20 Oct 2026
Finding the Groove: On Trust, Listening, and Leading Through Changee
Joining us on this executive leadership edition of the Catalyst Podcast is Stephen DaRe. The theme of our conversation is how a former Navy musician, recovering CFO (his words), and the CEO of Chimes - a $300 million dollar nonprofit with 3,500 employees serving more than 26 thousand people with disabilities and mental health challenges across Maryland, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Virginia, New Jersey, North Carolina, and Washington, D.C - builds trust, develops people, and leads through constant change. We discuss:
A theme that weaves through the conversation is how his background as a musician informs his leadership style.
His journey from the military, a career in managed healthcare finance, to crossing over into nonprofit leadership at Chimes, including several pivotal moments and their impact on his career arc.
The challenges of managing a highly complex organization with four separate lines of business: special education schools, traditional intellectual disability services, day habilitation programs, and federal contracts through the AbilityOne program (which provides extensive janitorial, custodial, and facilities maintenance operations through federal partnerships, making them one of the region's largest employers of people with severe disabilities).
When he stopped being “the numbers person who happens to lead” and started being “a leader who happens to understand numbers,” and the implications of this transformation.
The influence of Patrick Lencioni’s work (“Five Dysfunctions of a Team”), emphasizing the importance of vulnerability-based trust, accountability, and shared vision in building effective teams. The lessons he’s drawn from General Stanley McChrystal’s writing on special operations and how they shaped his leadership philosophy.
Empathy and listening as core leadership skills, and how they tie back to being a musician (to be precise, anchoring bands as a drummer and percussionist).
How he earns his team’s trust, what they need to do to earn his, the importance of shared values, including the organization’s core value: “having fun” (which, as you’d expect, is more than playing Twister in the break room).
Bonus content for those gearing up for Halloween: Steve shares the terror of crossing the Chesapeake Bay Bridge, considered one of the scariest bridges in the country.
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