I've Seen Too Many People Stay Past Their Season: How to Lead Succession and Let Go with Grace (Part 2 of 5)

I've seen too many people who stay way past their season. Mhmm. And when you do that, things just go sour Mhmm. Honestly, after a while because all of us get to a point where we believe that we can't contribute at the level that we were once contributing.

What happens when a leader finally admits it's time to move on? In this episode of Leadership Sovereignty, the podcast, Brenda Battle, a healthcare executive who led system level change for over four decades shares what it really means to leave with legacy in mind. She opens up about succession, sponsorship, and why true leadership means knowing when to let go. This episode just might redefine how you see purpose beyond the title.

Wow. Somebody else that was going to take it to the next level.

Yeah.

So I made the decision that this is the time to retire because I'm tired. Yeah. I'm not gonna do it. Can I take it to the next level if I weren't tired? Yes.

Yeah.

But I don't I'm tired. It's somebody else's. That's their season to do that in, and so that is really important. I've seen too many people who stay way past their season. And when you do that, things just go sour, honestly, after a while.

Because all of us get to a point where I believe all of us get to a point where we believe that we can't contribute at the level that we were once contributing. Mhmm. And it's at that point when we need to decide whether it's for me, it was retiring. I was retirement age. I had worked a career for forty three years.

It It was time to retire. Others is just moving on to the next thing. But Mhmm. We have to be conscious of that inner sense of the chapter closing Mhmm. Mhmm.

And realize that it is important for the institution that we make a decision to to not hang on for the people who work for us.

Mhmm.

You know, getting tired will also make you sometimes irritable and impatient and all the other stuff that goes with that. And so when you start sensing that, it's time for you to move on. And I hope that people recognize that because it it it it it it always starts, in my opinion, with an inner sense. A decision about whether you stay or go becomes that of the individual who's that inner sense.

Oh, thank you for that. I think that is so powerful. I've talked to a few people who have kinda said the same thing that you said. Right? And I just want to highlight this.

You said, I don't have the energy to do this. It doesn't mean that you don't have the capability. Exactly. Right? But that is a qualifying metric to say, Do I have the energy to take this where it needs to go?

And being honest enough with yourself to say, No, I do not. And then the second thing that I really got out of that that I really appreciate is your consideration for the organization and the people, and not making this about yourself. Absolutely. Because sometimes when we get into successful positions, it's hard to let something go. Especially with the unknown of not knowing, am I going to be the expert where I'm going to be at the next place?

Those things, Well, so my thank you for

friends, when she was getting to this place where she was getting there and knew she was going to retire, she was so wrapped up in whether she was going to be meaningful anymore. I had to say to her, I said, Find something else to do to be meaningful. Whether or not you are important or valuable shouldn't be tied to that job. It should be to who you are and what you contribute. Not to the job only, but she was for a long time just she couldn't and she still is now, unfortunately.

She just can't let go of her value being in that job. Not in who she is and what she brings and what she contributes beyond that job.

So I've been listening to here lately, man, really studying kingdom and Miles Monroe's been teaching and he said something last week that he said, and I think, you you talk to your friend to share this, he said, Look, they can fire you from your job or you can go get another job, but your work never ends. So you find your work When you go to your job, your work should be in your job. So it's the work is how he explained it. This podcast is an extension of Raf's and I work. We've always, even when we were the line level guys, we were trying to lead then.

That's right.

But we led how we could lead as the individual contributor, right? Leadership is And so that's a part of our work. 100 And so I think, and I would love for you to dig in a little bit. So two things, I wanna ask two questions, and you can take them in any order you want. To really expound on how succession planning is a part of great leadership, which is I heard you talking about.

And then talk about your work. If you had to define what your work because you've done a lot of things, but if you had to say, what is your work? Because you're still going now. So the work is still happening. So however you wanna take those two questions.

Okay. First of all, just on this last conversation before I move to this, and this is going to segue into that. I've always said to people who ask me about work that the framework for my life is based upon my faith and what God assigns me to do. That's the framework. Everything else has to apply within that framework, my work, my life, my relationships, my friends, whatever.

It has to apply within the framework of my faith and what God assigns me to in life. So that's why my job is not the center of my life. I bring my faith. That's the framework I bring into that job. That's why I could let it go.

That's why I know that, to your question about succession planning, and to your Ralph point about seasons, that when a season closes, that it's so important to recognize that. For me, the person who replaced me was a person who worked for me four years ago. She worked for me for four years. She'd come from the government. She worked for me for four years.

She had some time left before she could retire fully from the government. She went back to the government. She and I had that conversation. I was like, yep. It makes sense.

Go back to the government. Who knows? One day you might come back here. Not even realizing the point at which I was gonna decide to retire or that at some point she would be one of the people in the actual pool that could potentially come over and take but I was planning succession when she was there. So I've been in succession planning for a long time, not even realizing that she was gonna come back and be the person, be one of the people.

There were 57 people. Got it down to 20. Wow. They got it down to eight. She was in it, and she ended up It was her, but I had been working with her as a potential successor before she left, stayed in contact with her, not even realizing that one day she would come back.

Wow. Believe that you should It is your responsibility as a leader to prepare others who are to move into the next level. It might not be your role, but you've got to sponsor them to the next level to succeed. And so I believe that that is critically important as a leader, and leaders who don't do that, then you know? I think I find that the leaders that I know who don't do it are those who have a hard time letting go and and being the most important in the role or what have you.

I don't know.

Makes sense.

For me, succession planning is super important. My work, I would say my work over my career has been changing systems, really looking at systems and how systems impact the lives of other people, and how the policies and practices that built those systems need to be changed, adapted, corrected to enable people to have optimal lives and careers and to be able to thrive. That's been my work almost my whole career. After I left nursing, I've spent my whole time looking at systems, and this is why it was so important. God knew it was important.

I mean, I desired to be in the c suite, and I got in the c suite pretty early in my career. It was it's important to be there, to be at those tables, to be at those tables where decisions are made that impact people's lives, where practices have been in place, off of policies that were mostly for the majority and not for the marginalized or the minority. And folks who sit at that table have to be at those tables being conscious, cognizant of what those policies and practices are and capable of helping others to see them and the impact they have on others and changing them. And that's what I've spent my career doing. And that's what I'm still doing, even in retirement.

Because to

your point, that's why your purpose isn't set. When I retired, I remember having this conversation with the Lord after a few months then. It was like, Lord, okay, so now what do I do now that I'm retired? What's my purpose now that I'm retired? And I will tell you as clear as day, I heard your purpose has not changed.

Venue in which you execute your purpose has changed, but your purpose hasn't changed. So, still working in my purpose in retirement.

That's beautiful. Is awesome.

So, There are so many things that you said in there, and I just want to get on your calendar. Systems, changing systems, that's your next assignment here. One country for Because Ralph and I are really interested in how systems work, how to develop them, how to create systems that will generate wealth, but that'll do all kinds of things, right? Yeah. We love that.

We love that conversation. Awesome. The other thing I heard, and I don't know if this is a good And just to segue just a little bit, we'll get back on track. As a sponsor, can you share the value and what you as a sponsor look for when you're looking to sponsor someone. I mean, when you said that, I'm like, we have to give that nugget, because we've spent entire episodes about talking about sponsorship and how to get it, and you know, do you just, you know, just go ask.

If they don't want to sponsor you, they'll be like, no, you gotta find somebody else. But, yeah, so just kind of share just a little bit on that.

Yeah. So people who I've sponsored are people who obviously that I, you know, recognize as having certain qualifications, but not just from a tactical work experience, but from a personal and interpersonal level as well, who would be a good fit for opportunities. And so for me, sponsoring them meant that I was gonna create the pathway, that they didn't have to find the pathway to get into those opportunities. I'm gonna create it. I'm gonna bring you to the table with me.

I'm going to talk to people who I know in my network to get you at tables. I'm going to tell them who you are and what you are and what you're about and what your capabilities are. I'm going tell them why they need to have you at that table. That's what I'm going to do as your sponsor. That's different from mentoring.

So I mentor people too and I sponsor people. The difference is sponsoring is much more engaged and much more giving of yourself and giving to that individual in a much higher level way. The person who replaced me, I've been a strong sponsor of her for many, many years, but many other people were, for me, as a Black woman in business, my responsibility was to help other people like me get those opportunities. And so I sought opportunities to help people like me get opportunities because, first of all, I don't ever want to be the only one at the table. And believe me, I've been the only one at the table.

I'm never happy or comfortable being the only one at the table. So because of that, my responsibility, I felt, was to make sure that the table got spread for other folks to get there. When I started at UChicago Medicine, there was one other person of color at the table. When I left UChicago Medicine, the percentage of people at the table that I set in was somewhere around 35%.

Was huge. Wow. It was huge.

For That's me, that was the systems change. In order to make You gotta get folks who look like the folks who we are at, especially in healthcare and in inner city, in any industry. I needed folks, I needed decisions made based upon individuals bringing not only experience and knowledge from those communities to that table. That generic knowledge is really important. But we don't all know everything about everybody, every culture we represent.

And so bringing a diverse group of people even of color to a table where decisions were being made about people was really important for me to do. And so for me, getting there and having that organization understand the value of it, having them understand better the communities that they serve, having them understand the impact to delivering quality care to individuals, if you had folks at the table who represented those populations, will help driving decisions? That was super important for me to do because the end result was gonna be on the impact on the lives of the people who we served, and that was the end result. We started seeing changes in health outcomes. We started seeing changes in jobs, changing in pay rates for people, changes in It was amazing what

we

were able to see because the focus was on ensuring that I, in my role as the person who came in responsible for that, sponsored people to get in these other roles. Then I I have to tell you understand that. Then the other thing we did is we formed this group called NOTICE. N O T I C E didn't stand for anything. This was a black woman's It was an employee resource group, but it was just for black women wanting to elevate up to the directors and VPs.

And we formed that group around white men sponsors. Got white men, we took them through some heavy duty painful training so that they could start seeing what they weren't seeing, And we had them become the sponsors to these black women, so that they could understand what their role was in getting with these people into these roles. But that opened up the path for not just black women, for black men and Hispanic and Asian, all of these, because we changed the mind of these white men and we asked them. In the first couple years of that program, we only had white male sponsors. Wow.

Intentionally.

Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. That is tremendous.

Yeah. Wow. That's a whole

they started telling and their saying, oh my god, I didn't see this, and I didn't realize this was happening, and oh my goodness. It was amazing. Wow.

Quick question. So one thing I wrote down, I heard when you were specifically talking about sponsorship is proximity. Right? You you have to have some type of proximity if you want a sponsor so they could see your value. Can you talk about you know, I know for me, before moving into my current role in the c suite, I was a little bit more reserved.

I I wouldn't go to functions, things of that nature, to make those connections. Can you talk a little bit about the power of proximity with that?

Yeah, absolutely. I hate functions, but I went to a whole lot of them Because I understand very, very clearly the power of relationships inside the organization, outside the organization, in industry, outside of industry, and that the proximity to individuals who knew your capabilities and your value, that's how you that that would be helpful to one who's aspiring to move move along in their career. So I do advise that. As hateful as much as I hated it and as painful it was, and then many chicken dinners I had to go to, that's why I started calling them chicken dinners. Many of those that I had to go to, and then I still occasionally, I pick and choose what I go to now.

Not for me to be able just because I you know, the work that I'm still doing, I still need the network that I'm working with to be able to do that. And this is volunteer work. This is not I'm not trying to make money, although I do have an advisory role at this baby. But anyway, that's another subject. But it is really important.

The proximity to individuals who can sponsor you is really important, and they don't always work in the place that you work, And they don't always work in the industry that you're in. And that's why you need to have some proximal kind of, you know, places where you can connect to these people, and they can get to really seriously know you. And you know what I find? Just like Terry told the story about the neighbor who knew

me, look, you don't know who knows who.

Right.

These folks may know somebody who know you can tell them more about who you are. So you gotta be in those places, as painful as it can be. It's not painful for everybody. It's just that, look, forty three years, I did this almost all my career.

Wow.

And so another thing I got tired of was the The chicken

chicken dinners. That is so good. That is so good. I really, really Just tying back to really embracing, helping other people to embrace diversity, because that is really your strength, is when you have that diversity of thought and inclusion, right, to be able to guide and make decisions. I think that's a powerful

Absolutely. Absolutely.

That's awesome. That's awesome.

Brenda, quick question. In your transition, and I know we kind of hit on a little bit, in your transition into the C suite, what leadership philosophies, if any, changed or evolved? Or did you see things differently as you started to understand that I guess, did you always see it as systems? Because I'm assuming when, even at the director level, we're still operation. Really.

Yeah,

yeah. So I understood system work. I was in a C suite position when I understood it better. It was I was in a role. I was really heavily involved in public health, and I started understanding the impact of systems on health outcome.

Systems. I mean, not just health systems. I'm talking about systems, transportation systems, food systems, housing systems, past history on restrictive covenants, and all these things that impacted people's lives. In my workplace, I had to bring that knowledge into the workplace so that they could see then how organizational systems also align with these broader external systems that impact people's lives. That was like It was at the C suite table that I started seeing these systems operate because everybody, all my colleagues were at that table too.

And so as a person who was responsible for transforming community health, I'm at the table with our strategist, our CFO, our chief of everything at the table, we're at the table, and I'm understanding better how they make decisions that impact folks' lives. And I'm trying to transform community health, and I see that you're making the decision in this institution that's gonna have an impact on what I'm trying to do to transform folks' lives. That system has to change. So what happened at the C suite, the thing that changed me the most was recognizing the power of all these folks at that table who had often no clue, and not always intentionally, mostly not intentionally, to be honest with you. I would say at UChicago, a bunch of good folks, not intentional, but still operating off of policies that were harming people.

And it was my responsibility at that table to help them see that and help them garner the willingness to change.

Thanks for listening to the Leadership Sovereignty Podcast, where we explore what it means to lead with purpose, conviction in every season of life. If today's conversation helped you see leadership in a new light, take a moment to follow the show and share this episode with another leader who's walking their own journey of growth and transition. You can find the show notes, resources and upcoming episodes at leadershipsovereignty.com. And be sure to connect with us on YouTube, LinkedIn or wherever you listen to podcasts. Until next time, remember, true leadership isn't about holding a position.

It's about stewarding the purpose.