When I was a wee little one, I would run around the house pretending to be a bird. I vaguely remember making bird sounds and swinging my arms wide and free. I also just loved to run. So much so that my family had a humorous nickname for me and my bird behavior, one that embarrassed me when I got older. But I was not, and am not, embarrassed that I wanted to fly. I have always pursued what it means to feel and be free.

Five years ago, when I accepted our founder and board of directors’ request that I become TEP’s next president, I did it knowing it would be hard and complicated at times, and that sometimes it would not feel very free, because people box in women leaders, and Black women leaders, and “insert other identifiers here,” a lot. I also did it knowing I could pursue a new kind of freedom: for myself, for my staff, for our communities, and for the amazing partners and people we work with. New because a new president means new things. And new because our founder told me we needed something different for the political season we were in. I was excited and ready and not totally ready and nervous.

Here’s what five years of doing systems change, of working to create more freedom in the world for children, has taught me.

1. My organization is only as free, adaptable, accountable, and transformational as I allow myself to be.

It’s not that everything is about me, or on me. Our board and our partners deeply shape our presence and our performance. But as the leader, I hold real influence and power here. If I am not pursuing a more just, free, and equitable life for myself, it will show up in our work. It can spoil the efforts of my teams. So I have to push myself wholeheartedly toward healing, rest, transparency, and material transformation, with discipline and consistency, in order to lead my organization toward those same things. I can’t be out in these faith organizing streets not walking that talk if I want the thriving of all God’s children to be real.

2. Subject matter experts give strategists and generalists the guidance we can’t give ourselves.

This is a nerdy thing to say, isn’t it? But here we are. 🙂 Most executive directors need some subject matter expertise of their own and a whole lot of general wisdom across a variety of areas. I’m a subject matter expert when it comes to facilitation and learning. I also have an MBA and am conversant in business performance, enough to sense when we’re moving in the right or wrong direction. But I have to hold myself accountable to what I don’t know by bringing leaders around me, and onto my staff, who can advise me far beyond what I can see alone. Sometimes the right fit is hard to find. I have to keep going at it anyway. As a great gospel song says, “we fall down and we get up.” Without the getting up, I am no closer to freedom, even when I can see it off in the distance.

3. Transformation is only possible with pauses.

I don’t really like speaking in absolutes, but I’m ten toes down on this one. It’s not cute to never pause and reflect. Contemplation is not a luxury, and it is not only for people who can afford that Eat, Pray, Love stuff. 🙂 I wanted to take a sabbatical for part of this year (I’m about to cross over to eleven years at TEP!), but the organization couldn’t afford to provide it. That hasn’t stopped me from building elements of sabbath into our work. I consider it a responsibility, not just to myself and my team, but to the children I am pursuing a freedom dream with. Because if I don’t pause, I run the risk of our freedom dreams becoming fever dreams, my energy and creativity zapped away by urgency.

4. Systems change requires repetition, especially when urgency tempts us to speed through.

The systems that fail children were built over generations; they don’t come apart in one news cycle. So as we walk alongside faith leaders who are organizing, or aspiring to organize, in their communities, we repeat three movements, again and again:

Identification. We identify and define childhood thriving with communities, and build a deep understanding of the structures, systems, and policies that shape children’s lives. Then we galvanize communities to use the power of advocacy and organizing to make those healthy systems real.

Diagnosis. We diagnose the underlying beliefs, mindsets, and behaviors in people and in systems that have allowed children not to thrive. And we rigorously co-create tools and resources so communities can keep diagnosing the roots of what blocks the outcomes they seek for the children in their neighborhoods.

Motion. We support practice, execution, and movement toward the plans communities have made. We strategize, circle back, and work through the inevitable conflicts, so that community members create the shifts in power that let children grow into healthy adults.

5. Dreamers dream and shooters shoot.

I was a basketball player as a kid, and I still enjoy watching and sometimes playing. I wasn’t as much of a shooter as I was a defender. I usually played power forward, and yes, I remember fouling out of a few games. I also played on several boys’ teams. But I had to learn to shoot, because everyone has to shoot the ball at some point. I have always been a dreamer, as evidenced by my aforementioned bird behavior. The thing is: sometimes, to make dreams come true, you gotta shoot your shot. This is very true as an organizational leader. I hold fast to my dream of a world in which all children thrive. To get there, I have to invite more people into that dream, in sustaining ways and with repetition. And that requires… yep, shooting my shot.

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One of my favorite songs is Nina Simone’s “I Wish I Knew How It Would Feel to Be Free.” Ohhhhhhhh weeeee, I love this song. I love the yearning, the hoping, the striving in it. To me it is a unity call, a prophetic declaration that we can, in fact, all know what it means to be free. It’s grief and joy at the same time.

Five years as TEP’s president has been grief and joy at the same time. I am more angry than ever about the world we allow for our babies (including the ones who are eighteen and “grown”). And I am more prepared than ever to keep leading in this journey toward liberation, toward systems that let every child thrive.

Let’s keep flying together.