By Gail Jackson, CEO, Solving Kids’ Cancer UK
There are days in charity leadership when the weight of the work sits more heavily than we’d like to admit. Days when you question whether you’re making the right calls, or whether you can keep finding the resilience to make them at all.
I wish we talked about this more, especially when I was starting out in my career. I feel deeply privileged to hold the position I do, but it can also take its toll. When your work is bound up with real lives, real futures and real hopes, the line between carrying responsibility and carrying everything can become very thin.
In the current climate where public discourse seems to reward vitriol over compassion, those of us in the charity sector know, perhaps more acutely than ever, that empathy isn’t a soft add-on. It’s central to the work.
The hardest decisions are the ones that involve people
We all make difficult decisions: decisions that affect colleagues, organisational partners, families, or services; decisions shaped by financial realities none of us would choose; decisions that challenge every value we hold. Sometimes the hardest moments come when you enter this work to help people, yet you must still make choices that may affect them in painful ways.
I’ve sat at my desk more than once and wondered: Am I doing right by everyone? Am I strong enough for this? Will this decision hurt someone? I’ve lost sleep over these questions, and I’ve shed tears over these choices. But these questions don’t make leaders weak, they just make us human.
CEOs are navigating not only systems and funding challenges but also the emotional realities of leading people through uncertainty and change.
Giving so much of yourself has a cost
Charity leadership demands emotional labour that is often unseen. We hold space for families facing impossible circumstances, for staff giving their all in challenging environments, for boards needing reassurance, and for organisational partners dealing with pressures of their own.
I’ve learned, and sometimes the hard way, that giving so much of yourself can stretch you too thin. It can leave you tired in ways that sleep doesn’t fix. It can make you doubt your own judgment. And when the external world feels turbulent, the work can feel heavier still.
But I’ve also learned that empathy is not what drains us. The absence of it is.
When decisions are made without humanity, when leaders posture instead of listen, when compassion disappears from public life, the toll is far greater.
Strength isn’t having all the answers
There’s a persistent myth in leadership that strength is synonymous with certainty – that leaders should always know, be able to predict, and definitely have a plan. But charity leadership teaches us something different, and in my view, more honest:
Strength is acknowledging what you don’t know.
Some of the most important turning points in my own leadership journey have come from saying, “I’m not sure, can we think this through together?” or simply, “I need help.”
Early in my career, I worried that admitting uncertainty would undermine confidence in me. Now I know the opposite is true. I’ve learned this through vulnerable moments like admitting to my team that I made a mistake or acknowledging to my Board Chair that I need help. Asking for help is really an act of collaboration. It builds trust. It makes space for others to step forward and bring new ideas. It often reveals a better path and one I might never have found alone.
What charity leaders can teach the wider world
Looking at leadership on the national or global stage, it’s easy to feel discouraged. The tone can be adversarial; empathy is sometimes cast as weakness and decisions are often made far from the people most affected by them.
Charity leaders operate differently because we have to. We sit with people at their most vulnerable. We confront grief, injustice, and inequity daily. We work not for power, but for purpose.
Over time and often without even realising it, we build leadership muscles the world needs more of:
- Seeing people as humans, not stakeholders.
- Listening before reacting (or at least trying really hard to!).
- Valuing lived experience as deeply as professional expertise.
- Making decisions with communities, not just for them.
- Holding compassion and courage at the same time.
These aren’t soft skills. These are leadership skills, and they often demand more courage than certainty ever does.
A call to lead with empathy – especially when it’s hardest
The climate we’re operating in is tough. Expectations of charity leaders are high. The emotional demands are real. But amidst all of this, empathy remains one of our strongest tools, not because it shields us from difficulty, but because it shapes how we move through it.
Empathy helps us stay connected to our values. It steadies us when decisions feel heavy. It reminds us that leadership is not about having all the answers, but about bringing humanity into the spaces where it is most needed.
And if you’ve ever felt the weight of this work more deeply than you expected to, you’re certainly not alone. Wherever you find yourself on your leadership journey right now, I hope you can recognise that shared experience and perhaps find a small moment of steadiness and a little compassion for yourself as well as for others.