As CEO of Guardian Life—a $90 billion mutual insurer—Deanna Mulligan had engineered a textbook succession that started when she first took the job. Over a 10-year interval, she developed a deep management bench and hit vital KPIs for progress and efficiency. And he or she helped the board choose and transition to an ideal successor.
And but, on her final day—the supposed celebration of a profession excessive level—the sensation blindsided her: “It was like slicing off an arm.”
For CEOs, that is the half no person warns you about. Chances are you’ll swear you’ll by no means look again—however strolling away out of your life’s greatest stage can really feel like amputating a part of your id. Even when the transition is fastidiously orchestrated, it’s hardly ever comfy. It’s usually existential. After a decade of preparation, leaving nonetheless compelled a chilling query: Is that this the final time I’ll matter this a lot?
1. The exit at all times feels larger than you count on. Mulligan wasn’t caught off guard by the enterprise mechanics of succession. She had groomed her replacements years forward of time. “It’s what world-class firms do—we develop nice expertise,” she stated. And but, she confessed, “The best impression I’ve ever had may be over.”
2. Your predecessor could also be extra fragile than you suppose. This emotional turbulence is usually hidden from view. Successors are likely to assume that the outgoing CEO—particularly one as achieved as Mulligan—should really feel assured, even relieved. However that’s hardly ever the entire story. “Many really feel the burden of an impending finish to the best, most essential a part of their profession and perhaps their life,” we wrote in CEO Prepared: The right way to Earn & Preserve the Job (Harvard Enterprise Overview, November 2025). Mulligan’s reflections reveal the hidden humanity behind the title. As a CEO candidate, the CEO you admire could also be feeling quiet panic behind the polished handoff. “Don’t overestimate their consolation,” she cautions. Don’t mistake energy for peace.
3. Reinvention requires launch. Mulligan’s subsequent chapter didn’t start till she let go of what others anticipated from her. Retirement, it turned out, wasn’t restful. Not that she was idle: She wrote books, served on main excessive impression model title boards for public firms and nonprofits—all nice causes. It simply wasn’t the life she needed to reside at this level in her profession. “Acquaintances would unintentionally disgrace me into representing all ladies,” she admitted—pressed to affix extra boards, give again extra and stay within the highlight. Everybody had a “ought to” for her. However when she launched the burden of expectation, one thing enthralling emerged: the chance to steer a disruptive insure-tech startup. “It was by no means a aim,” she stated. “But it surely’s now a brand new sort of thrill.”
4. Everybody has a imaginative and prescient for you. Now that we’ve seen the fee and necessity of letting go, it’s price revisiting how leaders get there within the first place. Mulligan’s transition started with a torrent of exterior expectations. “Everybody has a imaginative and prescient for you,” she stated, “however sadly it’s not precisely yours.” Associates, colleagues and even household projected their values onto her profession path—well-meaning, however not aligned along with her personal.
5. You may’t uncover what’s subsequent till you’ve launched what was. That is certainly one of Mulligan’s best management insights for the remainder of us in any transition: As a excessive achiever, it’s not about discovering one thing significant however the overabundance of excessive impression roles. “You’re drowning in an ocean of nice and vital alternatives,” Marshall Goldsmith usually recounts. The actual risk to your impression isn’t shortage—it’s surplus. Reinvention isn’t an act of momentum—it’s an act of subtraction. The extremely proficient govt doesn’t endure from lack of selection, however from the shortcoming to say no to the nice in favor of the good. When she stopped doing every little thing for everybody else, she created area to reconnect with what she needed on this subsequent chapter.
6. Don’t ought to on your self. And that’s the ultimate takeaway. The CEO position—and no matter follows it—should be pursued in your phrases. Not as a result of it checks a field. Not as a result of others suppose you owe it to them or to the world. However as a result of it’s the life you select to steer—repeatedly. Even essentially the most achieved leaders should come to phrases with the emotional weight of letting go. However when you give your self permission to pause, to hear inwardly and to launch what now not suits—you simply would possibly uncover the following chapter of your future that’s not solely thrilling, however deeply impactful at simply the precise second in your already superb life.
