Take the has-been high road
You finished your term in office. You passed the gavel, and the pressure is off. All those crazy problems are no longer yours. If you’ve done your job, you made sure the transition was an effective one with lots of inside advice and an offer to be available for questions. With a wink of good luck and a small dose of empathy, you handed over the monster to the new officer.
You’re free! Congrats. You can now enjoy a semester without the daily stresses of leadership. Less tension, fewer complaints, more free time.
For some of you, you’ll be moving on to another leadership position. Perhaps you’ve signed on to lead a council or another student organization that has nothing to do with your previous leadership position. New challenges await.
But for others, you come back in January with no specific student leadership responsibilities. You’ll just be “Joe Member” of your organization. A has-been. That can either be really great, or it can be really confusing. A few bits of advice.
Please, please, please… do not be an obstructionist former officer. The last thing the new leaders need is your open criticism of everything they try to do. Keep your mouth shut and let them try their new ideas, make their mistakes, and face their struggles. It’s tough being a student leader, and your meddling can make it worse. If you can’t say anything nice, then just shut up. Yes, you might be right. Yes, you might have made a better choice. But, it’s not your turn.
If you choose to hang around, then lend a hand on a project or area of the organization that desperately needs some attention. Raise some money, work with the alumni, do some public relations, paint the basement, clean up the constitution and bylaws. You’re not in charge any longer, but you can still be useful. Make a contribution without getting in the way of the new leaders. Set an example for other members that membership means stewardship of the organization, whether or not you’re in a leadership seat. Use all that accumulated wisdom to make a contribution uniquely suited to all that knowledge.
Show up to things. Your year as a leader doesn’t give you a pass to skip everything from here forward. Take an interest in the youngest members of your organization, and help shape their experience in a positive way. Again, you’re setting an example.
Support the new person, even when it hurts. When people in your organization dislike something the new officer does, the first thing they will do is look at you. Don’t roll the eyes, don’t make clever criticisms. Even if you disagree, your most critical response should be something like, “If you guys don’t like what he’s doing, then go talk to him and work with him for a better solution.” Don’t add fuel to a fire by encouraging dissent. It doesn’t make you look smarter or cooler to stir the pot – it just makes you look like a pain in the ass.
Go find another place to be useful. Join another student organization. Volunteer. Make some new friends. Sometimes, former officers become a negative, toxic presence in their organizations because they are bored, under-utilized, and are struggling with a lack of validation. When that happens, you start becoming the in-house critic of everything. Don’t go down that path.
If you find yourself struggling with a feeling of irrelevancy, channel that in a positive way. We get addicted to feeling important. We get a consistent dose of motivation from being in a seat of power, and it’s hard to give that up, sometimes. People who don’t deal well with this feeling are the ones who become the cranky former officers that everyone grows to hate.
Don’t be that person. Be the one who set the example by becoming an ideal, supportive, contributing member.
Former presidents of the United States are good role models for how you should act. They reserve criticism. They help if they are called upon, even if they aren’t particularly fond of their replacement. They work on their own projects (their libraries, for instance) without getting in the way of the new leader. When encouraged to criticize by the press, they pinch their lips.
Like them, be classy about being a former leader. It’s the has-been high road.
2 Responses to “Take the has-been high road”
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Thanks TJ –
I love the encouragement to KEEP GROWING! KEEP SERVING! KEEP ATTENDING! I try to move from the “has been” title to the “Will Be” realm. What’s NEXT? Thanks for supporting and promoting that concept of lifelong learning and service! After all, many of us join “organizations for life” and we sure do have miles to go before we sleep!
[...] you decide to move on to greater things, I urge you to Take the has-been high road (an article by one of my favorite college speakers, T.J. Sullivan). Did you like this post? You [...]