When Leaders Need to Step Back and Let Go

Exploring Five Challenges of Older Leaders in Letting Go

“I am a hundred and twenty years old today; I am no longer able to come and go, and the Lord has said to me, ‘You shall not cross this Jordan.’ It is the Lord your God who will cross ahead of you; He will destroy these nations before you, and you shall dispossess them. Joshua is the one who will cross ahead of you, just as the Lord has spoken.” (Deut. 31)

These are the very words of the old, old Moses as he confesses what needs to be confessed and says what needs to be said—and does what needs to be done: He lets go.

There are inherent challenges for leaders in politics, church and our work for leaders who will not let go—of holding on too long and too tightly to the reins. The challenge of letting go can be easier when we name the challenges and face them.

Here are several challenges I am aware of and face in my own leadership and stepping aide and out of the first chair:

1. The challenge to “be” not “do.”

We get an education “to do” something.  We get trained to apply our skills in our work.  So much of life, especially the first half of life is about our doing.  We learn to build, equip and lead and most of our education and on-going training is about better better ways of doing.  The truth is, somewhere along the way in life, we learn that we are not very good at being. Some of us are afraid of being, and perhaps, this is why we hang on too long.

Our identity is deeply formed by our doing. Whatever title is on our name-tags somehow gives us the label, authority and clout to do what we where hired to do.  But what about our “being?”

But as we age, our doing goes through a transformation just has our bodies do and our minds also. As we get older, many of us learn “to work smarter, not harder” as our energy wanes over time. But working smarter involves learning how to “be” with ourselves after our doing fades. We must learn to integrate our being with our doing—otherwise we will be seen and remembered for our machine like production capabilities. None of those capabilities will be buried with us in our caskets or urns. 

Only the heart will endure and is really the heart or lack of heart that will  define us.

It’s a crucial and necessary step for a healthy leader to make this transition from doing to being.  A refusal to apply this lesson; to hold too tightly to power and position sets up the next successor and a future generation of skilled and vetted leaders from receiving the blessing needed to step up and into shoes that await them.

A refusal to let go is a sign of unhealth and an indicator in a faith that is lacking, not trusting.

I continue the discussion and develop four more challenges leaders face in letting go below. (Thank you for supporting my work in prose and poetry by becoming a “paid subscriber”.)