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Rhea Wong has worked in the nonprofit sector for over fifteen years, twelve of them as an executive director. During her tenure as Executive Director of Breakthrough New York, she oversaw significant growth in the number of students served, in the staff, the budget and replication to three sites. She has become a leader in the New York educational community and is a frequent educational commentator in the media. She has been recognized with the SmartCEO Brava Award in 2015 and NY Nonprofit Media\u2019s 40 under 40 in 2017. She is also the host of Nonprofit Lowdown, a podcast dedicated to the business of nonprofits.\n\nLEADERSHIP INSIGHTS\n\n- You have great resources around you, whether it\u2019s people, skills, etc. Identify these and take advantage of them instead of ignoring them.\n- Be on the bleeding edge of what is happening\u2014put yourself in a posture of doing things you\u2019ve never done before.\n- Leadership is not only explicit but also implicit. When you are the leader of an organization, everyone is looking at you and taking cues from you how to act, think, and feel.\n- Be aware that people may make meaning out of your actions, even if that meaning was not your intention.\n- There tends to be a point at which leaders\u2019 (particularly founders\u2019) strengths become weaknesses. Be aware of this and make sure that you get out of your organization\u2019s way when necessary.\n- Do a good job of differentiating between expenses and investments. Both cost money, but the low-cost item/service is not always the best.\n- Take some time to let your staff know that you appreciate them. All organizations get work done through people and relationships.\n\nQUESTIONS TO INSPIRE US TO ACTION\n\n\u2013 What is some lesson, saying, or experience that continues to influence your leadership to this day? It\u2019s better to ask forgiveness than permission!\n- Use three descriptors to finish this sentence: \u201cA leader is\u2026\u201d Curious, bold, and compassionate.\n- What is a question that leaders should be asking either themselves or others? How can I put myself in a posture of being on the \u201cbleeding edge\u201d and do things that I have never done before?\n- What book would you recommend to leaders? Fierce Conversations by Susan Scott (bonuses: How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie and Atomic Habits by James Clear).\n- If you could get every listener to start doing something THIS week to help them be a better leader, what would it be? Make explicit the things you want to do by writing them down and speaking them into existence. Also, stop trying to solve other peoples\u2019 problems and instead ask them what they intend to do about them.\n- As a general life principle, is it better to ask \u201cwhy?\u201d or \u201cwhy not?\u201d \u201cWhy not?\u201d It is a much more interesting question. It pushes people and helps people imagine a world that does not yet exist.\n\nWebsite:\nhttp://www.rheawong.com\n\nContact:\nrheawong@gmail.com\n\nFind Rhea on social media:\nInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/rheawongconsulting/ (@RheaWongConsulting)\n\nRhea's Nonprofit Lowdown recommendations:\nInterview with https://open.spotify.com/episode/7C6jwcpYoFdiXfKc5qemf5 (Susan Scott)\nInterview with https://open.spotify.com/episode/50nI7VNQ2bNUTp0kCjBAjj (Kara Logan Berlin)\nInterview with https://open.spotify.com/episode/3OR8cUnPrRB2jvxK5ldrvm (Dianne Morales)