Throughout my university studies we are often encouraged to step up into leadership roles and to challenge ourselves, but we often don't consider the transition out of these roles. How do you know when its time to step down and move on?
I think this is a really big challenge that leaders face whenever they are in a leadership position. When a leader fails, they don’t have to make this choice for themselves. Rather they get pushed out or encouraged to leave by the people they’re leading. This is what generally happens in government, when we’re tired of a particular Prime Minister or political party, we vote them out. But what about when a leader is liked by their followers. What then? How do you decide to move on?
A couple of months ago I was struggling with this very question. I had been president of my high school alumni over the past year and while I knew that I had put in a lot of effort into building the organisation, the work no longer interested me. Instead of feeling excited and ready to face new challenges, new problems would leave me feeling stressed and upset, yet people still wanted me to remain in my position. When I mentioned possibly stepping down people were surprised and tried to convince me not to. Was it the best outcome for me or the organisation if I remained in my position of leadership?
This required a lot of self reflection and I had to ask myself some key questions.
- Is my passion shifting?
- Do I have the time?
- Is the work too demanding?
- Would I only be staying out of obligation?
- Is there someone who could do a better job than me?
- What’s best option for the organisation?
Thinking through these questions really helped me come to a decision. I found that amongst my other commitments I didn’t have as much time to dedicate to the organisation, I no longer felt passionate about the work and instead it left me emotionally drained. It's true that I felt an obligation to my team and didn't want to let them down, but I felt that there were other people who could do a better job and that if I remained in my position it would not result in the best outcome for the organisation. For these collective reasons, I decided to step down.
While I felt sad about it at the time, upon reflection it has become clear that this was definitely the right choice both for me and the organisation. A couple of my peers stepped up into leadership roles and are doing a great job and keeping everything running smoothly. Being free from this responsibility left me feeling like a huge weight had been lifted off of my shoulders, and has allowed me to pursue other opportunities. Contrary to what some may say, this was not a failure, but a valuable learning experience for me. I hope you can learn something from it too.
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