The 3 Roles Every Data-Driven Leader Must Play
Listen to the Common Good Data Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or YouTube.
Have you ever wondered what it takes to be a successful data-driven leader?
In this episode, we’re diving into the three roles every data-driven leader must play and how mastering them can drive your organization forward.
Drew explains the three essential roles of a data-driven leader: the strategist, the analyst, and the storyteller. He shares how these roles help leaders make informed decisions, communicate data effectively, and drive strategic initiatives.
This episode is a must-listen for anyone who wants to break free from the cycle of reactive leadership and start building a sustainable, impact-driven organization.
Skip Ahead:
(01:47) Why long-term success lies not just in making decisions, but in understanding why you’re making them. (The Strategist)
(09:23) How to uncover hidden patterns buried in data and turn them into a clear, actionable vision. (The Analyst)
(15:57) How the best leaders use stories to shape their vision and inspire their teams. (The Storyteller)
Resources Mentioned
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Drew Reynolds: [00:00:00] Do you ever feel like you're stuck in your work? Unsure how to grow professionally or develop as a leader? Maybe you feel overwhelmed by day to day tasks and operations and lack a sense of clarity or purpose to guide that long term strategic thinking that you know needs to be done to advance your organization's mission.
Maybe you struggle with a sense of how to collect and analyze and make sense of your organization's data. Unsure how to turn numbers into meaningful insights that guide your decisions or measure your program's impact. And maybe if you feel like you've got the clarity and you've got the data stuff figured out, you might still feel like your message isn't resonating with stakeholders, leaving your audience and donors and staff and volunteers.
Feeling unengaged. Each of these problems is compounded by the reality that maybe you, like many organizations, live in that starvation cycle of always feeling like you're seeking more funding for work and you never feel like you have enough. So if this sounds like you, I think you'll enjoy today's episode because today on the Common Good Data podcast, I want to introduce to you three key [00:01:00] leadership roles that I think are so important to develop as a professional.
The strategist, the analyst, and the storyteller. And I'm sharing these with you because I believe that mastering these roles in your professional work will help you find confidence and clarity in your work. It'll help you to use data and stories and evidence to demonstrate and communicate Your impact.
And if you can do those two things, you'll be able to secure the sustainable funding that you need to break free from that starvation cycle. That holds really so many organizations back, but many leaders find themselves excelling in one area and maybe not so much in another, or maybe you are overlooking one of these roles entirely.
So which leadership role is your missing piece?
Drew Reynolds: Let's start with the strategist. Think of a conductor of an orchestra the conductor who ensures that all parts of the orchestra are playing together in harmony. And I love this because a conductor in an orchestra doesn't actually play any music. The conductor is only successful when those [00:02:00] around them are playing music in concert with one another, pun intended.
Leadership and decision making is the same way. Strategists, they're not out there. Those leaders, they're not delivering programs or drafting reports or writing grants or engaging volunteers, though they may do some of those things occasionally. But they know how all these different pieces fit together.
And most importantly, they use data to make sense of that bigger picture. And I would say even if you don't identify maybe as a C suite or executive director role in your organization, leadership is the same way. It's about being able to see some of these different components, maybe of your department together in the same kind of way.
I had an opportunity to, Attempt, at least, to exercise my strategist skillset in a leadership role when I was serving as a board chair at Glow Academy. And, when I started in the board chair role, it was pretty clear that we had some facilities needs we needed to reinvigorate our academic programs coming out of COVID, and we needed to advance and build the board to carry the organization into the future.
And I had to realize, As a board chair, [00:03:00] I couldn't do all of those things at all. It's way too big for one person to do. And I couldn't even do most of the work related to each of those different things. And I and the other board members, we had to strategize, like, how are we going to build this new building?
How are we going to reopen a school, and be successful academically coming out of the pandemic? And how are we going to recruit and strengthen our board? When I realized that My role as a board member, it wasn't about the doing of things. It was about gathering people around a table to get together, examine all the evidence and data and information that we could have, and then to collectively make good decisions.
Right? That's your role, right? And it took me a while to realize that when I had gotten into it, that's really all you have to do. And we would dive into the details of things. Like I would dive into academic data with, some team members, we would gather feedback from our community on our facilities.
We were always engaging in board assessments, but it wasn't like we're getting bogged down in the details [00:04:00] of each of those points of data collection. What we were thinking about is, what do we need to do to make good decisions to chart forward the future of this school? And ultimately what it led to after lots of meetings and looking at lots of academic and financial data we were able to purchase and secure A new property to put together a 25 million new lower campus for the school.
Now, no one person can do that, but you also can't do that if you don't have at least a core group of people in an organization who are doing that strategic long term work and are dedicating their time to doing it. And so I give that example because a strategist is really about thinking about the long term.
As a board member, you hear on the news, Oh, there's a, Some testy thing happened at a board meeting. Some crazy thing happened here or there. It's something that's newsworthy that eventually goes away. A few weeks later in leadership positions, you have to manage those things that do come up in, in the dear term, but you can't let them bog you down and you really have to be thinking about the big picture in the [00:05:00] long term, things like what is the school building actually 10 years from now?
Characteristics of a strategic, of a strategist, right? They're big picture thinkers. A strategist doesn't get lost in details. They see components of their organization as part of this larger whole, and they're thinking about the long term mission and vision of their organization. Strategists are also outcomes oriented.
They're always focused on those longer term goals. The why of the work, what is it you're trying to work on? What are you trying to build? What are you trying to accomplish and how do each of the different components align with or not align with your mission? And then in turn, what can you do to innovate, to be able to stretch and grow yourself as an organization?
So strategic thinkers are also very curious. They're asking questions like, what does this mean? And what is this new data or evidence that we're gathering here? How can that inform our work? There's a certain. level of interest. You're always trying to find something new and interesting in the work.
And lastly, strategic people recognize that the work is not about them. [00:06:00] And though it's true that you can be a good strategist and end up in a leadership role, and maybe, you're seen as this public figure in your leadership role, you recognize that the success only comes from the work An organization as a whole, working in concert with the mission.
I shared this story with you about being on the board and some of these characteristics, because I want you to think about those different characteristics, being in big picture thinking, being outcomes oriented, being curious, and making sure that work isn't about you. How are you incorporating that in your professional work now?
Even if you don't see yourself as in a position of leadership right now, how can you develop those skill sets? Because someday you probably will be in a position of leadership. And then also how can you work on this in your own work right now? So in January of 2025, maybe you're setting goals for the next year.
I'll encourage you to do three things. Take a step back in your work and map the big picture. Really start to identify key areas of your organization that need alignment, that need some of [00:07:00] that strategic work. Ask yourself that question, what are your top priorities right now? And how do they connect to the mission and vision of your organization?
And even if you have to just put together a visual or a quick document, I did my own for my business. Like what's it going to look like over the next year or two? Having that big picture is so important to give you clarity about what you should be focusing your attention on day in and day out.
Second, use data to drive conversations. Strategists rely on data to shape decisions. They're not bound by it. They're not stuck in the minutia of it, but they use that for conversation, for getting people together. And to be able to have the information you need to make better decisions. And I will tell you this.
If you're looking for one way to up your professional game in your career, just go to a meeting where you're not expected to bring data, or to bring evidence, or bring something to the conversation that's gonna help inform whatever decision you're trying to make. And if you show up with data, I tell you, people are going to look at you differently.
When you do that, and it's not to say that you're doing it to, for self aggrandizement, right? You're going there because you're trying to bring something to help the team make a better [00:08:00] decision together and everyone in your organization will thank you for it. Third, empower your team. So just like the conductor of an orchestra, you don't need to play every instrument.
Instead, just focus on engaging the people around you, right? Ask team members what support they need to align their work with the organization's goal and see it as your role to help them understand it. What is it about being a direct staff member, about being a volunteer, about being in development, about being on program staff, any of those different roles that you might play, how does that work connect to the larger mission?
As a leader of an organization, you have to be able to do that well. And if you aspire to be a leader in that organization, Practice it now. Okay. Next, let's talk about the analyst.
I like to use the metaphor of solving a mystery, it's like a detective, piecing together clues of data to uncover patterns and trends and solutions that others might overlook. So a good example of this that I had to use in my work, and many of you know [00:09:00] I'm doing work in data all the time, so I really identify with the analyst role in this conversation.
We had to, put together a substance use survey with one client that I was working with. And the question is to get all kinds of information from youth about how they use drugs and alcohol. And we asked questions around vaping that I think were very interesting. We asked youth not just how many use or a lot of the questions are like around 30 day use, or around peer approval, parent disapproval, or access for drugs and alcohol that we ask youth.
But there was one question on there that was asked, why do you think other people use? And if you just look at that question and just those answers, the top answer that people say is to look cool. And it fits with this conventional wisdom that we have around substance use, which is that it's about peer pressure, looking cool, fitting in with the group.
Right? Even though most youth don't use drugs and alcohol. In any case, when you actually disaggregate that data. and you look at it between users and non users, you find that you get [00:10:00] very different answers. Youth who are currently using alcohol or drugs don't say it's peer pressure, or looking cool, or trying to fit in.
What they say they use alcohol and drugs for is coping with stress from home and school. Coping with stress. Now that's a very different narrative, right? And if you're thinking about designing programs to address and do youth prevention work, we might have to, do a little bit of bucking the conventional wisdom that it's about peer pressure and fitting in and just saying no all those kind of conventional wisdom approaches that we've taken to prevention and recognizing that helping youth to develop the coping skills that they need to develop more positive healthy coping mechanisms to deal with stress from home and school can be a much maybe a much more effective way to address that challenge but you we can't get to that answer if we don't do the analytical work of being curious of saying hey This is what the data are telling us on its surface, but what if we dig one level deeper?
So an analyst, [00:11:00] defined, who can collect, manage, analyze, and report on an organization's data and draw those meaningful insights that inform decision making. And it's so critical to be able to draw those insights because it's going to bring the kind of innovation that your organization needs to really move the needle in the area that you are working on.
Characteristics of an analyst. Analysts ask good questions. They don't just present data as an answer, but they use it as a conversation to generate dialogue and ask questions. I think sometimes we have this idea that people with the data come with all the answers. And I think we got to get out of that mindset.
It's not about coming with data, For answers, it's about presenting data and using that as a conversation piece to engage other people around you in a meaningful conversation about your problem area. That's the most important thing. So sec, after asking questions, second characteristic, they're methodical and precision focused.
So they're focused on being structured, thoughtful. They're focusing on process. They want to make sure that everything from A to B all lines up right. [00:12:00] In that logical and structured way. And people who have that skillset, I admire I try to adopt it as much as I can in my work. But what I appreciate about it is the attention to the detail that is needed to ensure that what you're presenting is accurate.
And I think that embracing that as a leader, we don't often talk about that as leadership Hey, let's make sure that we're really accurate about what we're saying and talking about. That's really important. So I think that's a big characteristic you want to be thinking about that you can associate with the analyst.
Third, their doc connectors. They see relationships and patterns that others don't see to bring clarity to challenging social problems. And I gave the example of why people use drugs and, or why youth use drugs and alcohol or vape. As an example of that, how can you uncover relationships that others are not seeing, I think is a key thing for the analyst role.
And then lastly, is being open minded, which is to be willing to let data challenge assumptions and change direction for your organization if needed.
So now that you know these [00:13:00] characteristics of being an analyst, let's talk about how you can apply this role in your own work. So here's some practical steps to get you started. Some, maybe, New Year's resolutions, right? First, ask better questions. Before diving into your data, start by asking meaningful, open ended questions.
And ask, what patterns am I looking for? What assumptions might this data challenge? What assumptions am I bringing to the data that I might have to rethink, right? A good analyst uses data to spark conversations. not just provide answers. Then you also want to disaggregate your data. If you already have data, take time to break it down into subgroups.
Look at it through different lenses, and a lot of times it's on demographics, things like age or location or race ethnicity, but you can also look at things like program type. You can look at things like in the case of substance use prevention users and non users. There are other ways you can disaggregate data that go beyond just demographics that I think is an important thing to be thinking about when you're You know, analytical work with your data, [00:14:00] and oftentimes you'll reveal some trends or insights that might otherwise go unnoticed.
Then, of course, there's spotting the story into the data, and that's the third characteristic. And I think this is a really important skill set that's tied into our third role as well, because analysts need to be able to connect dots. They can Choose one data set and identify a key pattern and trend, and then see how that matches with something else, right?
How can you bring two things that maybe you wouldn't otherwise see together and make sense of it, and sometimes uncover something that's really truly insightful or meaningful for your organization. And I think, as I shared before, bringing that data to the meeting and starting to have that conversation and asking others to help you see those patterns in the data can be such an important skill set.
Challenge yourself. Develop some of those analytical skills in the next year, even if you feel like the idea of opening a spreadsheet is terrifying to you. I think that as you build that skill set and develop more familiarity with it, you're going to see it show dividends in your professional work, in your career, and ultimately the impact you have in your [00:15:00] organization.
Alright, the third role, Storyteller. So this metaphor that I'm going to use for the storyteller is that charismatic life of the party friend that you might have in your social network. We all have someone who's like that, right? The life of the party is a person who can captivate a crowd, keep everyone engaged, and make an experience memorable.
They have a knack for drawing people in with their charisma and weaving together stories and anecdotes to drive interest and laughter and frustration. They're funny, they are engaging and I think that everyone gravitates towards people who are that life of the party kind of friend, and storytellers do that as well.
And that's not a perfect analogy. You can be a very good storyteller without feeling like you're the life of the party. So I don't want to make it feel like you have to be a life of the party to be a storyteller. But I like that one because it conveys this image of a person who has the strong social and emotional skill set to be able to read a room and an audience and understand how to connect a story and draw meaning.
With a group of people together, [00:16:00] and sometimes it leads to humor, sometimes it leads to something really powerful and deep and inciting, insightful. But it has that capacity to draw people in to your organization, into your mission. Now, one time I had to draw into work on my storyteller skill set and role.
was when I was serving as a program director at a non profit. I worked at one called Childspring International which is now a part of World Pediatrics. And my job in the program director role was to help children get access to surgery around the world. Sometimes it would be in the countries where they lived.
Sometimes they would fly to the United States to research surgery. And it was amazing to witness The transformation of a child coming from Jamaica, from Honduras or even Iraq to come to the United States and receive this life changing surgery. And I learned so much in this role about how to get a visa, how to fly from from Baghdad to Beirut, to Turkey, to the United States and how to set up a successful host family stay when youth and children were here.[00:17:00]
In short, there's a lot of good classic social work, case management work. And. It was very easy in a role like that to get bogged down in the details a little bit, right? You're trying to figure out how to serve the child you're trying to connect dots you're in the work and you're making it happen so that as many children can get access to surgeries they need, but what I realized is that I had to take a step back a little bit in my role and recognize that part of my job was making sense of and knowing the stories that were coming out of our team every day. My role was not only to deliver the service in the programs, but also to tell the stories of transformation of the children and youth that we served.
And I, as a person in social work school, never really saw myself as a person who was going to go learn how to tell stories. That was not what I thought of in my graduate program, but it was something that I absolutely had to do and to develop. to be, effective in the work. And we tell stories for so many reasons.
We tell stories to advocate for children with surgical needs. We have to educate our community about what surgery looks like around the world. We engage our community and ask [00:18:00] for their support too, as volunteers, as host families, or providing a donation. There's so many reasons we have to tell those stories.
And it was very important in my role to be able to do that. So what does it take to be a good storyteller? I'm not an expert in it by any means, but what I will say is this, these are the characteristics that I see time and time again of people who I admire, who I think are fantastic storytellers.
Number one, they're extraordinarily empathetic, and they understand their audience and are able to tap into the emotions of their audience to create a sense of connection and shared purpose.
One of the things I notice about, storytellers, ironically, is that the best storytellers are often the best listeners. And that was something that I did not think was going to be true when I first started thinking about this. But it's absolutely true. If you go find someone who's a really good storyteller, I bet you'll find that they are exceptional listeners as well.
They're also purpose driven communicators. They're always tying stories back to their mission. They're always trying to figure out, not just how can I make someone laugh or how can I make [00:19:00] someone engage or be excited or be interested in this topic, but they can tie it back to a particular message or idea that they're trying to communicate to people.
through the story that reinforces the why of their organization and their mission. Like The Life of the Party, they're also engaging and charismatic. I, you do have to have a little bit of charisma, I think, to be a good storyteller. And they, in the sense of, what I mean by charisma is not being loud or just taking up space for the purpose of taking up space or dismissing others which you can do in those situations if you take it too far.
But it's really more about being able to capture attention with tone. With pacing and with enthusiasm and energy, and that's not a skill that comes easy. It comes with practice, but it's super important to develop. And then lastly, you're able to adapt as a storyteller. So you can tailor stories to the audience.
A good storyteller, if you watch them tell the same story in three different locations, they do it differently every time. And you [00:20:00] can see that their eyes are going around the room, and they're trying to understand who's in the room and what's going to resonate. And what's a part of the story maybe that I shouldn't tell in this study that wouldn't maybe resonate quite as well.
So some takeaway actions for you in this work, right? You're, it's January, we're setting some goals. You're thinking professionally about maybe what you can accomplish in the next next year here. Take a look at how your organization tells stories about itself. Or maybe how you tell stories about your work.
Think about the individuals or moments that have had the biggest impact on your work and what transformation has taken place there. And how does it connect to the mission of your organization? And I have found when I was doing my work at a child's spring, I would write a child's story and then to just get the facts down, but
I'd have to re look at it and re look at it again and again to really understand, okay what's the deeper thing that's, what's the story that's happening here? And so storytelling, I think, takes a lot of time and practice to work on. So I think just taking [00:21:00] some time to identify those stories in your practice and to begin writing them down, to begin practicing them.
And that's your second one, practice telling stories with a purpose. So when you're sharing your story, try to think about not just telling that story, but also practicing how you're going to tie it back to the mission. What does it illustrate? What meaning is drawn out of that story? And then lastly, incorporating some visuals, testimonials as you're starting to craft that story.
What are ways that you can draw people in using technology and other tools that kind of help people who maybe are not in your office every day maybe do not work directly with the population that you serve every day. How can you bring it to life? And do that in creative ways. And man, I tell you in 2025, there's so many more creative ways we can do that now than we used to be able to do that even just five or 10 years ago.
So I encourage you to use your creativity to find ways to tell stories in beautiful and amazing and uplifting and charismatic ways. [00:22:00] So three roles today, we cover the strategist who sees the big picture, the analyst who digs into the data and can drive those insights and the storyteller who can then bring it all to life.
So if these roles resonate with you, or if these are skill sets and roles that you want to develop, explore further and grow in your ability to do each of those things, I do have a little bit of exciting news because I'm putting the finishing touches on an online course series That's designed to help folks in the nonprofit and social sector to be able to master these various skills, whether you're ready to sharpen your strategy, refine data analysis, or tell amazing, compelling, insightful stories that inspire action.
These three courses or course altogether, if you do them all three of them will be your guide. So to learn more, check out www. commongooddata. com forward slash courses to learn more. And in the meantime, I'd love to hear more from you. Which of these roles do you want to develop further? [00:23:00] Reach out to me on LinkedIn or send me an email.
I'd love to connect. So thanks so much for tuning in and see you next time.
