The Life Cycle of the Executive Director

“Somebody once told me that it’s time to leave when you’ve gotten enough, when  you’ve given enough, and when you’ve had enough.”   So said Edward Bernstein, President of the Industrial Research Institute, on ASAE’s Collaborate Network, quoted in the March, 2013 issue of Associations Now.

How different that is from the advice I got from my mentors when I became an Executive Director in 1993!  At that time, many execs spent a career at one association, so my mentors coached me on how to grow in my job and keep it over a longer period of time—which I did.  I remained as the Executive Director of the American Association for Marriage and Family Therapy (AAMFT) for 20 Years, and I could have remained longer had I chosen to do so.  Many of  my peers, especially in the mental health field, also are having or have had long tenures, from 39, to 25, to 20 years, etc.

Now we hear from executive recruiters that the average tenure is significantly shorter in associations—somewhere on the average of 7 years.  Granted, the cycle of change is much more dynamic, and the demands and skills needed for one association may shift much more dramatically in 7 years now than they did in the past.  It is also true that as the field of association management has matured, there is more “churn” in jobs as for many execs, the only way to grow dramatically in a career is to move from one association to another.

It would be helpful to have a career map—and a compass—in order to navigate a career as an association executive, both for those who are currently executive directors and those who aspire to be.  This is especially true for those who have hit a period of uncertainty about their current context or their future.  Executive recruiter Paul Belford, in a soon to be published book, The Association CEO Handbook, refers to this period as the “zone of great complexity” and defines it as “that special corner in association Hades where the CEO’s performance in a position is affected adversely by his/her inability (or refusal) to maintain the balance of professional fulfillment and Board enfranchisement.”

The question, of course, is what to do when one hits that period?  Renew, or resign?  And how important is the notion of “professional fulfillment” or “personal fulfillment” in building what one will look back on and say, “that was a career I can be proud of?”  This notion—how to do a better job, and build a better person for the job, is something we will be exploring more.  Sometimes it may be a 5 point list of ideas.  At other times, it will be more narrative and thought provoking.  Careers (and life) can’t be condensed into a short blog post—and certainly not a twitter post.  It’s a long plot play, with nodal points of transition throughout.  We intend to draw a map, and give the tools to use your own compass.  But remember—the map is not the territory, and there will always be surprises…