so I just want to stamp that change leaders go first. They admit mistakes, they aren't afraid to fail Thinking about Rebe's episode she did with y'all they model continuous improvement and they keep a pulse and a hand in the work, and so we kind of talked about this at the beginning of this conversation. The integrity of going first, the integrity of having lived experience.

Speaker 1: 23:26

I think yes, for sustainability should you have distribution of labor? Of course, do you need to have your hand in everything no, but if you're the leader of an organization and you're removed from the core purpose, in my opinion it dulls your ability to lead the team through the nuanced challenges that they're going to face. So, for example, for me, I feel like I need to have an intimate knowledge of our curriculum. I need to be able to be able to perform. Should I do it all day? No, but I need to be able to be able to perform.

Speaker 1: 23:56

Should I do it all day? No, but I need to be able to perform our primary services. When I look at a principal who actually never taught common core standards, it's really hard for them to coach teachers towards rigorous instruction. So I just I think that the feedback I receive grows my practice and it directs my coaching of my team. So those are that's that me. We world part right and that framework that I shared. Check out episode four holler at gather at the well but I'm just saying I'm just saying right, it's like start first, go first, get your stuff together.

Speaker 1: 24:29

Understand the mission, yeah.

Speaker 3: 24:31

Do do the be the change, model the change. And for those who want to go further, and I mean 100%, check out Gather at the Well. I think episode four is a great primer for this. But you also mentioned Rebecca Bernard we call her Rebbe who's over at the Teaching Well. Her episode 594, about leveraging community and innovation as an impact multiplier, is gold in addition to this episode, so we'll put that in the show notes as well.

Speaker 2: 24:58

And I love that you brought up Rebbe, because she brought us home with a one good thing that made me overcome with emotion. I want to ask you I mean I've been keeping track, You've given us like 18 one good things on this episode what is the one piece of thought that you want to share with our community today, kind of wrapping up this conversation, my friend?

Speaker 1: 25:20

One good thing I'm a woman of many words and you know it's just. It's not about optics. Change leadership is about leading actual change. It's in the name, and I I think communication is key. So if communication is a place where you experience somatic blocks, anxiety, rumination, uncertainty, if you feel you're not the most skilled communicator, invest in coaching and development around this, because timely, responsive communication and honesty build trust and alignment right, and so change leaders need that we call it in education. Need to know discernment, because it'll save you a ton of time and energy. Learn how to carry out a strategic communication cascade. If you don't know what I mean by that, that's maybe what's getting in the way of you enacting change, but what it means truly is to bring your people along, treat their wellbeing as a top priority, because they will carry the mission far beyond what you can ever do by yourself. So communicate, enroll, change, manage, retain your people and get that alignment.

Speaker 3: 26:36

I love it when Lindsay comes on the podcast. I just feel my worldview expand, I feel my heart expand. I feel so much hope in the possibility of what could be, and so I really hope, listeners, that this has resonated with you, is such an important topic. That is so of the moment that we need right now in the world, and so Lynn's people are going to want now in the world, and so Linz people are going to want to connect with you. I mean, we're absolutely going to say please check out Linz's limited series Gather at the Well, but please also tell us where you hang out, where they can connect with you online and where they can connect with the Teaching Well.

Speaker 1: 27:11

Yeah, well, find me on LinkedIn. I try and get on there often enough, but also protect my peace, so not too much. You can also come to the teaching wellorg. That's where you'll find a direct link to our podcast, as well as through. We are for good feed and the blog that teaches. So all of these concepts broken down. You can find us on Facebook, instagram and, well, probably doing interpretive dances in the streets, if I'm being honest.

Speaker 3: 27:44

Also, it's good somatic practice.

Speaker 1: 27:46

I'm really representing my team. Well, you catch us out in the community. We also provide monthly free trainings that are open to all on microdosing wellness, so we hope to be in community with you all real soon, you're a wonder.

Speaker 2: 28:01

Yeah, we think the world of you. Thanks for being here today.

Speaker 1: 28:04

Appreciate you. Thanks for the opportunity.