Knowing When It’s Your Time to Step Down | No BS Leadership Advice
Ambition is a terrific aspirational quality. It encourages you to step up and to accomplish. Then it crosses a line.
Signs You May Be a Poor Leader
Ambition is a very interesting quality with many people. Usually, it’s an aspirational quality. It’s defined as a strong desire to do or to achieve something, typically requiring determination and hard work. Generally, it’s applied toward a greater good, I want to accomplish something, I’m determined to do this, I want to help make something better.
And then there’s the time where it goes over the edge, where instead of being an aspirational quality, it’s suddenly a quality that is a damaging quality. It’s a hurtful one, or the individual in their ambition, no longer is thinking of the greater good, but they’re thinking of themselves. It becomes ego driven.
Now, leaders are programmed to know when it’s their time to step up, but are rarely coached to recognize when it’s their time to step down. Certainly, we’re seeing evidence of many leaders in our society and around the world, whose ambitions have crossed the line and are no longer in service to their people, but are in service to themselves and their own ego and maniacally driven attitudes that cause damage to population, and to a business or to any entity that they’re involved with leading.
It’s important to recognize when it’s your time to step up, but no one ever talks about recognizing when it’s your time to step down. For those who are around such a leader who’s crossed the line, and is no longer able to function in a certain way that serves the greatest greater good, it’s important to be that trusted advisor who’s willing to say to the leader, “I think it’s your time to step aside. Maybe you could be an advisor to a new leader. Maybe this is your opportunity to step down altogether. For years, you’ve been talking about such and such. Maybe this is your time to do it.”
Being Charismatic: Know Your Value
And if they say no, you have a choice to make. Sometimes there are individuals who want to push that, because it’s going to be important to the business, that a person transition out of the role. In government, that’s much more complicated, of course. But be fearless in being able to tell people, it’s your time to step aside. It’s your time to step down. Your ambition has overwhelmed your great achievements, and it’s crossed the line into something that you won’t be proud of. In a few years. It’s that time.
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ABOUT JEFF ALTMAN, THE BIG GAME HUNTER
Jeff Altman, The Big Game Hunter is a career and leadership coach who worked as a recruiter for more than 40 years. He is the host of “No BS Job Search Advice Radio,” the #1 podcast in iTunes for job search with more than 2300 episodes. He also hosts Job Search TV on YouTube, Amazon and Roku, as well as on BingeNetworks.tv for Apple TV and 90+ smart sets.
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