An Obedience to Change
The last act of a good leader is to make room for a great leader.
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ONE OF MY proudest achievements in a long career in journalism and business was my last act as a leader: turning over power of the communication firm I had led for five years to a younger, far more capable president.
That planned transition three years ago came to mind when I read Derek Thompson’s essay on leadership rooted in his research of succession failures — from Marcus Aurelius to Bob Iger and Bill Belichick.
“Strong leaders often fail to do the most important thing in leadership, which is to plan for a successor who can extend their time-bound term into a longer legacy. They have a tendency to make themselves indispensable and irreplaceable—and then prove themselves right by handing the reins to a leader who fails to replace them,” Thompson writes.
On why so many leaders fail their ultimate test, he boils his research down to two sentences: “For centuries, powerful leadership has often been structurally incompatible with succession, because of the tendency of strong leaders to stay in power too long and hollow out the organizations they lead. Modern institutions, despite their considerable efforts to solve this ancient problem, have discovered several ways to make it worse.”
Thompson’s essay, which you really need to read in full, draws from Aurelius’ belief that change is not a curse, but a cause, “and in obedience to her all things are now done well, and from eternity have been done in like form, and will be such to time without end.” Thompson’s kicker:
Change, change, change: It might be the most common theme of the emperor’s meditations, although accepting its inevitability and necessity might be the hardest challenge, especially for those who fear the finality of their own power. The Aurelius Trap is many things, but it is at bottom the failure to accept that our institutions, our companies, and our political parties must, like all things, become something else in order to live.
Three years ago, the traditional PR and public affairs firm Truscott Rossman changed leaders from me to Allie Walker. On March 10, 2023, I wrote:
The last act of a good leader is to make room for a great leader. This is one of the many things I learned studying leadership as a political journalist, and a lesson I put into practice upon leaving journalism five years ago to join Truscott Rossman.
In the spring of 2018, co-founder and owner John Truscott agreed to my five-year goals as president of his integrated communications firm:
1. Double the firm’s revenue by growing our Detroit practice, installing project management practices, and demanding greater excellence in client services.
2. Identify and nurture a new generation of leadership at TR.
Done and done. Starting today, I will be TR’s senior advisor with my time focused exclusively on business development and client services. My management and leadership responsibilities will go to Allie Walker, who as my vice president has steadily assumed more and more of my duties, essentially running the firm day-to-day for 18 months as we prepared for today’s formal transition.
Allie is now our president. You can read the announcement here.. She is a gifted leader and strategist, a home-grown talent from Traverse City, Mich., who excelled in Washington during her Congressional and corporate communications gigs. TR couldn’t be in better hands.
This development comes at a time when Baby Boomers are clinging to power in Washington and throughout most of American life. It’s time we let go, change things up a bit, put our experience and wisdom to new uses in what author Arthur C. Brooks calls “the second curve of life.”
What has Allie done with the firm? She has changed it, dramatically, and made it better, launching a content studio called Say More; hiring a team of Millennial leaders including an expert on artificial intelligence and digital communications, Ryan Gajewski; implementing rigorous project management protocols along with other systemic changes to improve client services; and make tighter connections between the company’s values to its services. She’s done this alongside our remarkable owner, John Truscott, a good-to-great leader in his own right, focused now on his transition plan.
Change. Change. Change. It’s a good thing if you get in front of it.
FIGHTING FOMO: Thompson’s essay was first flagged in today’s “Morning Read-In.” Unless you’re a paid subscriber to Convulsions, you also missed these stories:
U.S. intelligence gets a new leader.
President Trump head fakes again on Iran.
A spine-tingling cosmic coincidence involving love and baseball.
How AI unearthed a treasured piece of art.
Why we have China to thank for holding the price of oil to $100 a barrel.
Boomer writer Joe Klein writes about boomer presidents and his generation’s failures.
Trump’s plan to drawdown on NATO.
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Ron - I couldn’t agree more. Knowing when to leave and how are often so much more impactful than how you start.
Ron,
This is so well written; I can tell it came from the heart. Allie certainly learned a fundamental organizational truth: there is no status quo. You are either moving forward or falling behind.