How to Successfully Transition Out of Leadership

January 2, 2021 Mira Brancu

Part I: A higher education administrator returns to faculty.

As part of this blog series focused on new perspectives on women’s leadership, I share real women’s stories about their leadership experiences. Each interview is structured around a similar set of questions to allow for the emergence of some comparisons and commonalities. However, each woman’s perspective, struggles, and lessons learned will be different as I will focus on underserved/underrepresented female leaders, emerging female leaders, mid-to-senior level female leaders, and thought leaders and researchers in this field.

Dr. Christina Frederick is a professor in the Human Factors Department at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University. Dr. Frederick previously taught at the University of Rochester, Southern Utah University, and the University of Central Florida. From 2004-2012 she served in various roles in higher education administration, including associate provost, interim provost, and senior executive vice president for academics and research. Dr. Frederick has published over 70 research articles and four book chapters and delivered over 100 regional, national, and international conference presentations focused on technology, motivation, and leadership within the human factors and psychology fields. She is the president-elect of the Society of Psychologists in Management.

I sat down with Dr. Frederick to explore a new aspect of leadership: successfully transitioning out when you feel it no longer serves you.

What? Yes, today I am focusing on transitioning out of leadership for this post. As much as I am a proponent of supporting women in advancing into leadership roles, and for organizations to make it easier for them to be supported and succeed in doing so, this should not be at the sacrifice of personal needs.

This does not mean I find it acceptable that, currently, over 2.2M women have left the workforce due to the 2020 pandemic – that is a completely different problem that requires a different approach to solving. But having the right support is only part of the picture and we all face personal life changes that lead us to question whether our current trajectories are still serving us well.

This is part 1 of her two-part story. The themes that struck me most include (1) thoughtful self-reflection about your needs and how they change over time based on life phases and (2) developing a thoughtful exit strategy.

Tell us about your leadership trajectory.

For many years, I was a college professor. I held some faculty leadership roles, including serving as faculty senate president, program coordinator, and assistant dean. When a new provost came on board, he asked me to join his office. So, my first formal structured leadership role at that institution was as an assistant provost. I went through a leadership fellowship program as part of that to also get different leadership experiences within and outside the institution. So, over time, I ended up having many different titles, including in external relations, corporate relations, and government relations. In my role, I oversaw academia and research and I was assistant to the president. It was very fast-paced and very exciting at the time. I felt like I had gained a great deal of experience across a broad range of different types of teams.

What factors contributed to your leadership journey?

Sometimes there is an element of being in the right place at the right time, combined with what you bring to the table. When I was identified to be pulled into formal leadership, it was because I had talked about an important committee outcome focused on improving the grievance policy. Putting this policy together was one big grievance itself! It took months and months but we persevered. And as a result, I think they saw that I was someone who would persist, wasn't going to get upset with people, wasn't going to get angry, and who would just work through every issue. Had I not shared my work and the outcome of that committee, the provost might never have known who I was, so there is an element of being the right person, but also being at the right place at the right time sometimes.

Were there any internal or external barriers or challenges you faced on your leadership journey?

You know one of the challenges was being relatively young in comparison to my peers in leadership. I was also only one of two women in leadership. So, sometimes I felt like I’d put my ideas on the table and I’d get eight heads turning back to me looking quizzically like, “What is she saying?” Like 10 years ago, before social media was as common, I suggested the university interact in new ways, such as using the “Second Life” app. I think sometimes there was both a generational gap and a gender gap.

It’s still the case that in many organizations there is a male-dominated perspective at the top. So sometimes I could not engage in the same opportunities that my male peers could. For example, I couldn't just go out and play a round of golf on Saturday, not only because I don't golf but because I had other roles on the weekends that I fulfilled, like being a mom, doing household chores like laundry and grocery shopping. And nobody likes to hear a woman say, “Well you know I'm vice president, but I still have to do my laundry.” That was the reality and my male peers just didn't get that. Sometimes I think there is a tendency for others to say, “Come on, you shouldn't be doing that stuff.” But somebody has to do it.

What was the most challenging transition period for you in your career?

When I first entered into that formal leadership role, I went from a nine-month faculty position with a flexible schedule to working seven days a week, on-call 24/7, and traveling a lot. That was very challenging for me in many ways.

Second, when I decided to step out of my leadership role and not seek out another one, that was challenging for different reasons. I also knew I couldn’t just do what I did before and expect to be happy because there's was an ocean between the past and the present.

Both of these challenges were great learning experiences. When you're going through it, it might feel overwhelming, like you're floating in a vast ocean on an inner tube, but once you're through it and look back, you realize how much you learned about yourself and other people.

How did you get to that point where you realized it wasn’t working for you anymore and you needed to make a plan to transition out?

You know it's different for everyone. I actually co-authored an article, “Transitioning Out of Leadership: Is There Life After Higher Administration?” describing this kind of career trajectory and how to create a smooth transition that involved downscaling.

For me, it was related to my two worlds (personal and professional) colliding.

On the personal side, I had a young son and I was going through a separation and divorce. I had to consider how this was going to affect my family, especially my son, going forward. I was traveling at least twice a month, putting in long hours, facing high stress and I had to slow down to manage it all.

On the professional side, I was also becoming less and less fulfilled and the environment was starting to also feel less healthy – a lot of negative politics. The board also wanted the university to go in a direction that I disagreed with. Despite being the senior executive vice president for academics and research for the entire three-campus system, my ideas became more and more divergent from those of our board and our president. So, all this led me to realize it was a good time to take a break and recognize it was no longer working for me. I could have probably stayed and fought my way through — I'm definitely not a quitter. But after eight years, I was exhausted and didn't know whether I had it in me right then to take on the fight. I decided it was okay to give myself a breather. I didn’t know what the future would hold, but I knew I could figure it out.

Once you made the decision to step down from that leadership role, what helped ease the transition and were there additional challenges along the way?

I had seen other people in leadership positions either leave the university, or transition like I was doing, and learned that they set themselves up with the right resources to make it work. I identified what I need to do to make the transition successful, including negotiating for the resources I needed, such as having a certain salary.

I also thought a lot about what would happen to the people who worked for me. So I negotiated to help them find other comparable positions if my leaving meant they’d lose their current position. I didn't want my leaving to directly affect too many others. If you don't ask, you won't get anything.

I also negotiated for a little time off – a sabbatical, before going back into a more traditional faculty role. It gives you a breather — you don't realize how tired you are and how much you need to adjust and re-adjust your perspective. I took that time off to plan out what I wanted to achieve and meet with my new colleagues. We think about negotiations for salary into a job but we rarely think about negotiating when moving out of a job if you're going to stay at the same place.

Stay tuned for part 2 in which Dr. Frederick shares:

Unexpected challenges as well as positive outcomes she experienced from stepping down from a leadership role.
What she missed and what she felt relieved about after stepping down.
What she feels is still needed today to support women in leadership roles.
What she sees as the effect of the pandemic on inclusion practices.
Her advice for helping women through their leadership trajectory decision-making.

In addition, I will be sharing a link to the video of the full interview in part 2!

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