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Ten steps to leaving an organization in good hands: the coming leadership exodus in addiction treatment requires effective leadership development and succession planning.

Article Excerpt
A generational passing of historic importance has begun in the addiction treatment field. A mass exodus of long-tenured leaders in public policy, private philanthropy, administration and management, clinical supervision, clinical services delivery, research, and education/training has begun and will peak in the next five to seven years. This cluster of exiting leaders is a function of demographics--a generation of young people who came into the field in the 1960s and 1970s, rose rapidly into leadership positions, and are now poised to leave en masse.

This exodus raises the question of how long-tenured leaders can disengage in ways that enhance the health of multiple parties: themselves, their families, their organizations, their communities, and the addiction treatment field. This article offers ten suggestions on how to plan and execute such disengagement.

Time your exit. Two common pitfalls surround the timing of leadership disengagement. The first is premature disengagement, which happens when a leader physically and emotionally disengages from the workplace before officially retiring, leaving the organization without effective leadership. A variation of this pitfall occurs when a leader leaves on short notice or is forced out precipitously without developing resources to fill the vacuum created by the sudden exit.

The second pitfall occurs when a leader remains too long. There is a delicate balance in the relationships between a leader and the organization, the communities served by that organization, and the larger field. These relationships evolve dynamically over time and can reach a point where the creative energy that has sustained them has been exhausted. A leader should exit the organization and the field before that creative energy is exhausted.

But how do we know when that time has arrived? Consulting family, friends, and trusted colleagues can help sort out timing issues but, in the end, each leader must assess his/her own passion and performance to identify that time. Affirmative answers to the following questions are important indicators of a need to renew one's leadership role or plan one's disengagement:

* Am I increasingly bored with my professional activities, drowning in a sea of organizational details that long ago lost their personal meaning?

* Do I feel I am no longer making a significant contribution to my organization and the field?

* Do I feel myself emotionally...

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