Just because I’m stepping down as a leader doesn’t mean I’m not stepping up to my life.  I feel like a broken record lately talking about this role change at work but the truth is this is one of the biggest decisions I’ve had to make in a long time regarding this career. I’ve worked for this organization for nearly half of my life and I’ve spent the last half of my career in leadership.  It was never an easy journey in any role I’ve held their over the years, but the leadership component was especially challenging.  I will admit my assumptions of leadership were off in some cases, but it was an eye opening experience seeing what leadership is really like on that level.  I found myself constantly fighting against it, fighting against the expectations of others, they way they had done it, the way things had been done to me previously that I said I would never do to another person.  And then things changed and leadership became something entirely different. 

Part of me felt like this move was showing the corporate world that I couldn’t hack it.  Even though near the end I didn’t want to have to hack it anymore, it still felt like giving up, proving them right.  That the people who thought I couldn’t do it anyway were correct in their initial views of me and would gloat.  I didn’t want to do that.  But I knew in my heart that the leadership demanded of the role wasn’t the leadership I wanted to show.  I wasn’t allowed to lead how I felt.  I’ve always balked at authority for the things that never made sense to me—like if I’m working on a switchboard where I have 0 in person interaction then why the fuck do I need to worry about the clothes I’m wearing?  There is not a single soul that will see me.  If I can sort through over 10,000 pages a shift and get them all catalogued, then why am I spending my time counting other people’s work?  So when it came to leading, if I could lead from a heart-centered place and still get results then why is that an issue?  And if someone takes advantage of that, why am I not allowed to call them on it?    These were unnecessary conflicts.

With some time to process this and what this transition means, I understand now that this would have been a 0 sum game in the end.  At least for me it would have been.  I would have continued to find myself stressed and angry and frustrated and unable to do anything about it whether with my direct leadership or my direct reports.  My days would have continued to be stuck in the middle of people who didn’t give a shit no matter what I did, even if the results were exactly what they wanted.  No one listening to me either from leadership or staff.  So why continue that fight?  If people don’t see the value or understand what is being said then I can’t be the one to make them see reason.  So sure, I am stepping down from leadership.  But taking that step back is allowing me to step up in other areas of my life—the areas that really matter.  Sometimes we have to give up what we thought we wanted in order to find what we really needed.  I’m still leading, just in a different way: where it counts.