I'm sorry to hear that you have lockjaw.

Good news: you don't have tetanus.

Bad news: you have another ailment.

I started to see it while talking with Ann Graber Hershberger. She just retired from leading Mennonite Central Committee, the large international relief, development, and peace organization. When I asked her what parts of the CEO role produce the most difficult decisions, she told me:

“It's those things that we have to decide that are not public. But we have to decide something that people don't know about, and we have to carry it. We have to carry the pain and the heaviness of that when it's not a public decision. We can't explain ourselves."

This is similar to what Andy Crouch from Praxis told me:

"I see isolation as the hardest thing, especially in the CEO seat. And it relates to something called hidden vulnerability…You are always aware of risks in your system that other people, even those quite close to you in the system, don't fully see. And you can't disclose all of it. It is a very lonely thing to be in this particular role of combined power and visibility and exposure, and also to have a bunch of things that you know you're exposed to, but that other people don't actually see or feel the way you do."

What Ann and Andy observe has come up in many of my conversations with nonprofit CEOs. It surfaces in financial dynamics they can’t talk about publicly, existential threats to their organizations, and personnel truths they will never be able to explain. 

Earlier this year, I heard Barry Corey, president of Biola University, reflect on this dynamic: 

“As much as you would like to explain the full story by presenting the unvarnished truth, in a situation you have to keep a covenant of confidentiality to protect the organization, to maintain integrity and to preserve trust…Our temptation is to just want to say exactly what's going on. But we can't. When I made a decision and people think it was the wrong decision, I want to say, well, this is the reason why, so you can understand. But you can't."

You want to explain. But you can’t.

Barry said this was like having a locked jaw. 

And in any given situation, one or two other people might know the full picture–the CFO, CHRO, a Chief of Staff, General Counsel, Board Chair, spouse…But no one knows all of the details of all of them, and there are usually a few at any given time. 

The CEO carries the weight of it alone. With lockjaw. 

In the 310+ conversations I’ve had with CEOs across the sector in the last two years, I’ve seen the pain and pressure of this dynamic, this ailment. Frankly, I'm surprised more leaders don't buckle under it. It's rough out there.

This is the nature of the nonprofit CEO role. You will always have complex decisions, as well as rationale for why and how you decide each one. And you will still have lockjaw, the inability to explain yourself publicly, to be understood. You have to absorb a lot of critique and emotion.