Preparation Guide

Session 2: Being a Leader for Your Team and Organization

Training Objectives

In this session, Fellows will explore how their own identity — background, perspective, and lived experience — shows up as a genuine strength in their leadership, and consider their own identity and leadership style in the context of their team. Fellows will define what a great supervisory partnership looks like and the values that guide it, practice engaged listening and inquiry skills, understand how the performance management “ecosystem” shapes supervision relationships, and practice giving supportive and corrective feedback — including how identity and workplace norms shape whose feedback lands as fair.

Pre-Work for this Session

• Prompt: Think of a specific moment when an aspect of your identity — cultural background, race, gender, lived experience, or another dimension — deeply influenced how you led or connected with your team. Come ready to describe it in a few sentences.
• Reflect on the personal values that influence you as a leader and supervisor (values sheet — see attached).
• Reflect on the qualities you believe are important for being an effective supervisor.
• Think of an instance where you could give someone supportive (positive) feedback.
• Think of an instance where you could give someone corrective (constructive) feedback.
• Think of a supervision challenge you would be willing to share during an activity at the workshop.

Your Instructor

Nelson Layag (of Layag Associates) is a certified leadership coach and organizational consultant specializing in social justice and nonprofit organizations. He has worked in the San Francisco Bay Area, supporting organizations on a wide range of issues, including staffing, leadership development, executive succession and transitions, board governance, and strategic planning. Before starting his own consulting firm in 2018, Nelson spent 24 years at CompassPoint Nonprofit Services, where he held various roles, including directing the public training program, leading consulting projects, and designing and implementing leadership development initiatives. At CompassPoint, he was also a member of the “Equity Panel,” which executed a reimagined equity-centered compensation structure for the organization.

Most recently, Nelson co-designed the Non-Profit Housing Association of Northern California’s Anti-Racist Champions of Change leadership program and co-created an emerging BIPOC leaders program for the California Coalition for Rural Housing. He has been the lead sabbatical coach and advisor for the O2 Sabbatical Awards, the Kenneth Rainin Foundation’s Rest and Care Award, and the Latino Community Foundation’s Rest is Power Sabbatical Fund, leading a team of sabbatical coaches who support the awardees’ leaders and teams. Some of his recent clients include SOMA Pilipinas Cultural District, Local Color, Berkeley Arts Center, Hispanic Foundation of Silicon Valley, Z Space, Sierra Club, Dolores Street Community Services, Compass Family Services, Jobs with Justice SF, the United Way Bay Area, and Tipping Point Communities. In addition to his professional work, he currently serves as the board treasurer of Filipino Advocates for Justice.

Before starting his career in nonprofit organizational development, Nelson served as a youth group home supervisor at Star House in San Jose and as a social worker for youth in Baltimore, Maryland. He earned a BA in Business Administration and Marketing from Loyola University in Baltimore, where he was part of a student group that helped develop what later became the Center for Service and Justice. Nelson currently lives with his partner in Alameda, California and spends much of his spare time gardening, cooking, and supporting his three adult children — an aspiring filmmaker, an artist, and a soccer superstar.

Facilitators

Executive Fellowship Team; Nelson Layag, Layag Associates (Leading Your Team: Supervision Workshop)

Attachments

• Leading with Purpose: Steering Legal Aid through Uncertain Times (Martina Cucullu Lim)
• Vicarious Trauma: A Primer for Legal Aid Leaders