Leadership is inherently transitional. Let’s deal with it (better). Part 3

Laura Donald, CEO of Axis Talent Partners Tiloma Jayasinghe, President and CEO of Community Resource Exchange

New hires should not “hit the ground running.” And that includes your new ED.

For our final segment of this three-part series on how to disrupt unhelpful, antiquated models of leadership transition and offer ways to do things differently, we’re zeroing in on an age-old expectation.

We have heard, countless times and in countless ways, that boards or hiring managers would like their new hire to “hit the ground running.” And we are here to tell you: we have never, in fact, seen that happen. As adults, we sometimes forget that learning new things – whether new skills, new roles, or new hobbies – is hard, and, importantly, takes time. While any of us may have a long track record of doing one thing, or significant expertise in another – applying it to a new context and culture necessitates learning.

Stop doing this: Setting unrealistic expectations on new hires. Do this instead: Reimagine onboarding as a longer continuum of care.

When new leaders are under pressure to do a million things at once – frequently including launching into strategic planning, confronting a budget shortfall and impending layoffs, and / or inheriting a demoralized and disengaged staff, to name a few common challenges for new leaders – they burn out and leave when they do not have many and varied supports. Board and staff all have roles to play in setting their new leader up to thrive in their new organization, and should begin planning for that in parallel to the search process for that new leader, so that they are ready for the “baton pass” from a search committee to a transition committee (or a search committee to a hiring manager) once the new leader starts.

Rather than considering the 90 days of their role as their onboarding, we recommend thinking of the first year to 18 months as their on-ramp, with clear deliverables, milestones, and checkpoints along the way.

Your 12-18 month on-ramp plan should:

1. Be comprehensive, deliberate, and paced over time (a long time!)
2. Include a variety of organizational stakeholders,
3. Be customized to integrate learnings from the search process, and the new leader’s own interests, needs, and learning style.
4. Don’t forget about building in time for rest – normalize, institutionalize, rest.

We cannot overstate the enormity of social impact leader depletion and exhaustion. We have seen countless leaders dive into a new role with their whole selves, often in an attempt to “hit the ground running,” and begin solving an organization’s thorniest problems from day one. While we appreciate and understand this energy and enthusiasm that accompanies the start of a tenure, we also know that, over time, it is unsustainable. We also continually hear the stories, including of many women of color, of significant compromise to physical and mental health, sometimes with very serious impact and consequence.

We have room to do much better, as a culture, to rethink how we support each other to care for ourselves. We can even insist on it. There are a multitude of rest practices we can employ, like structuring 2-3 days off for rest and replenishment (which often facilitates important reflection) every quarter. Why not build this in right at the end of a new leader’s on ramp as we suggest above?

Boards and leadership teams can work together to ensure that they are regularly taking true time off – meaning, not being available at all (we know well the leaders who are sending emails or slacks from the beach, or have the ‘you can reach me on my cell’ note in their out of office message). We also advocate for designing sabbatical policies for longer periods to step away after multiple years of tenure.

Farewell for now: We know that we’re asking a lot – from rethinking how we invest time and material resources, to shifting our monthly and quarterly practices. We firmly believe we can both center the values we espouse while building muscle and mind shifts over time. Think incremental, habitual and long term. If you are an Executive Director, reflect on what you need to make your work sustainable. If you sit on a leadership team, introduce long term succession planning as part of overall leadership development and capacity planning. If you serve on a board, ensure your organization has or develops a succession plan.

We care about this community and want to see a healthy, stable, impactful social impact sector. Reach out to us anytime you want to continue this conversation and learn how we can work together to support the change we all seek.