What to Do When You’re Ready to Leave the Executive Director Role

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Your decision to leave the executive director role sets major changes in motion — big changes for yourself and your organization. It’s critical that you plan for executive succession.

Unwinding from the role and preparing the organization for the transition involves more than packing up your office.

Similarly, the search for your successor takes more than dusting off the job description, running a few ads, and hoping for the best. A chief executive transition involves more than a hiring decision; it’s a major organizational change.

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Planning the Executive Handoff

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The final stage in the nonprofit executive succession process for the departing executive director is handing off the role to their successor. The handoff consists of at least one meeting, if not a series of meetings, between the exiting and incoming executives.

Unless there are extenuating circumstances, the departing executive has three succession jobs: to lead the organization and prepare themselves for life’s next chapter, of course, and to ensure that the organization is ready to work effectively with the successor. And a key part of that organizational prep work is ensuring that there’s a well-planned handoff.

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Seven Types of Executive Director Transitions and How to Manage Them

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While every nonprofit and its executive director transition are unique, these leadership transitions tend to follow seven broad patterns. And each of these types needs its own set of actions to manage the transition well.

We’ll get into the types in a moment, but first, let’s look at some of the overall factors that most influence the transition and, therefore, the approach to managing it.

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Leaving Work That’s Been Your Calling

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Work can be viewed as a job (a source of money and security), a career (a source of achievement and advancement), or a calling (a source of meaning and purpose).

Since the days of Martin Luther, John Calvin, and the Protestant Reformation, the notion of a “calling” has been associated with religion. But researchers have found strong parallels between secular and sacred callings. They say that regardless of whether the source is religious or secular, a calling has three characteristics:[i]

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Get Your Succession Plan in Place—Quickly and Easily

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No succession plan? Don’t leave your nonprofit unprepared. With this free step-by-step guide, you can establish the essential elements of a succession plan for your executive director. What You’ll Get: What Succession Essentials will do for you And best of all, the guide, video, and templates are completely free. Download Your Free Guide and Templates … Read more

The Three Phases of the Nonprofit Executive Succession Timeline

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Executive director succession — the process of managing the turnover in a nonprofit’s chief executive position — involves a range of decisions, actions, and events spread over a year or more. The process begins with the incumbent executive’s decision to leave (or the board’s decision to make a leadership change). And it doesn’t conclude until the successor has settled into the role.

A well-planned executive succession involves three phases: sustaining, transitioning, and onboarding & support, as outlined in the graphic below. The timing of these phases can vary depending on the executive’s departure circumstances, the organization’s size and condition, whether a successor is waiting in the wings, and other factors.

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Webinar Replay: Nonprofit Succession Planning Made Easy

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In this 60-minute webinar offered by GRF CPAs & Advisors, Trevor W. Williams, CPA and Don Tebbe cover: The three approaches to executive succession planning and their application What succession planning can do for your organization and which type would be best for your situation/needs The key steps to put “Succession Essentials” in place: a board-adopted … Read more

Two Courageous Questions to Ask Before Launching Your Executive Director Transition

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Before forging ahead with an executive director transition and hiring a successor, there are two courageous questions that the board should ask about their nonprofit: should our organization continue? And a related question: should it continue in its current form?

These questions are seldom asked because we’re usually operating in business-as-usual mode. Our work is a continuum of opportunities and challenges. And leadership succession is just another problem to solve. Thus, we don’t recognize succession for what it is — a critical punctuation point in the organization’s history.

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Three Executive Succession Plans Your Nonprofit Should Have

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The term “succession planning” can mean different things to different people. Some think it results in an “insurance policy” that ensures continuity when a leader is unexpectedly unavailable. Others, especially corporate board members, think it’s about leadership development — a plan to groom a single leader or a program to create a pipeline of leaders. Still others believe it’s an exit strategy for a soon-to-retire executive. All three of these interpretations are correct.

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The Six Biggest Nonprofit Executive Succession Mistakes and How to Avoid Them

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Executive director succession–planning for and managing the change from one chief executive to the next–is one of the nonprofit board’s most important responsibilities and possibly their least understood job. This isn’t surprising. Executive transitions happen infrequently, and managing them requires skills that fall far outside routine governance roles. Plus, succession projects are complicated and time-consuming. On top of that, succession planning is still a touchy topic in far too many organizations.

This article outlines some of the frequent executive director succession mistakes, what drives those mistakes, and how good preparation helps you avoid them.

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