Below is PRF CEO Professor Kristy Muir's annual letter to leaders, originally published on Medium.
It is 7am on a Monday, a couple of hours until a Board meeting kicks off, and I am in a humid gym in Kings Cross, balancing precariously on a flat circular board on top of an inflated rubber dome. I’m starting to sweat and get the shakes. Distracted by thoughts of the day ahead, I tip forward and then overcorrect. My mind returns to the task, my muscle memory kicks in, and I find the balance. In that moment, I am reminded of leadership. Let me explain.
The balance board and balancing act is a metaphor for leadership. As a CEO, a Board Director and a Professor teaching leadership to CEOs, I am constantly faced with the reality that there is a lot to balance in leadership:
- Meeting financial, human resource, fiduciary responsibilities.
- Formulating and executing strategies and achieving key performance indicators.
- Addressing persistent challenges and determining solutions.
- Managing and adapting to context, loss, growth and resistance to change.
- Upholding values, stewarding culture and committing to purpose.
Holding a leadership position involves all this and more. It is a privilege, a challenge, and a joy. And it can sometimes feel overwhelming and impossible to balance.
The balance board idea separates the organisation (the physical board), the leaders standing on top striving to find balance (by making constant shifts and small movements), and the changing stabilising or destabilising context (the internal and external factors that hold the leader steady or push or pull in a particular direction).
This is simple to understand, right? But it also allows us to hold on to the complexity, and hopefully gives us a useful way to think about and practice leadership.
Three leadership accountabilities
Picture the flat top of the balance board divided into three sections, each representing a critical accountability for leaders:
- Fiduciary and regulatory performance accountabilities: Leaders are responsible for appropriately stewarding their organisations (finances, legal, human resources, risk, how we use our resources etc.) and complying with external laws and regulations.
- Organisational performance accountabilities: Leaders develop, oversee and are held to account for implementing organisational strategies. KPIs set and track whether core activities are being met. These activities directly link to customers, key stakeholders and our teams, culture, policies and processes.
- Purpose performance accountabilities: Leaders are accountable for contributing to a purpose beyond their organisations. Purpose accountabilities are all about making a valuable contribution to the people and planet around us (the ecosystems we are part of).
In the for-purpose sector, this relates to the purpose for which they exist and the intended public benefit. It is broader than the organisation’s objectives. For example, a homelessness organisation might have a purpose around ‘ending homelessness’, while their organisational objectives might be focused on housing a specific number of people in a particular location. For-profit organisations also have a purpose beyond profit, whether explicitly stated or not. Social licence not only matters in a competitive market, it also helps create a thriving society.
The leadership challenge: balancing multiple performance accountabilities
While these three performance accountabilities make sense, the balancing act kicks in when sometimes what is best for our organisation (be it our financials, our contracts, our growth, our staffing, our funding model) is not what is best for our purpose.
At the Paul Ramsay Foundation, for example, our purpose accountability is working for an Australia where people and places have what they need to thrive. Our organisational activities are about working with organisations and communities to invest in, build, and influence the conditions needed to stop disadvantage in Australia. We need to balance our primary accountability to the people and places we exist for, with our accountability to the organisations and institutions we work alongside (as funders, co-funders, collaborators, players in the system), our team, and our fiduciary accountabilities. Sometimes what is best for the ‘bottom line’ of the balance sheet or our team is not what is best for meeting our purpose.
The balancing act for leaders is about not overcorrecting. It involves asking, ‘What if we prioritised our purpose, over that of our organisation? What different discussions would we have? What different decisions would we make?’. And then, ‘How do we balance this with our other accountabilities?’.
Building, strengthening, and maintaining the muscles and the mindset
Effective leadership is about continuously working towards balancing these three accountabilities. Like my gym sessions, this requires ongoing deliberate training of the mindset and muscles. The mindset involves leadership philosophies that guide our principles and behaviours, while the muscles are the leadership practices we exercise.
Two important aspects for me are: a strong commitment to purpose – the people and places we are here for – and the constant practice of adaptation (what we conserve, lose, amend, and add for ongoing growth). This means conserving funding aligned to our purpose, stepping away from some charities we previously funded, increasing our social procurement, and adding new investments for systems change.
Experiencing change and loss can be tough, but the alternative would compromise our efforts to meet our purpose. If we look at meeting PRF’s purpose and delivering on our strategy, in the context of the balance board, what was best for our accountability to people and places, was not necessarily best for some of our previous partners or easy decision making for our team.
Adaptation requires ongoing adjustments. There is no set and forget for the mind or the muscles; both require ongoing intention, disciplined attention and refinement.
Working together: Team support, holding steady, managing the wobbles, celebrating the wins (leadership is not a solo act)
Unlike at the gym, the leadership balance board is not an individual pursuit. The people around us are important in determining whether and how long we can hold the balance and correct overbalancing. The Board and executive team, the coach who trains us and helps us see where and how to make corrections, the team and the broader ecosystem we draw on help strengthen, steady and recalibrate us.
Learning to balance the board inevitably involves wobbles, stumbles, and the occasional fall. And, of course, there will be a push-pull to respond to as we embark on change, as we come across different priorities, perspectives and emotional responses, and as we aim to change systems that some people benefit from.
The balance board is a simple concept, but it isn’t easy. Leaning into this, the leadership invitation is for us to ask and answer:
- What different decisions would we make if we prioritised our purpose, rather than prioritising our organisations? What would this mean for balancing our accountabilities?
- What leadership mindsets and muscles (philosophies and practices) will enable us to balance and hold steady to our multiple accountabilities?
- How do we support each other in the balancing act as we face the wobbles and the pushes and pulls around us?
There is no ‘perfect’ with the balance board. It is perpetually unstable, requiring awareness and constant minor and major corrections. It demands continuous practice, the strengthening of different muscles, building muscle memory, and maintaining alert attention and intentionality. Sometimes I feel strong and balanced, sometimes I struggle, and sometimes I overcorrect. Many times, I adjust and need time to recover.
While we all stand on our own balance boards, we can support each other to foster a culture of intentionality, to hold steady, navigate the wobbles, and to come together as a strengthened collective for a greater purpose.
As for my gym work, that also requires some ongoing attention. Anyone up for a balance board session?
Professor Kristy Muir, February 2025
