We spend a lot of leadership energy thinking about beginnings.

How do I introduce the new strategy?
How do I launch the team?
How do I start the role?
How do I get buy-in for where we’re going?

But beginnings usually require endings.

I first came across the term honorable closure from Stanford GSB’s Interpersonal Dynamics course, which I facilitate.

Students go through what can be an intense, illuminating group experience. Then the quarter ends.

The chapter may be over before it feels closed, but you still have to pack up and leave. Yes, you are allowed to speak to each other afterward, but people invested time, attention, trust, frustration, and affection in this group as a group. 

I keep thinking about how much this applies to leadership. Because we are not actually very good at endings.

Sometimes we rush through them.

A team hits a huge milestone and, instead of stopping to recognize what it took, everyone immediately moves onto the next one. The leader thinks they are maintaining momentum. The team may experience it as: Did any of that even matter?

Sometimes we let things fade.

An idea gets raised in a meeting and there is energy around it. Then the conversation moves on and nobody ever says whether it is happening or not. The idea is left sitting in purgatory.

Sometimes we do this with entire relationships.

We stop investing, we reply more slowly, stop inviting someone in. We let the partnership decay instead of saying, This isn’t working in the spirit of working through it. 

Honorable closure comes up in dozens of ways. I’ve had a client let someone go, but instead of turning into a robot and reading the script verbatim, he found ways to still honor the person and the work they did together while delivering tough news.

Another client started a new role and promptly had to introduce a new strategy and reorganize the team. Even though she was excited about the future, she also knew that much of her team was still saying goodbye to the old way. Remember, your exciting new chapter may be someone else’s ending.

The way you handle that ending teaches people something about you. 

So, what’s your next ending in sight, and what would honorable closure look like?

Speaking of endings and new beginnings, I’m updating the cadence of this newsletter.

For the past six months, I’ve published weekly, and we’ve covered a lot of ground. This fall, I’m taking on some new engagements, including returning to Stanford GSB to facilitate Interpersonal Dynamics. So, we’re returning to a monthly rhythm.

In the meantime, here are a few editions you enjoyed most:

‘Til next time,
💚Jen

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