What 2025 Taught Me About Leadership, Burnout, and the Cost of Chaos

Brigid Vance
12 minutes ago
4 min read

In reflecting on the year that just closed, I was expecting to share a lot of thoughts on the current fundraising landscape, how politics and the shifting economy have changed the game, and even some about AI’s influence. Instead, I realized that the lessons on my mind were about something else. For me, 2025 was the year I shone a light on bad internal culture.

Illustration of a person standing at the center of abstract, colorful data charts and rising lines, suggesting reflection on growth, uncertainty, and future direction.

The moment it clicked

By the middle of 2025, I was beyond exhausted and depleted.

It was not the tired that comes from a hard week or a packed calendar. I was feeling the bone-deep fatigue that shows up when you are always bracing for the next fire to put out, the last-minute scramble, the lack of clarity, and the emotional whiplash that gets justified as urgency.

If you are a nonprofit leader in any department, you know this feeling. Our puritanical, bootstraps-loving society tends to treat it as a personal failure. We should all pace ourselves better. We should set stronger boundaries. We should be more resilient.

While ideally, yes, we should have so much control, our personal responsibility is limited when we are one piece of a larger puzzle.

Chaos is a system, and systems burn people out

Here was the realization I had that flipped a switch I haven’t been able to turn off.

Operating inside a culture of chaos will always lead to burnout. Always. It does not matter how mission-driven, committed, or talented the people are.

Chaos is not random. It is a system.

It looks like constant urgency, shifting priorities, unclear ownership, decisions that change depending on who is in the room, or emotional intensity standing in for strategy.

We normalize it because the work feels important. We excuse it because the needs are real. We even confuse it with passion.

But chaos has a cost. It extracts a tax every day over time, and eventually that bill comes due. No one involved in an organization is immune, including staff, board, volunteers, and donors.

Managing chaos is what leaders do. If, instead, we pretend that constant urgency – especially false, avoidable urgency – is normal, we guarantee burnout.

Why culture matters more than personal grit

Burnout thrives where psychological safety is thin.

When people are unsure how decisions get made, they hedge. When they cannot ask questions without consequence, they don’t speak up. This lack of transparency creates a system where staff are punished for identifying problems instead of lauded for being proactive.

This cycle shows up clearly in development work. Fundraisers operating in chaos burn out faster. We know that development directors in particular have extremely high turnover rates, from 12 to 18 months on average, depending on the source. This turnover quietly erodes revenue, relationships, and institutional memory.

The sector still leans hard on sacrifice as proof of commitment. That mindset is not only outdated, but it’s extremely expensive. It costs staff members their health and organizations their stability.

Martyrdom is not leadership, nor is expecting it from your team.

Choosing fewer fires on purpose

The shift for me was not about control or perfection. It was about accountability.

Naming chaos instead of normalizing it changed how I led and how I pushed my colleagues to lead. We didn’t need weekly “all hands on deck” calls to get things accomplished; we needed systems and plans to limit urgency.

Naming the problem did not make my life easier, but leading through careful planning has made it sustainable.

A few truths that held up all year:

Leaders set the emotional tone for an organization.
Culture is built in ordinary moments, not crisis speeches.
Burnout prevention is operational work, not inspirational talk.

You cannot outsource this work by telling staff to engage in self care or call a therapist (an actual recommendation I heard made at more than one meeting). You also cannot rely on your strongest staff to absorb the damage. That’s just another recipe for continued turnover.

A note on team culture

I had to reach my own point of burnout, despite knowing I was doing good and meaningful work, to gain this clarity. It didn’t hurt that I was in a position of watching those lower on the organizational chart floundering and having no one to listen to them.

We don’t have to reach a breaking point to hit the brakes and make changes. As leaders, it is our job to set the tone and ensure our staff members are well supported and heard. If a system is broken, we make strides to fix it. If one person, department, or organizational function is setting everything ablaze, we have to address it.

I am so grateful now to be part of teams that function well. When expectations are clear, capacity is respected, and problems are addressed directly, organizations can thrive. The work is still demanding, but chaos is not the default.

These shifts will not happen by accident. Healthy systems must be built and nurtured.