I’d like to talk to you today about leadership transitions.

Leadership Transitions – 4 Realities to Navigate - Transcribed

I’d like to talk to you today about leadership transitions. Even as I speak three major ones have taken place in my world and in our world even in the last two weeks. We have had a president of our university announced his resignation, a transition that will be happening in leadership up here. The second one is a global and huge one and that is the election of a new pope which is a great and huge transition for the Roman Catholic Church. And finally, a friend of mine just moved from one nonprofit organization that’s quite substantive to leading an even larger global nonprofit organization and is in the process of that transition. Transitions happen and there are things that affect us, affect our teams, affect our groups, and affect our leadership. So I’ll make a few comments about this and then I’d like to do a little more writing and blogging about this over the perhaps weeks and months ahead from time to time because I think it’s such a huge and essential area to understand in your leadership.

First of all transitions our normal they occur in everyday life both in family and in relationships as well of course in organizations and institutions and that’s the first thing for leaders to do is name that reality that this transition is normal. It’s not odd it’s going to happen again at some point in time so let’s learn from it now. I’ve learned a lot from William Bridges in his book Transitions, Making Sense of Life’s Changes. Bridges advocates kind of a process through which transitions go and that sort of my second team it’s not just that they are normal, they have sort of a pattern to them and they have an ending, a period of uncertainty and a new beginning. That’s how Bridges describes it. There’s this sense of what is the ending how do we process that what is this transition time of awkwardness that he calls the neutral zone and then what about going into the future into the new beginning? Sometimes these things overlap sometimes there’s great distance between the ending and the new beginning. The point is to recognize that there’s a pattern to change and transitions. So let’s process ending’s well, do the relational work we need to do, make sure things are closed out, let’s not leave a lot of loose cannons. Make sure things are as best as we can leave them as we leave and not leave things in a mess, it’s really awkward in an organizational when a leader just takes off and leaves a mess behind. To have integrity in this is the process the ending well but also to live in the ambiguity of the uncertainty before the new fully gets functioning.  It’s an awkward time so we need a name that reality as well.

Another thing about transitions is they can be highly emotional in an organization or relationship. That can create anger, frustration, sadness, disappointment and some people don’t understand why the leader is leaving even if it’s for great and legitimate reasons. Sometimes a leader leaves under darker circumstances that create a lot. Sometimes it’s a very positive change even for the leader but that’s emotional too even the joy and the enthusiasm can create some awkwardness. So it’s important for you to allow your people or people in the process to process the emotion, journal it down, create a meeting or retreat or environment to sort of get things off your chest. Don’t ignore the emotional components, don’t try to stuff all that, you’ll just simply create tension in the organization that you do not need.

And finally, when transitions are processed well they’re great times for personal growth and change even though it doesn’t feel that way in the moment. Those periods of ambiguity and frustration challenge our leadership. We are required to step forward. Just talked to a friend yesterday where a leader was leaving a small organization. His comment was, “Everyone in the organization has stepped up to a new level to make that organization work well until the next leader comes in. I think that’s healthy, we get new responsibilities we take new ownership. So if we process transitions well we can learn from them, grow in them and help our groups, our institutions, our teams function more effectively.

Even as I speak three major ones have taken place in my world and in our world even in the last two weeks. We have had a president of our university announced his resignation, a transition that will be happening in leadership up here. The second one is a global and huge one and that is the election of a new pope which is a great and huge transition for the Roman Catholic Church. And finally, a friend of mine just moved from one nonprofit organization that’s quite substantive to leading an even larger global nonprofit organization and is in the process of that transition. Transitions happen and there are things that affect us, affect our teams, affect our groups, and affect our leadership. So I’ll make a few comments about this and then I’d like to do a little more writing and blogging about this over the perhaps weeks and months ahead from time to time because I think it’s such a huge and essential area to understand in your leadership.

First of all transitions our normal they occur in everyday life both in family and in relationships as well of course in organizations and institutions and that’s the first thing for leaders to do is name that reality that this transition is normal. It’s not odd it’s going to happen again at some point in time so let’s learn from it now. I’ve learned a lot from William Bridges in his book Transitions, Making Sense of Life’s Changes. Bridges advocates kind of a process through which transitions go and that sort of my second team it’s not just that they are normal they have sort of a pattern to them and they have an ending, a period of uncertainty and a new beginning. That’s how Bridges describes it. There’s this sense of what is the ending how do we process that what is this transition time of awkwardness that he calls the neutral zone and then what about going into the future into the new beginning? Sometimes these things overlap sometimes there’s great distance between the ending and the new beginning. The point is to recognize that there’s a pattern to change and transitions. So let’s process ending’s well, do the relational work we need to do, make sure things are closed out, let’s not leave a lot of loose cannons. Make sure things are as best as we can leave them as we leave and not leave things in a mess, it’s really awkward in an organizational when a leader just takes off and leaves a mess behind. To have integrity in this is the process the ending well but also to live in the ambiguity of the uncertainty before the new fully gets functioning.  It’s an awkward time so we need a name that reality as well.

Another thing about transitions is they can be highly emotional in an organization or relationship. That can create anger, frustration, sadness, disappointment and some people don’t understand why the leader is leaving even if it’s for great and legitimate reasons. Sometimes a leader leaves under darker circumstances that create a lot. Sometimes it’s a very positive change even for the leader but that’s emotional too even the joy and the enthusiasm can create some awkwardness. So it’s important for you to allow your people or people in the process to process the emotion, journal it down, create a meeting or retreat or environment to sort of get things off your chest. Don’t ignore the emotional components, don’t try to stuff all that, you’ll just simply create tension in the organization that you do not need.

And finally, when transitions are processed well they’re great times for personal growth and change even though it doesn’t feel that way in the moment. Those periods of ambiguity and frustration challenge our leadership. We are required to step forward. Just talked to a friend yesterday where a leader was leaving a small organization. His comment was, “Everyone in the organization has stepped up to a new level to make that organization work well until the next leader comes in. I think that’s healthy, we get new responsibilities we take new ownership. So if we process transitions well we can learn from them, grow in them and help our groups, our institutions, our teams function more effectively.

We would like to encourage your feedback as it helps us to identify the issues that are important to you. It also helps others who are searching to develop new creative ways of leading. Thank you in advance for your comments.

The post Leadership Transitions – 4 Realities to Navigate appeared first on Dr. Bill Donahue - Conference Speaker, Author and Leadership Consultant.