SUSAN STEELE
Narrative, Soul, Civic Life
Susan Steele
Leader
Civic Leadership · Governance Insight · Change Facilitation
Helping communities and organizations move toward thoughtful, long-term decisions.
Why Leadership Matters
Leadership shapes the conditions we live inside.
Leadership is where clarity and alignment become action.
When leadership is attentive rather than reactive, systems become more humane and decisions become more durable.
Clarity leads to alignment.
Alignment supports action.
And action — when grounded in responsibility — can hold over time.
Yet one of the challenges organizations often fail to recognize is the work that should be done before bringing in or creating new leadership. Too often, organizations look within their ranks — or outside them — for individuals to fill leadership roles based on experience, knowledge, skills, education, or simply a willingness to step forward.
But before doing so, organizations benefit from asking what they truly need in the near term.
What phase is the organization in?
What type of leadership would best serve that moment?
Leadership candidates must ask themselves a similar question:
What kind of leader am I, and where do I do my best work?
When these questions are not asked, frustration begins to surface on both sides. Expectations turn to criticism, and the work becomes harder than it needs to be.
Two Forms of Leadership
Organizations encounter different kinds of leadership moments.
Some require leaders who help guide systems through periods of transition and change.
Others require leaders who help stabilize and sustain the systems that already exist.
Both forms of leadership are necessary. They simply serve different purposes within the life of an organization.
One looks at the organization through overview — helping people understand patterns, context, and emerging change.
The other operates through oversight — ensuring the organization remains steady, accountable, and functioning over time.
Threshold (Transformational) Leadership
This form of leadership often has a beginning and an ending and appears when an organization reaches a threshold — a fork in the road — when its members recognize that something has changed outside their community and sense that change is now required within it.
The role of transformational leadership is not to direct the crossing or impose predetermined answers, but to be the stepping stones that help organizations and their members move incrementally from what is toward what could be.
To do this, leaders must be willing to give the time and create the space for a safe and trusted environment to form — one where people can speak honestly and share their concerns, ideas, and perspectives.
The transformational leader understands that these movements come with questions, resistance, pushback, or confrontation. They must resist the urge to manage these moments.
They must remain committed to the process where decisions are grounded in consensus rather than authority. They are communicated in clear and consistent communications. And always aligned with the organization's values.
Stewardship Leadership
This form of leadership is often longer in duration, providing continuity and stability as the organization carries its work forward.
This form of leadership is focused on stability, continuity, and responsible oversight.
Stewardship leadership helps sustain the organization’s mission, ensure accountability, and maintain the systems that allow the organization to function effectively over time.
Rather than guiding a crossing, stewardship leaders steady the ship.
Their role is to:
protect the structures already in place
support ongoing operations
and ensure that decisions continue to reflect the organization’s values and commitments.
They are the leaders who will have the knowledge, skills and experience to do it.
Capacities That Matter In Both
Regardless of which form leadership takes, three capacities remain essential.
Listening
Leadership begins by listening beyond position or preference. This includes listening to what is being said and to what is not yet speakable. Listening is how trust forms and how reality becomes visible.
Discernment
Discernment is the ability to sense what matters now. It requires patience, context, and the willingness to delay action until clarity is sufficient. Discernment resists urgency when urgency is not earned.
Sustainability
Sustainability is care over time. It asks not only what can be done? but also what should be carried forward?
My Work Meets You At The Threshold
My work most often begins when organizations reach a threshold — when something has shifted and the way forward is no longer clear.
These moments may arise during leadership transitions, restructuring, strategic pivots, mergers, or periods of internal tension.
They are often accompanied by uncertainty, competing perspectives, and pressure to move quickly.
My role is to help organizations slow the moment enough to understand what is actually happening.
I step back from the immediate noise of change to see the broader pattern. This includes gathering perspective through research, stakeholder conversations, and careful review of organizational materials. From there, I identify the underlying themes, dynamics, and structural factors influencing the situation.
These insights are then shared with stakeholders in ways that encourage open dialogue and collective understanding.
Rather than imposing solutions, I facilitate conversations that allow organizations to see their situation more clearly and move forward with decisions that reflect both their values and their goals.
In many cases this work helps teams move beyond gridlock, rebuild trust, improve communication, and regain confidence in their decision-making.
The result is not simply resolution of the immediate challenge, but stronger leadership capacity within the organization itself.
Leadership In Practice
The following experience reflects more than two decades of work in municipal government, civic governance, and community leadership.
Throughout this work, I have helped organizations navigate complex transitions, steward public resources responsibly, and guide communities toward decisions grounded in clarity, shared responsibility, and long-term thinking.
These experiences span municipal leadership roles, civic governance initiatives, and community development efforts across multiple states and organizations.
TESTIMONIALS
"Dear Susan
I want to thank you again for the outstanding review of our draft PRO Plan for the Village of Walworth. Your time was extremely valuable and your person to person review with our committee was the single most informative asset to our Plan. Your work raised the value and professionalism of our Plan considerably. Most importantly, your recognition of the Ad Hoc's Committee's work and provided us with a tremendous sense of satisfaction when you informed us that it was a "good plan" overall. Thank you!
-M.K. Walworth, WI