Have you ever climbed a mountain?
I’ve climbed a little, but I wouldn’t consider it “mountain climbing.” Growing up attending summer camp, we would spend a day in Sand Rock, Alabama, climbing the cliffs and exploring the ravines. It was fun and pretty easy climbing.
The most fun part of climbing was descending. Ascending took a bit of planning and a lot of courage. Descending only required leaning back and trusting the person on belay below you. Descending was easy and fun. You hang onto the rope, sit back in your harness, and enjoy the slow descent back to the ground.
This is not the case for real mountain climbers.
Climbing Everest
Take Everest, for example. People die every year on the mountain. Naturally, you’d think climbing up is the most dangerous half of the experience. In reality, descending Everest is much more deadly.
Climbing up takes careful planning, exacting execution, and patience. Descending requires the same, yet people coming down the mountain tend to become complacent, exhausted, and suffer from poor time management.
Even the term for climbing focuses on the ascent, not the descent, yet both are critical for a safe climb. People don’t just climb up. They also climb down.
Climbing the Leadership Ladder
A long role in a single organization is a thing of the past. According to the research, people change jobs every 4.1 years. Millennials change jobs more frequently. This means people frequently step into a new leadership role and out of roles. To stick with our mountain analogy, people are constantly ascending and descending.
Much like a mountain climber, we tend to plan how to step into a role. We chart a course and work to build our team and organization strategically. I wrote an entire book on this.
Yet, planning and intentionality often wane when a leader transitions out of a role or organization.
Transitioning into a role is like ascending a mountain, but it’s the transitioning out that kills the majority of leaders. Not literally, but figuratively.
“Every New Beginning…
…comes from some other beginning’s end.”
