12

The Courage to Stay or to Leave

When is it that I know I have to go someplace else?

When I have to grow—

Or die.

—Diana Chapman Walsh, “Potbound”

Dave Boyer started his engineering career at ITW, a large manufacturing company headquartered in Chicago. As a product designer on the fast track, Dave was in the leadership development program and rose quickly to account management and then to manufacturing manager within a few years. Although he was doing well financially, the stress of the job was taking its toll on his health. He told me, “Physically I wasn’t doing that well. I had ulcerative colitis at the time because I was carrying the stress in my abdomen.”

Then Dave got a call recruiting him to join a much smaller business in Madison, Wisconsin, a plastics packaging company. As Dave recalls it was only an $8 million company of fifty people, but he was intrigued. Dave said people told him, “Don’t do it. Why would you leave this? You’re successful; you’re on the fast track.” Dave took the new job anyway.

When I asked him why, he said, “It took a lot of courage to leave, to take the next position, but it felt like the right thing. It felt like something that would be a better fit for me. Later on I realized that I was not really cut out for the high-stakes world of being in a big corporate business. I now realize that was true then and it’s probably true now, even though I was doing very well in it.”

After eight years, Dave rose to CEO at the plastics packaging company. He was forty-five years old, with stock in the company, and the company was thriving. As time went by, Dave decided he wanted to own a company, primarily so that he could lead it in the way he thought was right. “I wanted to lead it in a way that I had been studying about—from an environmental sustainability standpoint, an involvement with employees standpoint, and a community involvement standpoint.” He wanted to run his own company using the best in management and leadership thinking.

Dave went to the owner to give him the news. “After fifteen years, I knew he was counting on me to hang around until family members or others could come in, but I told him I had decided to leave. As I said, the company was doing well; I was doing well. There was no issue that needed to be resolved other than the fact that I wanted to do this other thing. I was aware that eventually family members would come into the business, so I left.”

Making this move to own his own business entailed significant financial risk. “I basically put my entire financial life in that company, in that I had unlimited guarantees to the bank for the loans needed to buy the business. If we had failed during the two recessions that we survived, I’d have lost everything. A hundred percent, everything. Yet it seemed like the right thing to do. It turned out to be one of the most fulfilling and one of the more important things that we’ve done.”

Dave recognizes what it took to make these leaps into the unknown. “It sure took a lot of courage to try to figure out what’s in your heart, what’s the right thing, where is this going, what do you want to do, where do you want to be, and then make two significant moves. I look back now after that career, and I say, ‘My gosh. Either one of those could have turned out to be terrible decisions.’ You just don’t know until years later.”

Dave’s choice to leave a lucrative position not once but twice was an act of courage and an act of care for his true self. By paying attention to what truly aligned with his identity and integrity, he aligned his soul and his role. And his body seemed to appreciate the difference. After leaving his first job, his ulcerative colitis resolved. He still sees a doctor about it, but has not had any recurrence for thirty years. Dave credits good doctor care plus self-awareness and meditation. “Those were big factors at that point, to be self-aware about what is stressful to you, where your stress goes, how to manage it, how to handle it, how to know what it comes from.”

Dave eventually married his business partner, Joan Philip. Together they created a company based on their values around sustainability. MCD, Inc. became known as a leadership company. It employs sixty people and specializes in products for direct mail marketing, packaging, publishing, and credit and gift cards. One of the goals Dave and Joan had was to build a culture where risk-taking is seen as an opportunity to learn. When they were ready to retire, Dave and Joan chose to sell the company to the employees by way of an employee stock ownership plan. “Selling the company to the employees was the ultimate way of fulfilling what we had been trying to create—meaning it’s putting the company fully in the hands of the employees of the company.”

It’s worth noting that Dave’s business passion does not come from a love of plastics but from his commitment to sustainability and stewardship. He told me this quick story:

“I was a frequent guest lecturer on sustainability for a local guy at the university. Almost every class I’d get the same question: ‘Well, if you’re so involved with sustainability, how can you possibly work for a plastics packaging firm?’ I said, ‘Well, I’ll tell you what, if I don’t work, there somebody else will, and guess how much they’ll care about the environment?’ I would then go on to actually encourage them to work for the dirtiest, most unsustainable company they can and cause change. We’re not going to get change if all of the people who care about the environment only work for already environmentally clean organizations. The leadership in other organizations is just going to continue to do the same thing. I hope I was able to affect some of those students with that perspective.”

In sharing his perspective, Dave is becoming a wise elder like the many people who lit his own path as a curious problem solver. Dave was inspired by W. Edwards Deming in terms of quality management, and then by Peter Senge in his book The Fifth Discipline and by books since then on systems thinking, and by Karl-Henrik Robèrt’s model for sustainability and creating change. What Dave wants those young leaders to know is what he learned from Parker Palmer, that when you’re looking for answers, you go inside first and second and third to inform what you do.

“Leadership comes from some place deep inside of you. All those things I learned are about not letting process and organization affect our humanity and affect our dreams.

“Don’t become slaves of the organizations that you build. Processes can run awry. Don’t get trapped by them. Instead, understand how the world works, what is sustainable on this earth. Understand that, teach it to other people, and always try to refer to your humanity and your dreams and your heart to find out where you are and where to go next.”

Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.

—Martin Luther King Jr.

The Courage to Leave and Still Love

“I’ve often felt like I have a compulsive leaving disorder,” said Estrus Tucker. “That has been a big part of my professional journey. However, a closer examination of this clever play on words reveals my soul’s singular struggle to be more than an occasional feel-good stand-in or bench player who gets in the game only when the outcome is certain. It takes courage and clarity to love, to leave, and still love.”

That love is about staying committed to a vision and mission in life. “My hope is to be a support, a voice, and a catalyst for welcoming, embracing, and engaging a diversity of people to advance the Beloved Community that Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. dreamed of, worked toward, and died for, in Fort Worth, Texas, and the world.”

Estrus has stepped down from a lot of roles where he had high hopes as the first African American man in an elevated position of organizational leadership. That’s a hard place to be over time without more tangible, visible progress around inclusion of a diversity of working-class, marginalized people—the people he seeks to serve and reach. The challenge is to not become cynical and to stay faithful to your larger vision.

“When I’m in places of marginalization, where there is a disparity of services and a disparity in outcomes, I feel a sense of identity. I grew up and still live in that traditional working-class African American community. That’s why affordability and access are huge lenses of leadership for me.”

“What I can do most as a leader when I’m in a position of power is not forget where I’m from, not forget the perspective of people who are working and struggling, living and leading in small but significant ways. I speak truth to power because I’m often in places where if I don’t, there won’t be a voice.”

Estrus has often felt obligated to stay in leadership positions and expand the space so that there are more opportunities for people of color. “And yet in doing so, I sacrificed my soul at times, compromising how I wanted to be in the world.”

At more than one point in his career, Estrus felt like the token spokesperson when issues of inclusion and diversity became thorny. “To be the institutional champion in a community context became a tension I could not bear. What tore me was losing confidence in an institution’s integrity and sincerity around issues of diversity, which were not always just about race and class. My words around diversity were quoted out of context, in ways that sometimes even justified a lack of diversity.”

Feeling disillusioned, he struggled with the gap between what he was experiencing and his highest aspirations. But it was tricky to discern if he was compromising or complaining to himself. When he felt he had to leave a position, was he doing so for the right reasons?

“If I complain too much within myself around this tension of my identity and integrity, it can feel like whining,” Estrus said. “More than once I had a mentor tell me to get a grip. He’d say you can’t always live out loud your highest values. This is the work. This is leadership. It’s going to be hard. You have to work within the system to change it. This is life.”

There’s an element of truth to that, Estrus admitted, adding that it takes time to find a place to stand. “But I got to the point of realizing it was not about sucking it up and being stronger. It was clarity about how I want to contribute and lead and live in organizations.”

When he discerned that the compromises were not life sustaining, Estrus acted. “It took unpopular decisions, sacrifice, and a lot of courage to let go of good things in service of a truer alignment with who I am and how I want to be in the world.”

There is always a set of tensions in your role as a leader: How much of the reward is financial, or takes other forms? How does what you are receiving balance with your discernment of who you are and how you want to be in the world?

Estrus finally struck the right balance in his career by becoming an independent consultant and facilitator. His passion is to work with groups around community renewal, transformation, healing, and reconciliation. He brings his leadership to many organizations and boards, including the Center’s. And he’s made a difference promoting human dignity and nonviolent engagement in places like Mississippi, Texas, Northern Ireland, and South Africa.

The work he does now aligns with his values and with a clear sense of purpose and integrity between inner and outer. But there will always be a paradox in his life. There is “Estrus on the ground” in community settings. Then there is “Estrus in the circle of privilege,” where he is often and still the only African American in the room or on the stage. Yet it is part of his calling to go places where change needs to occur and his voice needs to be heard, where change is longed for and his voice can be a catalyst for hopeful, human engagement.

Good questions work on us, we don’t work on them. They are not a project to be completed but a doorway opening onto greater depth of understanding, actions that will take us into being more fully alive.

—Peter Block

The Courage to Leave Well

Greg Simmons was thirty-four years old when he became the CEO of MetaStar, Inc. The organization focuses on health care quality improvement, mainly through providing collaborative learning and technical assistance. After devoting himself and his career to one place for nearly forty years, he is now preparing to retire in 2020.

“I’m going to continue to need courage to understand what my important role is in the last few years of career, and keep my eye on the ball, if you will, creating a strong and seamless transition to the next leadership for the organization.”

How to “leave well” while leading well is important to Greg. “I was feeling a little uneasy that I’m not as in touch with some of the day-to-day details of our contracts and projects as I once was, maybe ten years ago or more. I wanted to make sure that in my remaining years here, I was really being of value to the organization.”

He had to work on sorting out things his true self already knew. Greg had the chance in one of our programs to receive open, honest questions focused on helping him get clarity about his dilemma: What have you done in your career that you think most contributed to how the organization is now? Of those things, what do you think are the most important to carry forward? Who’s going to do that? How’s that going to happen?

“What’s important for me is not the day-to-day tasks and checking of the boxes in the contracts, and grants, and so forth, but it’s this preparing to hand it off to other people.”

Greg told me that he got a lot of peace out of the process of questioning how to transition out of his leadership role at the company. “My role really does need to change to one of handing over this organism that’s grown up and been created over the last four decades to a new generation.”

Greg is now resolved to do what he can to make sure that the cultural aspects of his company have the greatest chance possible of persisting into the future. “The philosophy and the values that we’ve created over time have been the cornerstones of what we’ve been able to do as an organization. I think we’re in pretty good shape that way. Obviously, I’m not going to be here anymore, so I won’t be able to control that. I probably can’t control it now,” he added with a smile.

Relay

I thought

It was a marathon,

The work That must be done.

I learned

It was a relay.

That changed everything.

—Judy Brown, The Art and Spirit of Leadership¹

The Art and Practice of Skillful Transitions

Judy Brown knows that almost all of her work these days is a relay race, marked by baton passing to the next generation.

“The leadership development work I do is important work—preparing the next generation of stewards, who are linking leadership, learning, and creativity as a framework for sustainable change in their lives, organizations, and the world. It is not a time for winding down. In order to pass the baton to the next runner, you have to maintain momentum and rely on the practice and on your teammates. While the handoff is crucial, it is collaborative work.”

As one leader passes the baton to the next, it’s important to consider the light or shadow he or she leaves behind. A lack of internal awareness, readiness, or peace with the process can cast shadows. Have you ever noticed the very long shadow of tall trees or tall buildings at the end of the day, when the afternoon light is often most golden? Shadows can become helpful shade if the person leaving does so intentionally and artfully.

For leaders in organizations, and perhaps anyone, letting go means releasing one’s inner assumptions, generalities, expectations, and demands that things have to be a certain way. Letting go means releasing what is no longer yours to carry. Your hands are free to discover something new to hold, and meanwhile enjoy being empty and free. “Get a grip” can leave your lexicon.

The decision to leave or stay in a job, in a relationship, in a place, has no right or wrong answer. Each decision is another on the never-ending journey toward a life of integrity.

“The opposite of right is not wrong, it’s curious,” Judy said. “That thought keeps coming back to me. When I give up being right, I have access to being curious.”

The “courage to stay” isn’t only about staying in your job. It can mean the courage to stay curious, willing to seek understanding by asking good questions. Willing to stay open to receiving hard questions instead of being defensive. It takes courage to stay true to yourself and stay true to others. It takes courage to stay in rough conversations, allowing the tensions to stretch open your heart and mind until you can see a way to move forward.

Believe in what you do and think hard about what kind of change you want your work to make.

—Ceci Bastida, Latin singer/songwriter

The Courage to Stay True

Leaders like Dave, Estrus, and Greg stayed a long time in their roles, until they knew it was time to move on. Many of the leaders throughout this book are ones who have stayed in their organizations. Staying power comes from clarity around your commitments. As Dave said, it’s vital that enough change agents stay in—or go to—places where systems need reinventing. We can’t all be or work for enlightened CEOs who are creating change from the top down.

Frederic Laloux once put it this way: “When middle managers yearn for change, I start by asking them: How badly do you want things to change? What risks are you prepared to take? How long do you plan to stay in your current position? Would you consider experimenting boldly? Do you have a ‘shit umbrella’ above your head so that you can continue to play the game as much as you must, but no more, and proceed to experiment with alternative behaviors within your sphere of control?”²

Whether for economic reasons or for one of countless others, it’s not always possible to leave a position. So if you know you must stay in a place that is not quite what you hoped for, but you have energy to make some change, here’s another question to ask yourself: What’s the thing I can’t not do?

Fortifying for Your Journey Ahead

You can’t help but be transformed, turned nearly inside out, by your leadership journey on the Möbius strip, by the lifelong journey toward becoming your true self. Thomas Merton writes, “There is in us an instinct for newness, for renewal, for a liberation of creative power. We seek to awaken in ourselves a force that really changes our lives from within. And yet the same instinct tells us that this change is a recovery of that which is deepest, most original, most personal in ourselves.”³

We have a custom at the end of programs, retreats, and team meetings to do a closing round during which people share heartfelt thoughts. And when I ended my interviews with leaders, I would often ask, What would you say you need courage for next?

On that grace note, then, we share a few wishes for your continuing Courage Way journey: May your lay-awake nights as a leader be spent in conversation with your true self. May you get out of bed every morning with something fulfilling ahead. May you be fortified by people you love wholly and trust, and may you fortify them in return.

And at the end of your day, especially the hard ones, may you trust that your work is worthwhile, and may you hear the song in your heart.

Night Song of the World

He stood outside the horse truck, waiting for Mogador to come back and he began to whistle. Across the field the men had taken down the sides of the tent and were moving about in dim light under the top, picking up trunks, ropes and equipment and packing it away. He began to whistle a tune from the depths of his soul; he had never heard it before but he recognized it as a form of the song his soul had always been singing, a song he had been singing since the beginning of the world, a song of return. It was as though he stood in a dark corner of the universe and whistled softly, between his teeth, and the far stars were attentive, as though he whistled and waves far off could hear him, as though he had discovered a strain at least of the night song of the world.

—Robert Lax, The Circus of the Sun⁴