When Leading Courageously Means Stepping Away (Leadership Transitions Series)
- Dorothy Mosby
- Sep 22
- 11 min read
Former VPAA Dorothy Mosby shares her battle with the "Four Horsemen of Higher Education leadership" and the lessons she learned from having the courage to leave
Courageous. That’s a word that I have heard several of my colleagues use to describe me and my leadership. Nevertheless, not even six weeks after starting a position at a new institution, I wrote the first lines of my letter of resignation, and two years later, I finally had the courage to step away. I was already a veteran of the most tumultuous moments of the past decade in higher education, having helped my previous institution navigate complex and uncharted waters. I was exhilarated by the opportunity to serve as the chief academic officer at another college and help support the institution through the internal and external challenges facing our sector. However, just a few weeks into my tenure, I knew that the circumstances were not optimal for my success. This was compounded by some devastating family news.
The weight of stepping away seemed far from the courageous and resolute leader that my colleagues saw. They were unaware of the daily calculations I made, which weighed the high cost of the title and office against the value of caring for my parents and the opportunity to care for myself. In the months leading up to my final departure, as a pro-wrestling fan, I likened my internal battle to wrestling what I call the Four Horsemen of higher education senior leadership: failure, shame, guilt, and loss of identity. However, after stepping away from what some would consider a high-status, senior leadership position, I have done quite a bit of reflection and soul-searching and realized that I did the right thing in prioritizing care over prestige.
Why Leaders Step Away
In the months leading up to my own desire to step away, I connected with a phenomenal group of women leaders. I learned that I was not alone. Many of my colleagues held senior leadership roles, but several found themselves in transition after stepping away from their positions. I was shocked, saddened, and angered by the countless stories of toxic institutional environments with unfortunate tales of narcissistic, authoritarian, or unethical provosts, presidents, and chancellors who can dazzle governing boards with their charisma and abundant displays of confidence that come at the cost of the well-being of senior leaders and their institutions. There were stories of sexism, racism, and misogynoir.
Leaders also step away because our institutions are not well-equipped to counter the damaging effects of burnout. The relentless pace of managing crises, budget cuts, fluctuating enrollments, and persistent scrutiny on top of managing daily operations results in the feelings of chronic stress and languishing that Lisa Jasinski presents in her book Stepping Away: Returning to the Faculty After Senior Academic Leadership. In addition to burnout, some leaders step away due to a misalignment between their personal values and institutional decisions or directions, or the need to care for loved ones, whether it’s young children, aging parents, or a spouse dealing with a serious illness. Leaders also step away to take care of their own health or simply to recapture the joy that has been relegated to the basement due to the primacy of professional demands. Stepping away opens the door to reconnecting with teaching, writing, scholarship, or simply the freedom to control how one spends one’s own time.
My Story
For me, it was the convergence of two major life forces – one personal and the other professional. My father was diagnosed with metastatic prostate and lung cancer before I started the position. He had been under at-home hospice care for almost the entire length of my tenure at the college, and he passed away in the fall of my second year. Spending those final weeks with him as he was making his transition was sacred and heartbreaking for our family. It also opened my eyes to the upwardly sloping ladder I had been on, which made moments like this one, sitting at the bedside of a loved one, excruciatingly difficult due to the never-ending demand for time, energy, and attention. This major life moment was juxtaposed against what felt like the comparative smallness of the daily tasks of campus leadership. I recognized that my father’s death shifted my priorities, and my career was no longer the outsized presence of my world. As my father was dying in hospice, he asked me to take care of my mother, and I promised him that I would.
Coming back from family and bereavement leave, I was faced with a number of institutional issues. All the while, the 2024 presidential election loomed in the background. I served as an associate dean of faculty in 2016, and I witnessed the aftermath of a campaign that stoked the basest of fears and anxieties. This election cycle brought forth more of the same, along with a new set of convenient scapegoats and enemies; however, this time it was abundantly clear that if one candidate emerged victorious, higher education would be in the crosshairs and much of what we worked for to advance access, inclusion, and equity would be either gutted or severely altered. I knew I had to brace myself for an undesirable outcome. I also carried the sting of two significant moments from 2023. The first was the US Supreme Court’s decision to effectively end affirmative action in college admissions, and the second was the congressional hearing that brought Harvard’s Claudine Gay, Penn’s Liz McGill, and MIT’s Sally Kornbluth before the House Education and Workforce Committee. These two events went beyond excoriating the country’s elite institutions. They made clear that the already damaged value of higher education as a public good would continue to be a convenient target. After reading the directives outlined in Project 2025, I could see the storm coming and knew what it would mean if the political winds blew one way or another.
I looked for hope at the AAC&U meeting in DC in the days after the inauguration, but the February 14 “Dear Colleague Letter” threatened K-12 and post-secondary institutions with the withholding of federal funds if our institutions continued to offer diversity, equity, and inclusion programs, which were now deemed discriminatory. In the wake of this, I watched colleagues at larger public and private institutions close the offices they built, dismiss their staff, and lose their jobs. I also grew increasingly concerned about the growing ICE activities and how they may land at the doorstep of our campuses. Through the years, I taught many students who were international students or the children of immigrants. Some of my students were documented, some were not. Some were from mixed-status families, and some were authorized under Temporary Protected Status (TPS). Some were student activists, and some were not. It was only a matter of time before institutions like mine would be compelled to enact policies that put them at odds with their missions, values, and constituencies. I knew I needed to step away to be in alignment with my own values, but I also had to deal with feelings of failure, shame, guilt, and the loss of part of my identity.
Wrestling with Failure, Shame, Guilt, and Identity
When I was a kid, I loved to watch wrestling with my dad. Yes, I knew it was all fake, but I loved the storylines of professional feuds and (mostly) staged combat, knowing the good guy would come out victorious in the end (most of the time). The Four Horsemen were a group of wrestlers, feared for their dominance in the ring and physical matches. Stepping away, I felt I had to contend with my own battle with emotions associated with failure, shame, guilt, and loss of identity. I labeled these the Four Horsemen of higher education senior leadership:
Failure
A sense of failure is the most brutal horseman of them all. Leaving a senior leadership position can feel like breaking an unspoken contract to see a community through thick and thin. Despite what I taught my students about the lessons of failure and what I know from the examples of successful entrepreneurs and leaders, it was hard for me to accept that stepping down after two years of service is not a sign of defeat or desertion. Channeling my inner Brené Brown allowed me to reframe failure as an opportunity for growth. I came to accept that not only paying attention to, but also actively prioritizing my needs, was neither a failure nor a betrayal of my values. This realization was foundational to my sense of integrity as an empowered and courageous leader. Learning this has set a new course for my future, where I can lead with clarity, compassion, boldness, and resilience without erasing myself in the process.
Shame
I know that shame is not unique to higher education. Still, having been involved in the sector for most of my professional life, I know that academia puts its own special spin on professional shame. It manifests as a sense of not being strong enough, smart enough, knowledgeable enough, or worthy enough. The professional shame also manifests when someone deviates from the expected path. We are, by and large, well-trained to follow a well-trodden, prescribed path to academic and professional success–land a tenure-track job, secure tenure, lead or innovate something, advance to full professor, serve as department or division chair, and so on. Some of this shame stems from the real and imagined professional consequences that come with stepping away. Examples of search committees that eliminated otherwise strong candidates because they didn’t follow the expected prescribed professional pathway immediately come to mind. Or, the suspicion and speculation that come up when someone decides to take care of a loved one instead of following an unbroken chain of successive professional appointments. We are conditioned to believe that we must continually make upward progress, and for leaders, especially, the ladder only goes in one direction: up.
Guilt
The feelings of letting people down can be overwhelming when stepping away from a role. I felt like I was betraying not just the people who still relied on me, but also the legacy of Black women in the academy. According to data reported by The Chronicle of Higher Education, “At public and private nonprofit four-year colleges in the fall of 2019 — the most recent year for which federal data are available — there were 251,921 tenured associate and full professors. Of those, 5,221, or 2.1 percent, were Black women.” As a tenured Black woman who has achieved the rank of full professor, a senior academic leader, and a champion for the advancement of other Black women in the professoriate, I felt the weight of stepping away acutely. I know from sitting in too many meetings where I was the only woman of color around the table, and that if I didn’t raise particular issues or concerns, they would never come up for discussion. Stepping away also meant the continued festering of collective institutional wounds.
Identity
Although senior leaders have friends, families, and lives independent of our workplaces, there is often a deep and abiding connection with both the mission of the institutions we serve and the foundations that led us to enter academia in the first place. Sometimes, these aspects of our individual selves merge with the professional identities we hold. One of my senior leader colleagues makes it a point to say, “I serve in the role of dean/provost/vice president” instead of saying “I am the dean/provost/vice president” to highlight the distinction between her personhood and the role she occupies. Also, stepping away underscored for me how much my sense of purpose was intertwined with my role and identity. Who am I if I am not serving in the role? How can I advance my belief in higher education outside of this position? Will I continue to make an impact?
What I’ve Learned by Stepping Away
In the months since stepping away, I have had an extraordinary opportunity to reassess my non-negotiables. In the process, I have reaffirmed the centrality of family, relationships, health, and my value system. Choosing to care for my mother and my own well-being is a deep responsibility that I embrace, and would have come at great personal cost had I not stepped away. I have also come to realize that leadership does not disappear with the title. I continue to advise, coach, mentor, and support my colleagues with greater freedom because I am no longer beholden to a single institution.
I’ve had to recognize in myself the courage that others saw in me early in my administrative career. In the months leading up to stepping away, I had to contend with my own internal narratives of the consequences of veering off the expected path and being okay to take the risk and “blow up” my career. I also had to realize that, despite my fears, I had to step away for myself. I needed to trust myself to know that stepping off the expected path could also present new opportunities for greater balance in life – something I had been missing for many years.
It has been invaluable to navigate this moment in the company of supportive friends, family, and colleagues. Connecting with current and former senior women leaders has provided me with a community of support. They remind me that stepping away takes courage; it is not a sign of weakness. There is life after administrative work, and even when there is a detour, there are always options ahead. I have found validation from this community of leaders, reminding me that some leaders step away not because they can’t do the job, but because staying in a position exacts too high a price, whether it’s health, relationships, or our integrity. These women also reminded me that, despite the numerous negative examples in our sector, institutional leadership is about service, and it's not synonymous with one’s identity.
As a result of stepping away, I have healthier routines, the ability to spend precious time with my 88-year-old mother, and, importantly, control over my time, authenticity, and voice. It also allows me to have a greater balance and perspective on some of the systemic issues within higher education that promote problematic leadership and a system that, as one colleague shared with me, “chews you up and spits you out.”
For those contemplating this move, it is okay to give yourself permission to prioritize your humanity, integrity, family, health, and sanity. While we love and support our institutions, they are sometimes like bad partners – self-absorbed and incapable of seeing the full you, incapable of loving you back in the ways you need, incapable of seeing the sacrifices you’ve made or the invisible ways you have provided support. Have the courage to make your own “happily ever after” – no matter what it is, and relish the creation of your own story, whatever it is and wherever it leads you.
Dorothy E. Mosby, PhD, is a former senior leader in academic affairs with more than two decades of experience in higher education. A scholar of Afro-Latin American literature and culture, she is the author of several books and essays that explore questions of identity, language, and belonging. In this next chapter of her career, she is drawing on her experience as a coach, mentor, and advocate for higher education to support academic leaders and communities navigating change and renewal. She can be reached via LinkedIn.
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About the Leadership Transitions Series
This article is published by the Free2Lead Blog, hosted by the Center for Liberated Leadership and curated by Founder & CEO, Chinyere Oparah, PhD. Free2Lead amplifies voices of transformational leaders navigating the challenges and possibilities of liberated leadership.
This post is part one of a 3-part series on leadership transitions. Over the past few months, we’ve witnessed a growing wave of leadership transitions in higher education–some chosen, many not. Too often, these shifts carry the weight of workplace trauma, institutional betrayal, and personal sacrifice. In this 3-part series, Free2Lead shares stories, strategies, and practical tools for navigating endings–both abrupt and intentional, healing workplace trauma, and preparing for what’s next.
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About the Center for Liberated Leadership
The Center for Liberated Leadership connects and supports BIPOC, women, LGBTQ and transformational leaders so that they can lead with authenticity, purpose and joy. The Center's executive coaches help leaders navigate uncertain contexts and relentless workloads, beat burnout and maintain sustainable work practices.