Turning a year older today has me reflecting—not just on where I’ve been, but where I might be heading.
Lately, I’ve found myself asking the quiet, uncomfortable questions:
Is higher education still the right place for me?
Or was it one chapter in a longer story?
Like many in mission-driven work, I didn’t enter leadership roles expecting to navigate budget crises, layoffs, or the dismantling of programs I cared about. I stepped in to make things better. And for a while, I believed I could—by building good teams, designing strong systems, and leading with clarity.
But over time, the work changed. The world changed. And so did I.
In recent weeks, I’ve been revisiting the leadership books that helped me hold steady through the hardest parts. One I always return to is The Practice of Adaptive Leadership by Heifetz, Linsky, and Grashow.
It’s not a book of quick fixes or top-ten leadership hacks.
It’s about staying grounded when things are messy.
When values are tested.
When every option feels like a compromise.
For those of us who studied organizational theory, it feels like a thoughtful counterweight to the Garbage Can Model: that swirling mix of problems, people, and solutions we once dissected in grad school—and later, lived in real time.
Adaptive leadership doesn’t pretend to clean it up.
It helps us move through it—with clarity and courage.
That kind of discernment shaped one of the hardest decisions I’ve ever made: to restructure my team, knowing it would lead to my own role being eliminated. In effect, I laid myself off.
It was painful. But it was also freeing.
Because it gave rise to something I’ve been carrying quietly for the last 18 months or so:
A book about how to approach layoffs with care, compassion, and integrity.
Today, on my birthday, Letting the Good Ones Go is officially out in the world.
It’s not just a leadership guide. It’s a reflection of what I’ve learned—and what I hope others might carry with them when the choices get hard and the path isn’t clear.
If you’re facing your own crossroads—personally, professionally, or somewhere in between—I just want to say: you’re not alone.
There’s wisdom in the questions.
And sometimes, letting go makes room for something better.
Thanks for being here.
And if you do pick up the book, I’d love to hear what resonates.
Letting the Good Ones Go: A Leader’s Guide to Approaching Layoffs with Care and Compassion
EarthBlog, signing off.
