EP 216: Leading with Strategic Optimism and Stewardship

If you’re leading a $10M–$25M, multi-location, operations-heavy organization, you likely have a strong team but still feel like too many decisions come back to you.

In this episode, Alex sits down with Suzanne Devenport, CEO of Rural Community Assistance Corporation (RCAC) and lifelong advocate for rural and Indigenous communities. Suzanne has spent decades building organizations that bridge resources to underserved communities across 45 states and now leads a 275-person team serving 13 Western states.

The conversation goes beyond nonprofit leadership and into a challenge every CEO faces: how your own leadership habits can quietly create bottlenecks and slow execution.

Suzanne breaks down how even highly experienced leaders can unintentionally limit team ownership by trying to solve too many problems themselves, over-optimizing, or stepping in before their leaders have fully thought things through.

In this episode, you’ll learn:

• Why seeing yourself as a steward, not just a CEO, changes how your team responds
• How “strategic optimism” helps you focus on what you can control without reacting to every challenge
• The link between professional maturity and building trust in your leadership team
• How lessons from rural culture—and even rodeo life—can sharpen leadership and decision-making
• Why showing up authentically for your team and community accelerates impact

This is for you if:

• You still feel like the final decision-maker on too many issues
• Your leaders bring problems, but not fully thought-out solutions
• Execution slows down because everything routes back through you

If you want a team that thinks, owns, and executes without constant oversight, this episode will show you where to start.

Take the free Executive Leadership Diagnostic here: www.gpsleadership.org/diagnostic