97: Getting Off the Hook Without Abandoning Ship (Series Part Three)
Address the guilt, shame, and fear keeping you on hooks you should release. Learn to distinguish between healthy disengagement and abandonment, and discover what you actually owe when you step back.
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The Off the Hook Framework: A Leadership Series on Accountability, Delegation, and Leaving Well
You're exhausted. You're the only one who knows how the donor database works. Board members text you on weekends. Your team escalates every decision to you. You haven't taken a real vacation in three years.
And everyone tells you how dedicated you are. How committed. How essential.
Here's what they're not saying: your indispensability is an organizational liability.
This is the accountability paradox at the heart of nonprofit leadership. The leader who won't get off the hook—who holds every responsibility, hoards every relationship, controls every decision—isn't demonstrating commitment. They're creating a single point of failure with a nonprofit tax status.
Real accountability isn't about how much you personally deliver. It's about ensuring delivery continues without you.
Because here's the truth no one wants to say out loud: You're temporary. Your tenure will end—through retirement, new opportunity, burnout, termination, or death. The only question is whether your organization will be ready.
I bring a specific lens to this work: I'm an interim leader. I provide temporary executive leadership for nonprofits in transition. Every engagement I take begins with an exit date. I'm hired knowing I'm leaving. I've learned to lead with non-attachment—caring deeply about the work and the people while holding my departure lightly. I document everything. I build systems that run without me. I transfer relationships that belong to the organization, not to me personally. This isn't because I care less. It's because I care about sustainability more than being indispensable. What I’ve learned from being professionally temporary is that every leader should operate with an interim mindset. Because functionally, you are interim. Your tenure is temporary even if you don't know the end date yet.
This series is for nonprofit CEOs and Executive Directors who know intellectually they should delegate but can't seem to actually do it. It's for board members who don't know what hooks they're on—or who are on hooks that belong to staff. It's for funders and foundation program officers who see organizations struggling with leadership transitions and want to support better succession planning. It's for anyone who's ever said "if I don't do it, it won't get done right" and meant it.
Everything in this series is succession planning work—just not the way most people think about it. Succession planning isn't just creating a document for when you leave. It's how you lead every day while you're staying.
It's documenting your decision-making frameworks so they're transferable. It's building redundancy in critical relationships. It's developing your team's strategic capacity instead of protecting them from complexity. It's getting yourself off hooks you've held so long you've forgotten they don't belong to you.
Most nonprofits don't have written succession plans. Most leadership transitions are managed as crises instead of planned transitions. Most organizational knowledge walks out the door when leaders leave because it was never captured.
This series is about changing that—one hook at a time. The greatest act of nonprofit leadership isn't being indispensable. It's building something that doesn't need you to be great. Welcome to The Off the Hook series. Let's get to work.
Quotes:
“Getting off of the hook isn't actually a knowledge problem. Instead, it's identity, trust, and fear all wrapped into what society tells us is supposed to be professional responsibility.”
“If you wait for the perfect moment to get off of leadership hooks, you'll be waiting forever.”
“Your value is not in being needed. It's in making yourself progressively less necessary while the org becomes progressively more capable.”
To learn more about Leaving Well, visit https://www.naomihattaway.com/
To support the production of this podcast, peruse my Leaving Well Bookshop or buy me a coffee.
This podcast is produced by Sarah Hartley.
“Your value is not in being needed. It’s in making yourself progressively less necessary while the org becomes progressively more capable.”
Transcript:
Welcome to part three of this on the Hook and Accountability series. This whole episode is talking about how to get off the hook without abandoning ship. I think it's really easy, for the most part, to intellectually know that you should delegate, for example, the donor database management. You also likely understand that holding onto program decisions that your team should be making limits their growth.
And if you've been following along on the series. Uh, part two was where you started to map out exactly which hooks you need to transfer to other people, but you are likely still doing it all and you could quote unquote that or, but it's, it's so true, right? Leadership, often we are fooled into this idea that we have to do it all.
My philosophy is this, that getting off of the hook isn't actually a knowledge problem. Instead, it's identity, trust, and fear. All wrapped in, into what society tells us is supposed to be professional responsibility. And if you're like me, the voice in your head likely says, if I don't do it, it's not gonna be done.
Right. If I step back, things are gonna fall apart, and this is the sticker, the sticky part. If I'm not needed, what's my value? If I let go, am I abandoning the mission that I've given years to? And I can tell you from a personal perspective, I'm struggling and working through the same stuff right now in my own business around the, if I don't do it, it's not gonna be done right.
All of those things. And that voice is a persuasive liar, and it's actually kept us all on hooks that we should have released years ago. So first we're gonna talk a little bit about how to distinguish between healthy disengagement and what actual abandonment looks like. And in that process of talking through this episode, we will address the guilt, the shame, and the fear that likely is keeping you from stepping back.
We'll also get really specific about what you actually owe your organization when you transition responsibilities versus what your anxiety tells you that you owe, because it's a massive difference. So first, let's talk about guilt. Nonprofit leaders specifically carry a very known brand of guilt that I don't think for-profit executives experience.
You are not just responsible for the org's outcomes. You also likely feel very personally responsible for mission impact for the communities that you serve, for the staff who depend on you and the donors who have trusted in your ability to get things done. And this could come from either your own lived experience, your deep connection, and dedication to the mission.
Or just the overall nonprofit scarcity mindset, to be honest. And the guilt manifests in several different ways. Here's a couple. It could be that you are thinking that if you're not doing everything you can, you're failing the people that we serve. And this kind of manifestation frames your bandwidth as a limiting factor in mission impact, but it's not your org's structural capacity is actually the limiting factor.
You staying on every single hook. Doesn't increase capacity. It just prevents the building of capacity for your team. You might also have this limiting belief that your team isn't ready to handle more responsibility without you, and that might be true, but it also might be true that your team is not going to be ready as long as you just keep handling everything.
Readiness really does develop through practice and not just observation, and you're protecting them from the growth opportunity that they need. Another fallacy is that the organization can't afford for you to step back right now. That's gonna be true potentially in your head if you are thinking about leaving, if you've already identified that you're leaving.
But there will always be a crisis. There will always be a funding gap. There will always be a really crappy administration. There will always be a critical moment that makes it feel like the wrong time to transition. But this is a feature of nonprofit work and it's not an exception. What I'm saying here is that if you wait for the perfect moment to get off of leadership hooks, you'll be waiting forever.
One more is that if you delegate something, it won't meet your standards, and that's a hundred. That's a hundred percent true. It will meet their standards, whoever's doing the work, and that might be different. And different isn't worse unless your actual goal, which this is a little spicy, is to maintain control rather than truly building org capacity.
I have a question for you. I'd like you to complete this sentence. If I got off the hooks that I should release, the worst thing that would happen is X, fill in the blank. Once you've answered that kind of accountability question, is that actually the worst thing or is the worst thing that you stay on these hooks of leadership responsibility until you burn out, get sick, or have to leave suddenly, which means that you take all of the institutional knowledge with you and quite honestly, leaving your organ crisis.
So we've talked about the guilt, we've talked about the kind of the fallacies around what we tell ourselves, and now I wanna talk about fear. The fear really lies in what is your value? You've built your professional identity likely on being that person who knows everything, fixes everything, holds everything together.
You are the institutional memory. And you're the one that people come to when things are hard, which in your mind then makes you essential. And now I'm here telling you that being essential is actually a liability, and that you're actually impeding growth and organizational capacity. And I'm also telling you that your greatest professional accomplishment might actually be to become replaceable.
So indispensability signals that you haven't built, built systems, you haven't developed your team and you haven't transferred knowledge. And really what you're doing is creating a single point of failure. And it's you. The shame often comes from recognizing that what you thought was your leadership excellence is actually for fragility inside of the organization, and that's a really hard thing to face.
But I wanna invite you into a reframe. Most valuable leaders are not the ones who do everything. They're the ones who build capacity for others to do all of the things. Your value isn't actually in being needed. It's in making yourself progressively less necessary while the org becomes progressively more capable.
I'm gonna repeat that because it is so potent. Your value is not in being needed. It's in making yourself progressively less necessary while the org becomes progressively more capable. And that's a completely different definition of success. It requires surrendering the identity of like I'm the indispensable one, and instead embracing the identity of I am the capacity builder, and this is all supposed to be uncomfortable.
You're not abandoning your value, but you're evolving it. And that's not something that comes easy to most of us. Let's get clear about what getting off the hook really means, because there's a truly a difference between transition in a professional way, and I don't mean professional meaning what society expects of us.
There's a difference between that and being irresponsible as you abandon. So abandonment looks like this in the leaving Well framework it means dumping without documentation. So you stop doing something, but you provide no guidance context or systems, you just drop it. Um, you also might be playing abandonment if you disappear without transition.
So you leave either the role, the project, or the org without relationship handoffs and without closure on critical work. This also might look like ghosting your commitments, where you agree to lead something, people are counting on you and you just. Stop showing up or responding. You can also abandon your role and your responsibility by transferring responsibility, but without authority.
This happens so often. You tell someone that they are now responsible for something, but you don't actually transfer the decision making power, the resources, and here's the big one or the access that they need to actually do it. Another form of abandonment looks like when you rage quit, uh, this is when you're frustrated, you're burned out, you're angry, and so suddenly you just shed all of your responsibilities to make a point or to try and force the org to appreciate you.
Abandonment is reactive, it's emotional, and it's often irresponsible. And it damages orgs and relationships. On the flip side, healthy disengagement looks like this. It's planned transition with documentation. This is when you identify what you're stepping back from. You've documented your knowledge and your processes, and you're creating systems for continuity.
It also looks like supported delegation where you train, mentor, answer questions, and gradually release control as the other person builds competence. There's also a clear authority transfer when you have a healthy disengagement. This is stepping off a hook and actually stepping off of it. This does not mean staying at the office extending with a contract.
It doesn't mean keeping your keys, it means not hovering and not second guessing when you've transferred the work and the decision making authority. This includes relationship handoffs. It also includes honest communication about capacity. This means that you need to acknowledge what you've been doing when it doesn't fit your role, and then work with leadership to redesign where the function should live.
Healthy disengagement is really strategic. It is well documented and it's developmentally sound. And this strengthens organizations. So it's really about how you do it. Do you do it with intentionality and integrity or with reactivity and resentment? So this is, uh, another kind of spicy section of this whole conversation, and it's what do you actually owe the organization and the community that you serve when you step back?
So I believe that you owe documentation and knowledge transfer. So I think that we should all hold ourselves to a standard that before you release a responsibility or exit a role, you need to create the documentation that allows someone else to take it on with reasonable success. Doesn't mean they have to be perfect, but this includes.
Step-by-step guides for recurring tasks. It includes criteria that you use for making decisions and judgment calls. It also includes information on who the key partners are, why the relationship matters, and what sensitivities might exist. There's two more things here. One of those last ones is institutional memory.
Why are things done this way? What have you tried before and what are some pitfalls that someone coming after you might want to avoid? And then finally, access and systems. This is logins files. Who to contact for what and where information lives. What I don't think you owe in this documentation and knowledge transfer section is perfection.
The documentation does not need to anticipate every scenario. It simply needs to provide a solid foundation and clear entry points for questions. Literally, this can be done with a series of bullet points in a Google Doc. This can also be done with a Loom video, and you can feel free to say, I don't know about this, or Here's a space where there's ample room for you to take over.
The timeframe of documentation and knowledge transfer that you owe the organization and your team should happen before you fully transition or as close to simultaneously as possible. Try not to wait six months to document something after you've stopped doing it. It's really lovely to start doing it.
Today. Another thing that I believe that you owe your organization, the community you serve, and the team is a reasonable transition period. Obviously, there are lots of moments where this is not possible. I understand that, but where you can try and hold yourself to a standard to give the person that's taking over your hook enough time to shadow you, ask questions, practice, and.
Build confidence before you fully step back. So this might look like two to four weeks of shadowing. For routine operational tasks, it might look like a couple of months of joint meetings and gradual handoffs in the relationship side of things, and it might mean longer three to four months of mentoring and knowledge transfer.
For highly complex functions or strategy moments for board leadership transitions, you need at least six months with structured orientation and partnership. What you don't owe in this section is indefinite availability. I highly encourage you to set a clear timeline for when you will be fully off the hook during the transition period.
Be actively present after it. Be available for a short period of time for questions, but realize that you are not responsible for outcomes. Okay? Here's another thing that you owe. I believe that you, you owe honesty about why you're stepping back. The standard should be to tell the truth as much as you can about why you were getting off of this particular hook.
Now, it might be because the function doesn't fit your role and it never should have. Maybe you've held it for too long and it's limiting others' development. Maybe you're at capacity and need to focus on different priorities of responsibilities. Maybe someone else has skills and perspective that are better suited to this work.
Maybe, and this is the one where I don't think that you actually owe the truth. Is that maybe you're preparing for your eventual departure and you would like to start transferring knowledge. Now, what you don't owe is apologies for trying to appropriately delegate. This is going to be new to most of your organizations and you might feel led or convinced that you need to apologize or be sorry or overexplain.
This isn't a personal failure. It's literally organizational maturity. So, uh, the, the last one that I believe that you owe is to actually step off, step down, get out of the way as a standard. When you've transferred that responsibility, trust the person you've handed it to and let them make different choices than you would.
This is the thing that I see that. So hard when people want to have a long overlap. When they're exiting a role, they wanna make sure that they're there to help out. But what actually hap happens is you are gonna be urged to micromanage your own self, is going to want to try and recla reclaim control when things feel uncertain or messy.
So this is really hard. This is the hardest part. It's harder than documentation, it's way harder than training. The actual letting go is really challenging. What you don't owe in this moment is to, uh, make sure it's done your way, that the goal isn't replication. It's actually continuation. And like we've said before, it's that capacity building.
The new person needs to own it, which means they need to do it their way. If people are still coming to you instead of the new hook holder, you haven't fully transferred authority either. You're still inserting yourself. The org hasn't accepted the transfer or the person doesn't have enough confidence, so your job is to redirect.
That is Johnny's decision now. That is, um, Shanae's responsibility. Now, have you talked with them? That's a really good redirect. Now, here's a couple of things that you don't owe. Even though your anxiety and your fear might tell you differently, you do not owe perfection in the new person's execution. You do not owe.
An effort to maintain and prevent failure from happening. You don't owe maintaining the exact standards. You also don't owe en endless availability for questions, and you definitely do not owe a justification of your decision about the transition. So we've talked about transferring and getting off the hook.
It's kind of in the the mindset of if you're not leaving today, now there's an entirely different set of things that I wanna talk to you about if you are leaving entirely. So if you're leaving on your own timeline with the plan departure, I recommend as a standard 90 days notice with comprehensive transition documentation and active knowledge transfer where you're able to, to your successor.
A higher level of standard is six months-ish of succession planning before you announce your departure. This can be where you're holding it internally, where you're talking with a third party consultant, or you're talking to your team about a broad swath effort of succession planning. So in this moment, if you are planning your, uh, departure, you owe a timeline, I really recommend that you don't surprise the board two to three weeks before you leave if you're in an executive C-suite, C-suite level.
You also owe comprehensive documentation of your responsibilities with that institutional knowledge. If the board wants your input, please try and be as actively participatory as you can in the successor search and asterisk care. That's only if the board wants your input. You also owe a graceful closure as much as you can with staff, donors, partners, and the broader community.
What you don't owe is staying longer than you've committed because the board hasn't found your replacement. This happens all the time, and I highly recommend clear, clear boundaries around how long you'll stay. You also don't owe that you'll solve every problem before you go. It is so freeing and so healthy to say this is for the next person to na to navigate and handle.
The one thing I'll say here. The caveat is don't save people, uh, from being let go or fired if that needs to happen under your tenure. You also don't owe the management of everyone's feelings about your departure, and you also don't owe a maintenance of the exact same outcomes of your work because transition is disruptive by nature and it will happen.
If you're leaving on their timeline, meaning you've been terminated or you're asked to resign, this is way harder and way more complex because there's often conflict, hurt, feelings, or broken trust in a level that doesn't necessarily exist. When you're the one planning your departure, try your hardest as a minimum standard, even in difficult circumstances, to not sabotage even if you think the board is wrong, even if you believe the organization will suffer without you, try not to actively harm the organization on your way out.
This means don't bad mouth the org to donor staff or community. Don't take institutional files or information that belongs to the organization. Don't use your remaining time to undermine your successor or the board and don't poison relationships or create loyalty conflicts with staff. Of course, that also comes with a caveat to protect yourself legally when you need to.
There is an emotional reality as well around getting off of those final hooks. And so when you're actually leaving and not just delegating those hooks that you've held for years carry a different emotional weight and that's grief, you are likely mourning the identity that you've held as a leader in this organization.
You're mourning the relationships that will change. You're also mourning the daily meaning and purpose that the work has provided, as well as the community and belonging that you found here. You are also likely mourning and feeling grief around the impact that you won't be making in this way anymore.
The grief is real and valid, and it doesn't mean you're making the wrong choice. You can honor what you're leaving while still leaving. You can grieve the loss while recognizing its time, and you can also, even though it might be hard, still love the organization while knowing that your leadership chapter there is complete.
So here's a practical exercise for you. It's called the disengagement plan, and I am wanting you to pick one responsibility that you've been holding onto that you know what that should be delegated. So be speci, be specific. What exactly are you doing? What is the hook? What is the responsibility? Then name, why are you still on the hook?
Is it guilt? Is it fear, identity, habit, a lack of alternative or control? Then name, what's the real cost of staying on the hook to you personally, to your team's development to org sustainability? And then here's the final set of questions. If you get off the hook, what's the actual worst case scenario? Is that worse than the reality of staying on the hook?
Do you know who should hold the hook instead? And what do you need to provide for successful transfer? This set of questions is all on my website, naomi hadaway.com/articles. You can also pause or rewind this episode replay, um, to get those questions. Again, if you want to write them down for the successful transfer part, think about documentation, what the training and transition period needs to look like, what authority and resources need to be transferred and what the timeline is.
The last two questions are a little bit. Uh, pointed, what are you going to do when you want to reclaim control? Because I promise you, you will want to, planning ahead in this area is helpful for everyone by when do you plan to be fully off the hook? Name a specific date. So then after you've asked those questions, now you just have to do it.
Not next quarter or after the big next budget project or not when the, the fiscal year ends. 'cause you're never gonna feel ready. Transfer one hook this month, then transfer another next month. Getting off the hook is not abandonment, it's leadership development and it's succession planning and action.
This is the work of truly building orgs that are resilient, sustainable, and capable of thriving without you. And that's your job. Thanks for being here. If you want to learn more about the work that we do at a and home and leaving, well, you can visit naomi hadaway.com. And if you're interested in joining our community, for leaders to navigate their own professional development, including topics like succession planning, go to naomi hadaway.com/waitlist.
If you're listening to this at a time when the community has been launched, that same link will get you into our community. Thanks so much for listening. If you are an organizational leader, board member, or a curious staff member, take the leaving while assessment to discover your organization's transition readiness archetype.
It's quick and easy, and you can find it@naomihadaway.com. Slash assessment, it's Naomi, N-A-O-M-I, hattaway, H-A-T-T-A-W-A y.com/assessment. To learn more about leaving well and how you can implement and embed the framework and culture in your own life and workplace. You can also see that information on my website.
It's time for each of us to look ourselves in the mirror and finally admit we are playing a powerful role in the system. We can either exist outside of our power or choose to decide to shift culture and to create transformation. Until next time, I'm your host, Naomi Hadaway, and you've been listening to Leaving Well, a Navigation Guide for Workplace Transitions.