At a New Year’s concert, a single lyric—“Put me in, coach”—became an unexpected invitation to reflect on burnout, rest, and what it means to return to work differently. Executive Principal Taryn Deaton shares how taking a sabbatical helped restore her capacity for nonprofit leadership and why sustainable change in the nonprofit sector depends on leaders who are willing to rest as seriously as they work.

A sabbatical is an opportunity to test your organization’s resilience. If one person’s absence causes everything to grind to a halt, that’s not a people problem—it’s a systems problem.