“I can’t think of anyone who can do this better than you.”
— Abel Chikomo
Many times in the life of a leader, you are tempted to doubt yourself, and you want to hear these words. They encourage you because they express confidence in your capacity to lead. But beyond these words, are even more powerful words:
“We will help you.”
These two phrases are important. The first phrase is an affirmation of your assignment. There is work that needs to be done in the arena and it is work that only you can do. This is your unique assignment.
The second phrase reminds you that no matter how good you may be as a leader, you can’t lead alone. Someone must walk with you.
I heard these two phrases on the same day and they meant a lot to me.
In my last installment, I wrote,
“Every leader, in your arena, you must know that you have a specific assignment. You must know your assignment and dedicate yourself to accomplishing it. You will be guided by the law of victory. Your assignment must be clear. It must be so clear that when you have accomplished it, there is no guesswork. It must be very clear to you and everyone that the job is done. When the job is done, you have to move on before you start undoing your good work. Knowing this from day one is what allows you to watch carefully the transition window, so that you do not miss it.”
Let me say this plainly: the art of letting go does not begin at the exit. It begins at the entrance. The day you step into the arena, you must already know what would constitute completion. If you do not define the assignment at the beginning, you will not recognize its end when it arrives.
When Abel spoke to me, he helped me define and understand my assignment at ZimRights. I don’t know if he knows the depth of that moment but it caused a significant shift in me and gave me perspective. With the right perspective, a leader shifts his or her mindset for the journey ahead.
The Arena and the Credibility Crisis
My dramatic entry into ZimRights created in me this deep awareness of my assignment. Several people came to me and told me I was in the wrong place. They said ZimRights was so broken it could not be saved.
“It is beyond redemption.”
One even warned that I was going to damage my own credibility and compromise my character.
“Havashandike navo vanhu avo, tinovaziva.”
“These people are beyond redemption, we know them,” they said.
From this language, one can put their finger on where the problem was: Credibility. At my farewell breakfast meeting, one of our development partners used the perfect language to describe this: “The brand needed cleaning.”
The credibility of the movement had been so damaged, a lot of people believed that it was beyond redemption. There was almost a national consensus.
In that moment of crisis, my assignment became unmistakably clear.
Rebuild credibility.
Restore the people’s movement.
Reconnect stakeholders.
Nothing more. Nothing less.
But first, I needed to confront and oppose the national consensus that had written ZimRights off and believed that its chapter was done. There was so much noise in the space, and it was difficult to make sense of it. But in the noise, there were some voices, beneath the noise, that spoke a different language. Abel’s voice was clear beneath the noise. “I think you can do this.”
My predecessor, Okay Machisa’s voice had clarity. “Mhazi,” Machisa would say, “Chinosimuka chinhu ichi.”
Minefields vs. Flower Gardens
And so I rolled up my sleeves and stepped into the arena. This is the time when these words by Roosevelt make sense:
“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood…”
When I stepped into the arena, I understood one thing. Leadership is about solving problems.
Just a few weeks ago, I got a call from a colleague who is taking up a leadership role in an organization that is confronting its own problems. He said to me he was worried that he was walking into a minefield. My response was that “a minefield is the perfect definition of leadership.” In that minefield lies your leadership assignment.
In leadership, there are two types of roles waiting for you out there. You can either be a caretaker or a change agent. I explained to him that he was being invited to become a change agent.
“But if this worries you, then you probably are not looking to become a change agent. You are looking for a caretaker role. Murikutsvagawo pekungonotenderera muchichekerera maruva. (You are just looking for a place to walk around and take care of the flowers.) If you want to be a change agent, then you must know that change is about solving problems. Real problems. You must choose your arena carefully. The minefield or the flower garden. And don’t feel bad about your choice.”
The Turning Point: The Mojos Signal
Here are just a few examples of my own drama in the first six months of leadership. First, I walk in and realize that my salary would be USD 275. I resigned, later to return after my call with Abel. I was determined to hit the road and start community mobilization. Reconnecting with the communities meant doing a lot of community work. I spent January and February 2020 preparing the groundwork. As we were ready to get into action, COVID-19 announced its advent and the government responded with a lockdown on 30 March 2020. How do you lead the revival of a grassroots movement by working from home? Unbelievable.
As we navigated this challenge, in April 2020, I received a letter of demand from one development partner requesting that ZimRights pay back over USD 500,000. The letter hit my inbox as I was preparing to sign a new grant with that partner. More partners would make similar demands in the same year. Wow. How sweet.
Now, these are just a few of the challenges I faced in the first year as I grappled with my assignment. It would be a good motivational speech for me to say, “I always knew that we would prevail.” The truth is, I began to believe those who had told me this was beyond redemption.
I remember one day, sitting in my office, wondering if this was the last month of operation for ZimRights. And I decided to make one last call, after which we would begin the process of shutting down. It was a call to a colleague at one of the development partners. He asked me to come to the office. We sat in the garden. And I told him, “Maybe it’s time to close.” He said, well, let’s try one more thing.
“We do not have the kind of money that would save your organization. But we have convening power. Why don’t I bring around a group of development partners for lunch and we give you time to tell your story.”
It was so agreed. The group gathered at Mojos in the Avondale area. I stepped forward to tell the story of a movement that Zimbabweans built over three decades ago to fight for human rights.
Over the years, it had grown to 250,000 ordinary people who wanted to continue this work. These 250,000 had become the foundation for citizen engagement, supporting the community advocacy ecosystem, ensuring that those who want to monitor human rights can use this grassroots base to be present when it matters most. Ensuring that those who want to observe elections have an endless pool of activists ready to do the dangerous work, and ensuring that those who want to reach communities with urgent humanitarian support have ready partners on the ground. When the Constitution reform movement emerged, ZimRights mobilized its grassroots structures, led from the front and played its part in birthing a new constitutional dispensation. With new threats emerging against the Constitution and constitutionalism, a new billboard stands at ZimRights House, declaring boldly, “Hands-off the People’s Constitution.” But all this was coming to an end, unless we did something about it.
In less than an hour, we unpacked the challenges, I shared my vision, and we interrogated the options. The main outcome of that meeting was important for the next steps. The brand was strong. The movement was needed. And the support for the work would come.
The rest, as they say, is history. We did not shut down. We did not only survive. We thrived and the people’s movement is strong.
What was that signal? It was not emotion. It was evidence. The stakeholders who had walked away returned to the table. The development partners who had written the brand off were willing to test it again. The internal team regained confidence. The communities still believed the movement was theirs. Once credibility was restored and the ecosystem reconnected, my assignment, to rehabilitate the brand and reposition the movement for sustainability, had reached its logical conclusion. The work was still to be done, but I could see the future clearly. The fog cleared and it was just a matter of time. From that point forward, the work was about consolidation and succession, not rescue.
Lazarus vs. Phoenix: When to Let Go
But let’s reflect on this and why it matters for the art of letting go.
Every leader must navigate that jagged edge where personal leadership choices interface with institutional priorities. Making the decision to shut down an organization is not an easy decision. It is heavy on the leader. I say so because I almost made that decision.
The heavy question is: When does a leader choose to walk away rather than be the one to shut the doors on the organization?
Not every organization has a positive turnaround story like ZimRights. There are cases when a leader must proceed and turn off the lights, shut the door and say goodbye to the team.
What are the factors to help a leader decide that this is a turnaround story and I must persevere, or this is a sunset? The organization has run its course and we must shut down. What are the factors to consider for a leader to say this brand can be rehabilitated and when can she say it is beyond redemption?
I asked these questions to a group of leaders currently helping me unpack the ‘Art of Letting Go.’ From their reflections, these are my conclusions. The decision to close an organization is a form of letting go that needs to be guided by some key leadership principles:
- Mission Relevance: Before we close an organization, we must confront the question of mission. Has the organization accomplished the goal for which it was set to accomplish? If yes, then mindful sunsetting is justifiable. History, however, records some leaders, for their own personal gain, may decide to continue driving an organization whose mission has ended. When that happens, the organization loses legitimacy. It becomes a personal vehicle with institutional license plates.
- The Lazarus Approach: Sometimes the mission has not yet been accomplished but the brand has been damaged so severely, it can no longer be rehabilitated. In this case, we have the Lazarus approach and the Phoenix approach. Under the Lazarus approach, we can read the verdict that the brand is tattered but the soul is intact. In this case, with credible change-oriented leadership, the brand can be rehabilitated. What makes you know that you have a Lazarus scenario are the market signals, the resuscitation cost and the leadership commitment to deal with the past and recommit to the future.
- The Phoenix Approach: Under the Phoenix approach, the brand is so butchered beyond recognition that it becomes a liability. The leader becomes a strategic midwife to guide the organization towards a mindful sunset. Making a deliberate decision to sunset the organization allows the leadership to protect the legacy, shape the narrative, and care for the people who served the organization through a dignified exit. This approach, though avoided by many, is ethical leadership transition. Those who see that the brand is butchered, but for their own personal ego, insist on pushing further, commit many silent atrocities along the way. The organization starts underpaying its people, the quality of work goes down, the communities that it is supposed to serve are orphaned, only the logo and the stamp exist, with the Director running solo missions and personal errands on the organization’s cost. And yet no real work is done. For all intents and purposes, it is an empty shell.
In such cases, when such a decision has to be made, boards must step forward and provide leadership accompaniment.
The Mandela Measure and the Entitlement Trap
When I look back on my moment of truth in interrogating these options, I am grateful that I received very close accompaniment from both my predecessor and the board Chairperson. The final brand test for me was the call to my colleague and that chat in the garden. He had a perfect idea. Let’s test this brand and see if our stakeholders still believe in it. If they do, you roll up your sleeves and get to work.
And that is what happened. As soon as I got the signal, I knew the arc had changed. What remained was transition. It would be a matter of time.
When the community you serve believes in the work, and in the brand, your assignment becomes a vocation. But remember, you must not get carried away. One leader in the TAC warned that the danger that faces a turnaround leader is the seduction of power. Just because you have turned the organization around is not an excuse to hold on, even when the time to let go has come. This was the problem we witnessed in Robert Mugabe and his protégés here in Zimbabwe.
I had to confront that temptation personally. After the turnaround, there were moments when I felt indispensable. The crisis years create intimacy between leader and institution. But I reminded myself constantly: if the organization cannot function without me, then I have failed in building sustainability. A change agent who becomes a permanent fixture slowly turns into a caretaker. If you are a change agent, you must guard against the temptation that only you can sustain the change that you have won. If the change cannot survive you, then it was never truly change. It was control.
History offers us examples of leaders who understood this discipline.
Nelson Mandela presents the gold standard in the art of letting go, even after phenomenal achievements, holding no one to ransom. After 27 years in prison, he led South Africa through a democratization process. But he made a decision to lead for only one term and step down. For me, he is the perfect example of a leader who understood his assignment—to dismantle apartheid and lead South Africa into a new dispensation. When the assignment was accomplished, he knew it was time to let go.
In his farewell speech delivered on 26 March 1999, Mandela said:
“I hope that decades from now, when history is written, the role of this generation will be appreciated, and that I will not be found wanting against the measure of their fortitude and vision.”
Knowing the assignment and when it has been accomplished is an essential element of the art of letting go.
In the Picture: Gwanda, 1 July 2020. Leadership in a minefield — rebuilding credibility and restoring a people’s movement during lockdown.
Dzikamai Bere is a Civic Leadership Expert, a Conflict Transformation Specialist, Transitional Justice Expert, and Organizational Strategist. He is the former National Director of the Zimbabwe Human Rights Association (ZimRights) and the former Board Chairperson of the Zimbabwe Peace Project (ZPP). He is currently on a sabbatical from frontline engagements, spending time reflecting and documenting his experiences and gaining clarity on his future role. You can follow more of his reflections on leadership, transition, and the “messy middle” at www.theciviclens.org. Comments on this article can be sent to dzikamaibere@gmail.com. For additional notes and resources on the art of letting go, follow the Civic Leadership Community here.