The Leadership Training You’re Overlooking: Community Volunteering

We spend thousands of dollars on leadership training programs, workshops and courses every year, yet many leaders still struggle with real world skills. What if one of the most effective leadership development tools isn’t in a classroom – but in your community? And what if you, as an employer, could easily encourage your employees to engage in activities that support the development of their leadership skills? True leadership is built through experience, not just theory, and one of the most underused environments for that experience is community volunteering.

Leadership Isn’t Built in One Place

Traditional leadership development is so incredibly valuable. It fosters a skilled, engaged, and adaptable workforce and enhances employee retention. It can also drive higher organizational performance and boost profitability. The positive impact on both individuals and organizations is significant.

Formal training builds awareness around language, tools and frameworks - things like how to give effective feedback, how to structure goals, or how to lead through change. It provides the opportunity to safely role-play navigating conflicts or practice coaching techniques in a low-risk environment. Our partners at The Ally Co. are great resources for these kinds of opportunities.

Workshops, coaching and structured programs also give leaders the chance to be surrounded by their peers in leadership, to share (and in some cases commiserate) and brainstorm in ways that leaders can’t do alone, or effectively within their existing organizations. These external opportunities are chances for leaders to network and widen their community of support.

But great leadership isn’t built in one place. It’s developed over time - through learning, reflection, and real-world experience. Of course, there’s value in gaining real world experience within your own organization, but leaders need opportunities to apply the skills they learn in leadership development courses in different environments. This puts theories to test and behaviours into practice.

Where Leadership Development Really Comes to Life

Growth accelerates when leaders practice in real situations, navigating complexity and engaging with different perspectives. One of the most overlooked environments for this kind of growth? Community volunteering. The right community volunteering experience can act as a complement to both formal leadership training opportunities and day-to-day in-organization practice.

Volunteering can be a real-world leadership lab - an unstructured opportunity for leadership practice. Depending on the host organization, many volunteer opportunities provide leaders with the opportunity to practice in environments where resources are limited, there is less structure and more ambiguity. There are often a wide range of diverse stakeholders involved and real accountability that must be considered. When working with nonprofit organizations and in purpose-driven environments especially, the benefits can be really meaningful because it is often easier to link your contribution to real outcomes for real people. 

Of course, this might look different for corporate employees than for those who already work in the nonprofit sector. In fact, if you work in the nonprofit sector, this idea might feel a bit ironic. You’re already deeply purpose-driven. You’re already giving your time, energy, and often more than what’s asked. The idea of “volunteering more” might feel like… more of the same. But this isn’t about adding more to your plate. It’s about stepping into a different environment - one where the context, expectations, and pressures are not the same as your day-to-day role.

By volunteering, you are experiencing a different role (one where you are not ‘the expert’ or ‘the responsible one’) and stakes are often lower (you’re not accountable in the same way) so it takes the pressure off. It also gives you a different perspective (new communities, new challenges). It’s not the same work - even if it looks similar on the surface. In your job, you may have high levels of responsibility, ongoing pressure, limited capacity, blurred boundaries and a huge emotional investment. In a volunteer role, your contribution is time-bound and you choose the level of involvement; the impact is different because you’re exposed to the problems without full ownership. This gives you more space to experiment.

And sometimes, being able to share your skills and knowledge in a new context might allow you to feel like you’re having a greater impact than you do in your normal setting, where the big picture sometimes gets swept away by the day-to-day.

The Leadership Skills Built Through Volunteering

Volunteering in the community can help leaders not only practice the tools they learned in traditional leadership development settings, but also develop new skills, including:

Project Management: Volunteers are often involved in planning activities as much as delivering them and are usually required to work within constraints. 

Cross-Functional Collaboration: Working with people from different backgrounds and experiences helps us learn how to navigate different priorities and communication styles.

Empathy & Communication: Volunteering, especially where you interact with frontline workers or service users, helps with understanding lived experiences that might be different from your own. This helps develop listening and trust building skills. 

Decision-Making in Unfamiliar Contexts: When you’re supporting activities but not in charge, you naturally have less data and more ambiguity. This can help leaders learn to act without perfect information. 

Relationship-Building Through Shared Purpose: Forced team-building often falls flat. Shared purpose helps create a stronger connection because people connect differently when they’re working toward something bigger than themselves - or different to their day-to-day.

Why does this matter for organizations - and why should employers be encouraging their employees to engage in community volunteering? These skills all come back to organizational outcomes. They make stronger leaders, more adaptable teams, they improve collaboration and lead to higher engagement and retention. This isn’t just “giving back” – it’s building capability.

Where Workplace Programs Come In

Employee wellbeing programs can play a powerful, and often underutilized, role in encouraging the types of community volunteering experiences that benefit leaders. Because employee benefits aren’t just about health – the right ones can enable growth, connection, and leadership development. Here are some examples of employee benefits that can support this kind of learning:

Paid Volunteer Days: These not only signal to employees that this kind of opportunity is valued, it makes participation realistic by removing the “I don’t have time” barrier that many busy people experience.  

Flexible Work Policies: Flexibility in their day allows your employees to engage in community initiatives and supports ongoing involvement rather than one-off contributions. 

Wellness & Lifestyle Spending Accounts: In some cases, spending accounts can support community-based activities or initiatives - like covering registration fees for charity runs, wellness events, community classes, or other group initiatives that encourage connection and participation beyond the workplace.

Employee-Led Giving or Matching Programs: Beyond volunteering, this gives employees ownership over giving decisions, which can deepen engagement with both the cause and the company.

Partnerships with Community Organizations: Employers - in both corporate and nonprofit organizations - could seek to create partnerships with organizations seeking volunteers in order to make it easier for employees to get involved.

Your organization’s plan to encourage community volunteerism doesn’t have to be complicated. Start small: 1 volunteer day, 1 team initiative, 1 community partner. Engage employees in developing and leading the program as much as possible, so that the program really works for them. Highlight and celebrate participation. The goal isn’t to build a perfect program – it’s to create opportunities for meaningful involvement.

A More Holistic Approach to Leadership Development

Some of the most impactful leadership development doesn’t always happen in formal programs. It happens in real-world experiences that challenge, connect, and stretch people in meaningful ways. The most effective organizations invest in structured leadership development and create opportunities to apply it. They support their employee’s growth through programs, culture and employee benefits. Because leadership isn’t just something you learn – it’s something you practice.