Table of Contents

• What Giving Tuesday Can Teach Us About Leadership …

  • New Power, But Make It Leadership

  • What This Actually Looks Like Day-to-Day

  • New Power ≠ No Structure

  • How Do You Know What to Push Down—and What to Hold …

• Places To Give this Giving Tuesday

• 1% Solutions

• What I’m Reading and Listening To

Happy December! I’m not quite sure how we got here but we did. And what a year. Some learnings, some wins, some losses. I’ve blocked off the week of December 15 to do some heads down reflection and planning for 2026, and am enlisting some thought partners and body doubles (IFYYK).

Each year, I set a strategic plan for myself, to help me focus on the things that matter most. It also helps me to say no to opportunities that may sound awesome but aren’t aligned to what I care most about. What am I thinking of for next year? I’m in early stages but I’d love to do more work building resilient teams by creating learning cultures, leading and facilitating workshops and retreats, and building out my stand-alone workshops. I also want to work on building out my email list in a way that isn’t spammy, host more social impact dinners, and study astrology.

You can see why I need some focus and some editing.

This is also the final week to join my Performance Sprint — and if you’re thinking of waiting until January, don’t. The biggest lie we tell ourselves is that we’ll “get serious after the holidays.” But momentum doesn’t magically appear — it’s built now, in the quiet weeks while everyone else is distracted. This Sprint is built to save you months of wasted motion by forcing clarity, structure, and execution in just 30 days. If you don’t solve this now, you’ll be stuck solving the same problem in Q1 — with more pressure and less time. We start next Tuesday, December 9th.

Use this link to learn more- and receive a special All Things Talent discount. And if you want to bring others? Groups of 3 or more are $200/each. Just hit reply to learn more.

What Giving Tuesday Can Teach Us About Leadership (Yes, Really)

It wasn’t until I read New Power by Jeremy Heimans and Henry Timms, that I learned the actual history of Giving Tuesday. Giving Tuesday started as a scrappy little idea inside the 92nd Street Y—a simple invitation for people around the world to do good on the same day. No splashy budget, no massive infrastructure. Just a belief in the possibility that if you handed people the invitation and the agency, they’d run with it.
And they did (as evidenced by our inboxes today!)

What began as a local experiment became a global movement powered by millions, not by top-down control but by bottom-up participation. That’s the essence of new power—not commanding from the center, but creating the conditions for others to lead.

New Power, But Make It Leadership

Heimans calls new power a “current”—something you channel rather than hoard. It spreads through networks, not hierarchies. For leaders, this isn’t theoretical—it’s incredibly practical.

This new power leadership looks like:

• Pushing decision-making down to the people closest to the work

• Designing systems that rely on participation, not permission

• Letting yourself be changed by the people you lead, not just the other way around

• Sharing authority without abdicating accountability

And here’s the part most leaders don’t say out loud: Doing this well is uncomfortable.
Because distributing power means giving up full control—and trusting your team enough to shape the path with you.

What This Actually Looks Like Day-to-Day

In everyday leadership, “new power” can look like:

• Letting a mid-level manager own the design of a new process instead of waiting for you to bless every detail

• Inviting team members to lead meetings and define agendas—while you participate instead of preside

• Asking people affected by a decision to inform it before you make it

• Co-creating priorities instead of presenting them

• Welcoming dissent, not performing alignment

It’s less “tell me when you’re done,” more “let’s shape this together.”

But let me be clear…..

New Power ≠ No Structure

Sharing power doesn’t mean stepping back so far that your team is wandering in the wilderness. Leaders still have a responsibility to set bottom lines, articulate parameters, and define what “good” looks like—especially in areas where risk, safety, compliance, or reputation are on the line.

Good delegation sounds like:

• “Here’s the goal. Here are the guardrails. You own the ‘how.’”

• “This part is non-negotiable. Everything else is flexible.”

• “Because this affects safety/clients/compliance, we’ll build in more frequent check-ins.”

New power isn’t the absence of oversight—it’s the presence of clarity.
Your job is to create enough definition for people to move confidently, and enough space for them to lead boldly.

How Do You Know What to Push Down—and What to Hold Tight?

Here are a few guiding questions I use with leaders (and myself):

1. Who is closest to the problem, context, or customer?
   If it’s not you, you probably shouldn’t be the decider (or at least not the sole one).

2. Is this decision reversible?
   If yes, let someone else own it. Save your energy for the one-way doors.

3. Does making this decision grow someone else’s leadership?
   If so, you can delegate the decision—and coach the thinking (If this feels too much, delegate a recommendation, coach the decision and then make an informed decision)

4. Is my involvement adding clarity—or bottlenecking progress?
   Be brutally honest here (I’ve lost count of the times I was inadvertently bottlenecking something)

5. If I stepped back 10%, what would my team step into?
   This usually reveals the opportunity.

Leadership isn’t about controlling the current—it’s about shaping the conditions so others can move with it.

On this Giving Tuesday, when millions of small actions add up to something enormous, it’s a good reminder: Power grows when you share it—and clarity is what helps it spread.

Places To Give this Giving Tuesday

I know there is no shortage of places to give, but I did want to highlight a few that I think deserve special shine. I have a personal connection to each- both for the mission and the organization itself- so it’s a joy to introduce you to some amazing folks who need your support.

• Brooklyn Debate League- Three of my favorites things are education, debate and Brooklyn. I’ve recently joined the board of the Brooklyn Debate League. BDL helps NYC public school students to access the transformative power of Speech and Debate. For me, debate is not just about the debate- it’s the research, learning rhetoric, the commitment. It’s also about travel and exposure to different parts of the country as you travel for tournaments. Right now we are raising money to send kids to the UPenn tournament. And if you use this link available, Brooklyn Org will MATCH all donations up to $5k

• The Inspired Community Project- TICP is one of the most thoughtfully created nonprofits because it doesn’t just solve a problem- it builds an ecosystem. This is one of the main reasons I joined the board a little over two years ago. TICP empowers children and families through inclusive, neurodiversity-affirming care. They do this in three key ways: providing specialized behavioral healthcare, family advocacy, and workforce development.

• Forte Prep- Forte Prep is a tuition free 6-12 charter school in Queens doing magical things. For 8 years, i was privileged to be the founding Board Chair and got a court side seat to watch Graham and Justin and their team build.a truly wonderful school the builds a truly affirming space for students and teachers. Next year, they’ll have their first senior class, which is beyond exciting. Please consider supporting!

• Sadie Nash Leadership Project- Sadie Nash’s mission is to strengthen, empower, and equip young women and gender-expansive youth of color as agents for change in their lives and the world. Led by the incredible Tene Howard, it is founded on the belief that young women of color are already leaders in their community and have the power to change the world.

• The Ability Project- Started by Sarah Sandelius five years ago, The Ability Challenge partners with schools, districts, and networks to develop and support authentically inclusive school communities and teams that work together to meet the unique needs of the students. You can check out their Five Year Impact Report (made even more impressive when you think about the backdrop of the last few years!) Donate here.

1% Solutions

• Honoring grief during this time- The holidays can be more challenging for many. This is especially of you have team members who’ve lost someone in the last year, as they approach their first holiday season. It’s a good time to remember emotions can run high around now, and people may be struggling even if they don’t look like it.. A little grace goes a long way right now.

• Recognize your team- 79% of employees who quit their jobs leave from a lack of recognition. As a leader, let your last emails of 2023 be ones of thanks and recognition. These don’t have to be long but should be specific. After all, what you praise will likely be repeated.

What I’m Reading and Listening To

• Senior Leaders Still Need Learning & Development- While midlevel leaders are increasingly receiving leadership support, many senior level leaders enter their role with little or non. This HBR article discusses the reasons why and how to remedy this- including providing peer support and executive coaching. I have some other ideas as well, including connecting senior leaders to external cohorts (happy to chat on this!)

• The Hidden Reasons Behind Underperformance- With review season around the corner, this article felt eslecially timely. I appreciated the author’s framework for approaching these conversations- the big takeaway/reminder is that managers and leaders have to actually have a conversation with the person in order to appropriately diagnose and align on next steps.