Holding Out For A Hero?

A few months ago, I learned that my good friend and esteemed colleague Gary Stebick would be retiring from Imagine! next year, after spending thirty plus years of his life dedicated to our organization and the people we serve. Gary and I started working at Imagine! at around the same time and we have been close ever since, so his retirement really hits home.

But it isn’t just Gary who is leaving this field of serving individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities in which we work. All around me, not just at Imagine! but across the state and indeed the country, I am seeing people who have dedicated their lives to improving the quality of life of some of our most vulnerable citizens stepping down from positions of leadership. In just this year alone, several Colorado Community Centered Board Executives who have my deep respect have or will step down after years of service. It is happening within advocacy organizations and at the State level as well.

This trend isn’t surprising. Many of the leaders in our field are members of a baby boomer generation that heard the siren call of a career path involving service to their fellow human beings and were unable to resist. They served with dedication and compassion, and created amazing opportunities for community engagement for individuals with cognitive disabilities that would have been unthinkable a few decades ago. But they are reaching the point where they simply can’t continue to serve in leadership roles.

While the trend is not surprising, the lack of meaningful planning to replace these leaders as they head off to new adventures is surprising. Surprising and disturbing, in fact. I just don’t see much happening in our field in the way of developing the next generation of leaders. I’m not sure why this is. Maybe people are in denial. Maybe it is assumed new leaders will develop organically. Maybe they are holding out for a hero. 


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The thing is, the heroes are already here. They are already working for us. There are so many intelligent, dedicated, and capable people working in our field who could easily take the reins and take our country even further down the path toward full inclusion for the people we serve. But it won’t just happen. Being a great Direct Support Professional doesn’t mean that a person will also be a great manager or leader. Those are different skill sets, and we need to start developing those managerial and leadership skill sets in our younger employees before it is too late. There is a lot of opportunity for the next generation of leaders to grow, but those of us in charge of making that growth happen have been extremely remiss in cultivating those opportunities.

Even at Imagine!, where we have a Leadership Development Program that I am extremely proud of, we still haven’t fully figured out how to continue to support participants after they complete the program. We must carry the momentum and recognize opportunities for growth especially among those we have identified as potential leaders for our organization.

So I encourage all of us to look more strategically at leadership development in our field. The current leaders have done amazing things over the years to further the cause of inclusion for people of all levels of abilities. But we risk losing some of what we have gained if we don’t make the necessary preparations to ensure that the next generation of leaders can pick up right where we left off.

Then again, what do I know?