The Loneliest Desk in the Building

What every new executive director needs to hear but nobody says out loud

I was thirty years old.

Five-story building. Dozens of staff. A mission I believed in with everything I had. And I sat at my desk at a homeless shelter in North Dakota feeling completely, utterly alone.

Nobody told me it would feel like this.

Nobody warned me that the executive director’s desk — no matter how full the building is — is the loneliest seat i…