Leaving is Leading

Last month I said good-bye to some people that I had been with for many years. My role at the bank had changed so that I was needed in another town. So, after over 25 years at one location, I was changing to one that was about 90 miles away. I had commuted for over a year and it was evident that my move was inevitable. Although the signs were clear to me, it was a shock for many people that I had worked with for a long time.

One by one, I was able to have a private conversation with many of them. There were some very sincere, very touching moments. I had hired most of them. I got to be with them as their boss when several had gone through some very tough personal times. One, a very successful loan officer told me that my hiring her, my believing in her changed her life. Another reminisced about the time a decade ago when I had put my own position on the line to fight to save her position. Several told me that they had a certain security just knowing that I was always there. A gentleman, over drinks even got a little emotional and was able to tell me how he had relied on me.

It all got me questioning the move. There is no question, I was relied upon. I was the one who steadied the ship, no matter how severe the storm. They all knew that I am Christian. I never tried to wear that, but I always tried to live it. Quietly praying with a fellow worker who was facing a crisis was not an unusual event. I never preached at them but it was well known that I was always there for them. My relationship with all of them was not perfect, but it was real.

I could have stayed. I have enough equity with my employer that I could have claimed the right to stay, and made them send someone else to the new territory. But the most powerful part of leadership is the part that gets up and faces the new challenge first. My role here was to go to the new town, develop a new line of business for my bank that did not exist there, and make it pay. There were no guarantees that it would work. There was just the need for it to be done right.

If you are a true leader, you might be facing the same dilemma right now. The challenge put ahead of you has no guarantees. The people around you now love you, respect you, and would all love for you to stay. None would condemn you for turning down the unknown.

One of the words in the New Testament for leader is a military term that literally translates, “The first one out of the foxhole.” It means that you could order anyone else to take the assignment, but you are the leader. You do it. In Iraq, the hardest part of training the Iraqis is the part where the soldiers teach them that the captain leads his company into enemy fire. In Iraq, it was traditional that the captain ordered his troops forward while he stayed in the rear. Our soldiers are teaching them just the opposite. The captain leads. He is seen leading. When he gets reassigned or promoted, or goes down, then the next one leads the same way. He knows precisely how, because he saw his captain do it.