The Kettle Society With Wayne Leslie, Executive Director

How do you lead with purpose and compassion when faced with complex challenges like mental health issues, poverty, and homelessness? Douglas Nelson answers this big question with Wayne Leslie, Executive Director of the non-profit organization The Kettle Society. He shares how their Vancouver-based team provides crucial support and housing assistance to those facing mental illnesses, struggling with substance use, and lacking their own homes. Wayne shares his personal connection to the Kettle Society’s mission and the unique challenges of leading this complex organization. Discover how this non-profit balances government funding with private donations while staying focused on the people they serve.

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The Kettle Society With Wayne Leslie, Executive Director

In this episode, we have Wayne Leslie. Wayne is the Executive Director of The Kettle Society here in Vancouver, British Columbia. In our conversation, Wayne talks about what it takes as a new leader coming into a complex organization to ensure both your approach and the approach of your team remains person-centered, people-centered, and purpose-driven.

As someone who’s been the leader of four social profit organization, Wayne shares a bit of his journey as a leader and how he’s evolved and how he’s not quite sure he would’ve wanted to work for himself in that first role that he had. Now, he leads a dynamic team serving some of Vancouver’s most vulnerable citizens in a way that is noble and wonderful. Please enjoy my conversation with Wayne Leslie.

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Wayne, welcome to the show.

I am incredibly happy to be here. It’s nice to see and hear you.

Wayne, it’s good that we found time to do this. I’ve been looking forward to this conversation. As someone who has been a leader of many organizations in our sector, you’ve got a great perspective on the challenges of leadership, which we’re seeing more and more, as well as the headlines of newspapers and the top line of LinkedIn posts. Leaders are looking for answers for how they can find their own way. I’m hoping you can shed a little light as we go through your career and the great work you’re doing at The Kettle Society.

I appreciate the opportunity to share some time with you.

The Kettle Society: Powering People With Mental Illness

Wayne, for those of our readers who may not be as familiar as others, tell us a little bit about what The Kettle Society is and who it is that you serve.

Do we have three hours? Is this show that long?

We try not to do the three-hour Tim Ferriss, Joe Rogan-length podcast, but you’ve got time, Wayne. People want to know.

I’ll leave it to you to put me off at the appropriate place. I talk about that. My team here will already tell you. I’ve been at The Kettle just about nine months at the time we’re recording this. They’ve realized, “He’s never met a microphone he didn’t like,” which is the old radio person in me. When I’m passionate about something, just pull my string and then I’m like one of those old dolls that just keep talking. I will try to keep it concise.

The Kettle has been around since 1976. We’re in the business of powering people who live with mental illness, substance use, poverty or homelessness in Vancouver. We do that through a convention of supportive housing and wraparound services. What I would describe as the heart of Kettle is our mental health and community services drop-in center in East Vancouver. It’s pretty much right at the corner of Commercial Drive and Venable Street. We’ve been there almost from the very beginning.

The vast majority of people that we help usually have their first point of contact at the mental health drop-ins to give an idea of the amount of contact. In 2023, just about 30,000 visits at our drop-in. We served just about 22,000 meals. The Kettle is not the only social service organization not-for-profit charity that works in this space in Vancouver, but we’re one of the very best, in particular, because we take a 360-degree approach to mental health services and housing.

It’s made us a leader in those two areas. In particular, over the years, we’ve excelled in meeting the needs of some of Vancouver’s most vulnerable and most vulnerable, includes those who often are typically described as hard to house because they have challenges. There’s a lot going on at the intersection that is homelessness, mental health and addictions. We currently have a little over 400 supportive housing units in the city. By 2025, with some new developments coming online, we’ll be up to almost 500.

That’s very significant. What’s the significance of The Kettle?

That’s one of the first questions I asked when I got here. In the ‘80s, after Riverview was starting to be downsized, and people from Riverview were basically just ushered into the community without support, there were in particular some mental health workers working on how we manage this? How do we support what is ultimately a very vulnerable population? They were sitting around formulating what was to be The Kettle, and they were trying to think of a name.

This was one evening. This is just a group of engaged community people, advocates who are really wanting to do something. They were bantering back and forth, and they said, “I think this is going to take a little while, so let’s put The Kettle on and think about this.” I understand this is a true story. Someone went, “Hang on a second. There’s a lot that happens around the kettle, whether it’s a kettle for a cup of tea, a kettle for a cup of coffee. Really, that’s what we’re talking about.” That’s still in play now because sometimes, it starts with something as simple as a couple of cups of coffee, a shared conversation over something that originated of a kettle. That’s where The Kettle has become just the beacon for us.

A Personal Connection To The Kettle Society’s Mission

I can almost imagine that there is a debate about the name. Wayne, you mentioned you’ve been with the organization a little less than a year. You have been a leader of a number of organizations. We’ll come to that in a minute. Was there anything in particular that surprised you or really jumped out at you as you stepped into your role there at The Kettle Society?

Yes. For me, it’s personal. This is the first job I’ve taken in the sector that while I’ve been very passionate about the other organizations we’ll talk about, in particular, my last one, which was in this ability sector, I didn’t have a direct connection. When I came to The Kettle, I was very open about the fact that both my parents had mental health conditions. My mother was particularly quite severe. It led to a lifetime of precarious housing and chronic unemployment. I felt that made me well suited for the job and what The Kettle does, but what I underestimated is impact it would have on me the minute I walked through the door.

I finally got to a point, quite frankly, where I can talk about that without crying. I suddenly found myself in a place professionally where I was sharing things of a personal nature that were relevant professionally, but you wouldn’t normally share in a professional context, if this makes any sense. It was quite moving for me personally and professionally, and it made this job feel quite different from the other jobs I’ve held, which I was very passionate about and absolutely loved. There’s something that resonates with this job that I guess I wasn’t fully expecting, but they’ve surfaced. I got into it and I’ve quite enjoyed that aspect. That’s been quite a big thing.

When working in a nonprofit, you will sometimes have to share things of a personal nature that are still relevant professionally. Click To Tweet

Thanks for sharing that. It’s an interesting thing I’ve observed and work that we’ve done with other organizations, particularly those that are providing direct services to individuals who are struggling and with housing or substance use, health issues or whatever it is. The work becomes intensely personal for the staff that are in the organization.

When you’re talking to donors or funders, really, the best way to get them in and get them excited is to bring them through the doors to see the work. It’s hard to describe the impact the organization has. You just have to come see it. As a new leader, of course, you walked through the doors and got to see it. How do you share that first encounter with The Kettle feeling for funders, supporters or board members?

Without crying?

It may work for you. I don’t know what your style is, Wayne.

I wear my heart on my sleeve, which sometimes hasn’t always served me well professionally. It has served me well just here. You can’t fake that. At least, I can’t. It’s there. It resonates with people, and sometimes, it just catches me. In my previous organization, even without a direct connection to Down Syndrome, which I did not have and still don’t, the staff would laugh because we would do an event where we would have a video of the family, to the point where I often had to make sure I didn’t watch the video screen because just as it moved people in the audience, it would move me. The problem I had is I then had to follow that and say something.

You have to talk after the video.

Without wiping my eyes and blowing my nose. Some of that is repeating here, but in a very different way because in particular, it’s my mom. My mom, I feel that. See, here I go. Part and parcel of all of that is I’m a much different organizational leader than I was before. Being here at The Kettle makes it quite striking to me how much I kept hidden and just a little more inclined to let some stuff out now. That’s over a successive period of time with different organizations, we’ve learned that. It’s about that vulnerability, I guess you call it, that seems very much like a cliché word of the day. You’re being more honest. I think those are smart. It reads that way.

Before we look back, I want to spend a little more time on The Kettle. I can only imagine the complexity of the organization, the number of funders and moving pieces you have for all of the programs that you have. Operating that number of supporting housing units is not a plug-and-play operation. It’s very people and time-intensive. If a new board member is coming on, or someone is in a new donor’s interested in supporting the work of The Kettle Society, where do you start with explaining or sharing the work of The Kettle in the broadest terms?

Usually, I start with, “Here’s our impact report,” which is nice and concise. We are at our roots every day. We’re an organization that serves some of Vancouver’s most vulnerable, and we’re very what we call member-centered or person-centered. We have member advisory council members. Everything we do is the result of things our own people, the people the community serve, have told us they really need. It evolves and changes. It’s changing again as the need change. Number one, we’re very centered on our people. It’s very much from the ground up as opposed to from the top down. It’s very people-intensive work. We have just about 200 employees, the majority of which are frontline, the vast majority of which are mental health workers. It’s a very stressful line of work.

We’re all very connected to the organization, especially in the corporate world, which you just don’t see, which comes with its own other challenges that lead to things like brittleness. My favorite expression that I learned at another organization was to get too far out of your skis because you tend to realize, “I’m going a little too fast. I’m going a little too far.” Also, importantly, even though we work very closely with the Ministry of Housing, in particular BC Housing and with the Ministry of Health, in particular with Vancouver Coastal Health, the two different sides of our organization, we’re not a government service delivery agency. There’s a huge part of our organization that we have to fund, and we work hard with private donors to drive services. Even though we might look like we’re just largely a government agency, that diverse government services, we’re not.

Focusing On People Not Complexity

One of the words you didn’t use to describe The Kettle Society is complicated or complex, and you went right to the people and focusing on the people that you serve. Rather than describing the system, you started with the people. As a leader, how hard is it to keep that focus on the people you serve on a day-to-day basis? How do you keep that focus on them, given that you are leading a complicated and complex organization?

It’s actually one of the easier things for me, one of the points that I really made for myself during my first 100 days was to meet people, to make sure I was getting out of the office, going to our site because we have quite a few sites. They’re all in Vancouver, but they’re spread around. Some are within walking distance, like our part of The Kettle, our mental health and community services center of Venables. We’ve got Kettle just across from St. Paul’s. I’ve continued to do that. I never feel like I’m very far removed from the people that we’re working closely with. I’ve taken our senior leadership team meetings on the road, so where is there a Kettle building that had space? Guess what? That’s where biweekly senior leadership team meeting is being held.

It’s connecting, which interestingly has helped reconnect the team. I think a lot of the team been here for quite a while, and you’re not disconnected. You tend to just fall into patterns and cycles. I think what I’ve brought is they’re seeing the globe through new eyes, which then is a cycle because then, that integrates me and it really has helped me stay connected to the people. That probably explains why I start with the people, even though we are complex and quite a bit of a sophisticated organization to wrestle with from a structural perspective.

The reason I make that point is one of the things I’ve learned in the work that I’ve got to do with clients of the last number of years, the organizations and the leaders that are closest to purpose that are really committed to delivering on what it says in the strategic plan, they’re really making progress on it. They lead with purpose and not in a fluffy way. They’re doing it. Organizations that we’ve had the chance to work with that maybe aren’t as effective as they could be or want to be often start with a description of how complicated or how complex they are.

When leaders talk about why it’s difficult to deliver on purpose before they talk about purpose, that usually is an indicator that there’s something not quite right in how either the leadership team’s working or the balance of services or the measure of impact or fundraising. When we lead with why it’s difficult, and despite that, here’s why we’re doing exceptionally well, here’s why it’s difficult, and then let’s figure out where the problems are. The leaders that start with the people and the purpose certainly have complications, and there are always challenges in organizations, but I find they’re a lot closer to that exceptional level when they start with their purpose first.

I hadn’t thought of it that way and now I feel like I’ve passed some unintended tests.

If you’d started with complicated or complex, I probably wouldn’t have made this point, Wayne.

We can end the show here because I feel like I just peaked.

Balancing Government Funding And Private Donations 

I’ll give you a chance. This one might be a bit of a softball for you, but I think it’s important. You mentioned a few minutes ago that you work really closely with a number of government agencies and government ministries, but you’re not the government, which, of course, allows the flexibility and a more of that human touch than maybe government services are permitted to or able to deliver. It also means that you receive significant funding from those industries. You also require funding from private donors. How do you balance that need for private donors and that innovation and that impact measurement that often accompanies those donor conversations with fulfilling the contracts that you’ve got with your government partners?

Good relationships. What I’ve inherited at The Kettle is, in particular, a senior team that has long established really good working relationships with our two government partners. Sharp point of the stick, obviously, for housing or with BC Housing, and then for health community services, it’s Vancouver Coastal Health. It’s very collaborative. The end result is the work we do with both those elements of government ultimately support the work that we need to do on the private side.

What I’ve not seen at this point is a push-pull that you’re trying to meet one master, and then that’s creating problems for your other master. I think the big problem we have, quite frankly, when it comes to being the type of government-funded services provider we are is helping donors, potential donors in particular, understand that we still need help.

There is that perception that, “You’re getting plenty from the government, and I’m sure that takes care of everything you need.” The reality is it doesn’t. It’s very specific to certain areas of our operations. It’s also that difference between highly restricted and very restricted, “This is what you’re getting money to do. We realize you have some other things that are equally important because they’re either related to housing or mental health. That’s not what BC House does. It’s not what Vancouver Coastal Health does. Now you have to go out and find some other things.” It creates some challenges, but it works quite nicely in terms of us being able to, for instance, take the work that do with BC Housing and partners like Vancouver Coastal Health and leverage that to show the impact in similar areas where we have private donations.

Being able to just show that margin of excellence that private philanthropy can have on the organization to connect those programs or extend those programs must be pretty good.

Certainly, the one benefit is that when you work with government agencies, especially regarding the caliber of BC housing in Vancouver Coastal Health, you know what you’re doing. I say it with a bit of a chuckle, but to me, that’s always been key in terms of organizational image, we’ll call it, with donors, which involves, inherently, a lot of trust that you know what you’re doing. You’re going to use their valuable donations carefully and properly. When you’re working with the provincial government, in this case, you’re held to account all the time. That ultimately means you’re to do that very proficiently with your donor base as well.

Wayne, I do want to come back. You said Wayne 4.0. Fourth time as an Executive Director. What a lot of the folks who read the show are emerging leaders in our sector that are looking to move into their first executive director or CEO role, or maybe they found themselves in that first role. I’m curious, so if you look back over your career, I’m sure that the organizations have changed. The reality of facing the organizations you’ve led has changed, but what would you say the biggest difference has been?

The biggest difference in terms of the organizations or me, like as an Executive Director?

As an executive director coming into the role, what lessons have you learned along the way?

The biggest one, and I’m not playing to as stretch here because of what you said earlier, it’s people. I’m much more people-focused with the benefit of age. I’m not going to say more other than a significant amount of age.

People become more people-focused with the benefit of age. Click To Tweet

For our readers, Wayne looks great.

Thanks very much. This is becoming a mutual admiration society. I like that. It’s good. It’s positive reinforcement and that’s a people thing. We all need that. In hindsight, I’ve chuckled when I talked to people. When I think of where I started four organizations ago, I’ve tended to stay. This is probably a topic for a whole different conversation. I believe that chief staff officers, executive directors, CEOs and I say this respectfully to colleagues who have been in the same role of 25 or more years, have a lifespan. I do say, “Are you as good 25 years later?” I’ve never gone into a job saying, “I’m going to be here only for 5 years or 7 years,” or whatever.

Ultimately, the longest I was in a chief officer job and executive director was my first one. It was 8 or 9 years. After that, it was almost five years. My last organization was almost seven. You hit those points. What I do know, when I look back at those organizations, I guess I put that out because I don’t jump around a lot. I’ve never been one that leaves after a couple of years. You need a couple of years to get your feet underneath you but a few more years after that to really do stuff.

When I look back at my first organization where I started as an executive director in 2005, I would lead much differently if I knew then what I know now. Honestly, I don’t think I would’ve liked to have worked for me back then. I think in particular, when I’m honest, which now I’m really inclined to be, probably too much openly, I let my own fears, insecurities, honestly, what I now know via a healthy dose of Imposter Syndrome, lead me to do things like micromanage. Certainly not successfully cultivate leadership teams that make people happier and organizations better the way I do now. Part of me feels honestly bad about that. I just feel like if I could go back to the future and just talk to myself and say, “Fine, that’s a better way.”

Advice For Emerging Leaders

You’ve learned that along the way. What advice would you give to someone who is just about to start, or is just starting their first ED role?

The courage to let go. The biggest thing now for me is I have my ideas. I certainly am not without innovation, so let’s try this, or we could do that. I don’t try to control the way. Some of that is because I was not as afraid to have things fail as I was before. It’s not to say don’t worry about failure or nothing keeps me up at night. Learn to get as much joy out of the achievement of others as you do out of your own. Honestly, maybe that’s just something that comes with age.

Learn to get as much joy out of the achievement of others as you do out of your own. Click To Tweet

Is there an example that comes to mind when you say that?

Not in particular. This is where I can’t profess to say to do that, you should do this, and you should do that, and don’t do that. It’s just somewhere along the way, as I’ve softened, I’ve just found that I love to succeed, but really I feel more happy when I’m working on something with my team. The team or an individual on the team does something, and everybody says, “That’s excellent. That’s just brilliant.” You can see that they’re lifted. That actually makes me feel better than when people say, “Wayne, Awesome. That’s really good.” Not that I don’t like that place, but does this make you any sense?

Yeah.

Speaking of your team, this is a risk territory now.

Earning A Gold Star From Wayne Leslie

I think it’s great for our readers and I’m enjoying it. Let’s continue on that. You mentioned the team and really that learning as a leader means letting go and empowering the team around you. You inherited a strong team that had been with the organization for a long time. One of the questions that I really enjoy asking our guests is this. Hopefully, your team’s going to read this. “Let’s get a read on guy. Let’s see what he says.” What can members of your leadership team do to earn a gold star with you? What does exceptional performance look like for Wayne Leslie?

One of the first things that comes to mind is working well together without me. Over time, I’ve learned, and one of the key tenets for me in my approach to creating or using senior leadership team model is the executive director or CEO’s office is not the hub where everything has to come in and go out. You could use different words like filtered or conduit, or whatever you want to call it. I’ve always taken the approach of I’m here to support.

Before we started this conversation or pressed record, I talked about I sometimes feel more like an air traffic controller or a facilitator. I’m here to help. A gold star is when I see a couple of directors on the team just working on something challenging, responding to a challenging situation that I get pulled into briefly. I’m well aware of what’s happening. They’re empowered. They sort it out for themselves. They don’t have to come back to me to ask.

They just do it. They come to agreement between themselves or it might be three directors. That’s the biggest thing for me, because at the end of the day, this really, I think, goes back to when I think about it, my comment around shelf life, because at some point, I’m not going to be here. What I want is, this sounds bizarre me, but people at that time go, “I think Wayne’s gone. We’re okay.”

“Is that what that cake was for last week?”

Don’t get me wrong, organization missed me when I’m gone. Not miss me in like, “Okay, we’re crisis.” For me, that’s one of those really big things because I know that when I’m not here, in some ways, with my team, it doesn’t matter. I contribute to the organization, but when I walk away, their ability to function, and I mean the close example, is because I was new, I was in job here at The Kettle for three months and summertime, and I took some time off. After my first 100 days, my head’s full. You’re overfilling and you just need a bit of a breather. Late summer or fall, I took a couple weeks off and my chair said, “What’s the plan for your absence? Who’s in charge?”

I said, “The team is.” “The whole team?” I said, “The whole team.” “What do you decide if somebody needs to be the lead?” I said, “It’s their job to sort that out. They work together and sort that out.” Nothing happened while I was away. If you need to read somebody, here’s your immediate point of contact. My executive assistant will then rally the team and we’ll deal with whatever issue needs to be dealt with. What I reassured them of is that’s literally what happens when problems or issues come up now, management needs to be triggered. It’s not like everybody marches to Wayne’s office, “What do we do?” We all get together as a team. Usually it’s me saying, “What do we do?” That’s how I approach that.”

Wayne, what are you looking forward to?

Where do I start? One of the first things I was handed when I came in here was that wonderful heart of The Kettle, which is our drop-in center at Venables and Commercial Drive should have been replaced almost a decade ago. It’s aging. It’s too small. One of the first tests in my onboarding plan was, “You need to build this new drop-in center.”

I’ve quickly realized that, apparently, you can’t do a major development like that in two years. It’s going to take five to whatever years. Without giving away my age, this could be my forever organization, I think, because I look at the timeline. That’s become a very much bit of a passion project. It’s getting that new drop-in center built and then really taking The Kettle to a different level in terms of awareness, especially increasing our footprint when it comes to our potential partners.

We’ve done some amazing things since 1976, but it has become very clear. I had long conversations with my predecessor, Nancy Kehoe, who had been the executive director for more than 30 years. She took this organization from a kernel of a a little seed. The need to go further and do more, we have to create more partnerships. I know I just outed Nancy after I talked about shell life.

It was different for her.

It was a different time and there’s more than one way to do things. That’s just my philosophy. What was interesting with transition, we hadn’t touched on this one. I came to The Kettle. I was at the Down Syndrome Resource Foundation for almost seven years. When I came to The Kettle, what was also unique this opportunity was the first time I had done a transition with the incumbent still in place.

In every other organization, the previous person had been gone. They had either retired or transitioned off or whatever. This was the first time I did, almost 30 days of shared transition. When I first started, I was like, “How is that going to work?” Actually, it did. It was a couple of weeks where we were in the same space and she transitioned to more of an external role. It created a pathway forward. In particular, I realized that she was also a fan of me in terms of what I was brought in to do and bring to the organization, which I learned later really helped with the team. She was highly respected, so you can imagine if she had felt that I wasn’t a good fit, this would’ve been a challenging problem. I’ve gotten us off track. Did I answer that question in any way?

Looking Forward To The Future

Absolutely. You were looking forward to quite a few things. One of the things that we hope to do through this show and our work at the Discovery Group is reinforce the places and moments of abundance in our sector. There are challenging situations and issues that need to be addressed and people that need to be helped. We do our work best when we’re looking forward when we are coming from the places of strength in our organization. You’ve been an excellent example of that in walking us through your leadership journey. I thank you very much for being on the show.

It’s been an absolute pleasure, Doug. Thank you very much.

Important Links

• Wayne Leslie on LinkedIn
• The Kettle Society
• The Kettle Society on LinkedIn

About Wayne Leslie

I am a passionate, innovative executive level leader with 20+ years experience, specializing in the non-profit/social profit and charity sector. I am a creative, strategic thinker with a collaborative leadership style. Naturally optimistic, I have a flair for motivating and public speaking, strong facilitation skills and a demonstrated ability to build high performing teams to grow organizations in cooperation with a wide variety of stakeholders and partners for mission-focused success. My core competencies include organizational leadership & development, workplace culture, decision making, strategic planning and communications. My functional expertise includes:

• Collaboration, Partnerships & Relationship Management
• Advocacy & Stakeholder Engagement
• Operations & Human Resource Development
• Fund Development & Financial Management
• Governance & Board Relations
• Ethical Standards Management
• Identity Management
• Communications, Public & Media Relations

With my media experience I continue to be a very effective communicator. On a regular basis I successfully engage and develop working relationships with a wide range of stakeholders including government agencies, sector and corporate partners, individual donors and community members. I am responsible for providing leadership and guidance to staff and volunteers in their work on behalf of the organization. This includes the use of various forms of communication including advocacy initiatives, public presentation, development of printed literature including cases for support and press releases, and web-based opportunities such as websites and social media.