As I looked around the room during the preliminary hubbub meetings always start with, I had a jumble of thoughts about my younger brother's retirement decision, my own age, the status of my finances, what I would do in my retirement, and how the association would carry on without me. Inexorably, I was becoming part of its past, fading a little with the turning of each calendar page. This awakening to the fact that my association days were truly numbered gradually began to influence everything I did-both professionally and personally. A new approach To begin with the professional dimension, a new toughness began to build within me. My self-respect and sense of responsibility told me that, as long as I wore the executive director's mantle, I would both be and act as the chief executive officer of the association in every respect.
Nothing is more damaging to an association than a CEO who creates a leadership vacuum.
The chief executive can cause it either by doing nothing out of an attitude of indifference and futility or by sloughing off to subordinates the chief's primary leadership responsibilities. In a cowardly fashion, this denies the association's staff members continuing guidance and definitive decisions, and it leaves them simply to drift before the prevailing winds. Both derelictions amount to a de facto retirement on the job. And that causes confusion, mistrust, and consequent low morale among the staff. It promotes action by the staff to line up behind the heir apparent of their choosing.