For this foundation CEO, leadership starts with “clarity is kind” 

After years of leading some of Minnesota’s most influential nonprofit organizations, including serving as CEO of Pillsbury United Communities, chief impact officer at the Minneapolis Foundation, and now as president and CEO of the Saint Paul & Minnesota Foundation, Chanda Baker is turning inward to share the lessons that shaped her. Through her new content series, “Power of Possible: Leadership Edition,” she invites audiences into conversations about what leadership looks like beyond the resume.

Released June 17, the series has already published eight episodes exploring not just how leaders reach positions of influence, but what it takes to remain grounded once they get there. For Baker, the timing could not be more important.

“It is a difficult time to be a leader,” she said.

As organizations and communities continue to navigate uncertainty, Baker believes leadership conversations have become too focused on accomplishments and outcomes while overlooking the realities behind them. Success, she says, often hides the difficult decisions, doubts, and personal growth that make meaningful leadership possible. That perspective is especially important within Black leadership.

Baker says stories of Black leaders have always inspired her, particularly as more people step into spaces where they are the first person who looks like them. Having carried that responsibility herself throughout much of her career, she believes those experiences deserve to be discussed more openly.

The word “possible” in the series’ title reflects more than optimism. For Baker, it represents action. She describes hope as something that requires intention rather than passive belief.

“It is absolutely not passive,” she said.

To move with intention, Baker continually returns to the questions that keep her moving forward: How do I hold hope? How do I center on what is in my control? How do I break through this moment? She acknowledges the struggles many communities face today while resisting the temptation to accept those realities as permanent.

Throughout the series, Baker also shares pieces of herself that audiences may not have seen before. Rather than presenting another executive biography, she reflects on childhood experiences, personal challenges, and the moments that quietly shaped her leadership philosophy.

“It is a gift to have the opportunity to share,” she said. “I don’t take that lightly.”

That openness mirrors the approach Baker has taken throughout her career. Of all the accomplishments on her resume, she says one of the things she is most proud of is her willingness to evolve.

“I always reserve the right to change my mind,” she said.

As her responsibilities have grown, so have her priorities. Today, Baker says creating spaciousness has become essential to how she leads. She encourages leaders to embrace reflection and radical rest as daily practices rather than occasional rewards. After experiencing burnout herself, she realized that while stress is an inevitable part of leadership, letting it become toxic is not.

“Spaciousness, reflection, and rest should be a daily practice,” she said.

That philosophy extends to every role she holds. For Baker, leadership should never require sacrificing empathy.

“I always lead with empathy,” she said. Though she recognizes that leadership often requires making choices that affect people’s lives, her guiding reminder is simple: “Clarity is kind.”

Through her series, Baker also hopes young people will rethink what leadership means.

“Leadership is not positional. Leadership can get you to a position,” she said.

Instead of chasing titles, she encourages emerging leaders to focus on becoming the strongest version of themselves wherever they are. Positions, she believes, are often the result of leadership, not the goal.

As the first season introduces both Baker and her vision for the Saint Paul & Minnesota Foundation, she hopes future episodes will expand into conversations with other leaders willing to tell the stories behind their own journeys.

For Baker, those stories matter because leadership is rarely defined by a single accomplishment. It is built in quiet moments of growth, difficult conversations, moments of rest, and the decision to keep showing up with purpose.

“My life is my testimony,” she said.

It is a quote that has guided Baker throughout her career, and one she now hopes will help others discover what leadership can look like when it is rooted not just in achievement, but in possibility.

For more information on the series, visit https://spmcf.org/pop/leadership.

Destiny Kromah is a Macalester college student and contributing writer for the Minnesota Spokesman-Recorder. She welcomes reader responses at dkromah@macalester.edu.