Let Me Tell You How It Ends
How facing the end makes you a freer leader
Welcome to Frank Takeaways. I'm Frank, writing the notes worth keeping from decades at companies like Slack, Etsy, and Google. I run a coaching practice dedicated to guiding leaders through the tricky stuff of building products and high-performing teams.
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Remember that feeling of senioritis? That sweet spot after exams but before graduation. The weight's lifted. You're looser, bolder. Like you could probably dunk or at least convince yourself to try.
In the working world, there's a version of this too: when you've announced you're leaving but haven't left yet. The air feels different. Colleagues knock on your door to talk. You have some of the best conversations of your tenure. The vibes are good.
But not every ending is a celebration.
The more senior you get, the more you realize: most roles don't end with a standing ovation. They end with a quiet shift of attention elsewhere. A team's energy moves on. One day you're at the center of the room. The next, the room has reoriented itself and you're standing by the door.
And yet, you can still feel a weight off your shoulders.
It's not failure. It's not even personal. It's just how leadership — and careers — actually work.
Walking the Course Backward
I learned this lesson early. Not in tech. On a cross-country course.
In high school, I ran cross-country to stay in shape for tennis season. I wasn't the fastest on the team, so I was always looking for an edge. I had a ritual for every new course: I'd walk it backward, starting at the finish line.
I wanted to know exactly how it ended. Where the brutal hills hid behind blind corners. Where the trail turned from gravel to soft dirt. Could I make a pass here? Where the crowd thinned out, and it would just be me, my legs, and my lungs.
Knowing the end didn't make the race easier, it made it clearer. I could pace myself better. Push when it mattered. Block passes at the right corners. I didn't waste energy pretending the hill wasn't coming — I planned for it.
That practice turned uncertainty into strategy. It made the invisible visible.
Leadership Terrain Is Always Moving
Leadership roles are built on shifting ground. After all, leadership roles exist because of the absence of and the opportunity or desire for more.
In some leadership roles, you're lucky to last longer than a college quarterback. NCAA coaches average just 3.7 seasons in Division I football. Nearly 70% of head coaches won't outlast the players they recruit. And they're expected to win while building the team that replaces them.
The terrain shifts fastest under leaders responsible for customer satisfaction, product success, and market performance. There is one throat to squeeze, and it's yours. If it's that way on top, there's always a ripple effect below.
That realization doesn't make you cynical. It makes you clear-eyed. It frees you to stop performing for permanence.
The real leadership race isn't a marathon. It's a relay. Your job isn't to cling to the baton forever. It's to run your leg brilliantly, and pass it stronger than you found it. That's it.
You push when it matters. You create value. You stand your ground when it's right. You invest in people and systems, not just perception. You build for the long term, even if you aren't the last person standing.
This isn't just theory. Remember that senioritis freedom I mentioned? It's real in professional exits too. After resignation, the filters come off. You give unvarnished feedback, coach without hedging, name systemic issues directly, and focus on substance over politics.
Research confirms this phenomenon: studies in The Open Psychology Journal and Harvard Business Review show psychological safety spikes when employees know they're leaving. They finally speak their full truth.
A Moment That Changed How I Led
I didn't always see it this way.
Years ago, I led product at a growing startup. I had a strong team, meaningful work, and we were making progress, though never quite at the pace investors wanted. The CEO, doing what CEOs should do, was constantly exploring different growth levers.
Every quarter, we'd discuss potential reorgs. Each time, I'd spiral: How would this affect the roadmap? My role? My team? My influence? I'd spend precious mental energy gaming out scenarios, preparing defenses for decisions that hadn't even been made.
The anxiety was exhausting. Worse, it was distracting me from actually leading. Instead of focusing on the race I was running, I was constantly looking over my shoulder. I was playing defense when my team needed offense.
Then one day, what I'd feared happened. A major reorg was announced without my input, effectively sidelining my position. But strangely, instead of panic, I felt... clarity. The thing I'd been dreading had arrived, and suddenly I wasn't wasting energy fighting shadows anymore.
That's when a simple truth hit me: this wasn't my company. I had influence but not control. No amount of worry would change decisions made above me. Once I truly accepted this, it was liberating.
With nothing left to protect, I could focus entirely on ensuring a smooth transition and finishing strong. The irony was striking: when I finally accepted that every role is temporary, I gained the freedom to lead authentically. I stopped calculating "will this help me stay longer?" with every decision.
Running a Smarter Race
The research confirms what experience taught me: accepting the temporary nature of your role doesn't just prepare you for the end. It transforms how you lead right now.
Herminia Ibarra's work shows that leaders who hold their roles with open hands rather than clenched fists demonstrate greater creativity and risk tolerance. Studies in the Frontiers in Psychology reveal that this acceptance mindset correlates with higher resilience and lower stress in the present, not just during transitions.
This mindset shifts your leadership in immediate, tangible ways:
You make decisions based on what the business needs — not what protects your title.
You have difficult conversations today — instead of postponing them until "someday."
You build systems that scale — beyond your personal bandwidth.
You develop your team for their futures — not just your current needs.
You focus on lasting impact — not temporary approval.
The most liberating truth isn't that all roles eventually end. It's that accepting this reality frees you to lead more boldly while you're still in them. You become dangerous in the best way: a leader anchored to values rather than fears, focused on impact rather than tenure.
Closing the Loop
In leadership, the most important moves happen long before the final sprint. They happen in how you read the course. How you pace yourself. How you work today, knowing you won't always be there tomorrow.
I once had a boss that would repeatedly tell me, "You know I don't need this job." It was a strange flex from a serial entrepreneur with multiple exits. I'd think, "I get it, but I need this job. Why tell me?"
Perhaps it wasn't just a flex but his coping mechanism. His way of claiming freedom in uncertainty by speaking it into existence.
You might not get the sunset ending. You might not hear the applause at the exact time you want.
But the only thing worse than the race ending is not running your race, your way, all the way to the end.
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