Whatever you call the leader of a group of people — CEO, executive director, president, lead pastor, mayor — they have a hard job that’s tou

Sabbath Sundays and Slow Mondays

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2021-06-08 13:30:07

Whatever you call the leader of a group of people — CEO, executive director, president, lead pastor, mayor — they have a hard job that’s tough to do in a sustainable fashion. By sustainable leadership, I mean doing the job while preserving the positive attributes that likely got them into their position: positivity, insight, creativity, care, openness, integrity, endurance, etc. I know I started losing some of what made me a good leader after 18 years of founding and running Atomic Object.

A young CEO friend of mine recently shared an interesting idea. She suggested that term limits for these kinds of jobs might be a smart policy. That’s because the work can be so draining and discouraging that it’s not in anyone’s interest for a single person to carry the burden for too long.

I think we do have longevity limits on these jobs; it’s just that those limits are sometimes reached by people hitting a crisis point. Leaders burn out, destroy their health through self-medication, do something bad and get kicked out, get bitter and walk away, withdraw and bide their time, or give up and sell their company to the highest bidder. Of course, not every leader ends up in a bad place, so some people have figured out ways to make these jobs more sustainable.