Beyond the Succession Plan
Navigating the Personal Side of Leadership Transition
Q&A With Lou Shapiro, Former CEO, Hospital for Special Surgery
When you think about your final year as CEO, what would you do differently?
Start earlier. Once you decide you’re going to leave, you set in motion the succession process for the organization. That becomes the focus. All of my brainpower was directed there. What I would do differently is run two workstreams: one for the organization and another focused on planning what’s next for me.
What was something surprising about your transition process?
The emotional impact totally caught me by surprise: loss of control, separation anxiety, identity crisis, and the fear of being irrelevant. They’re all independent feelings but also connected. And everything hit me like a ton of bricks.
What helped you through this time, and what would’ve made it easier?
The past gets smaller with every step forward. For me, it was setting some objectives for what’s next and having a framework to house that.
What would have made a real difference? Having an advisor—not just to guide the succession pathway, but someone I could speak to candidly about the personal side of the transition: the loss of identity and all the emotions that had been so surprising to me.
There are plenty of resources focused on the organization. But when it comes to your side of it, you’re largely on your own to figure it out. That’s where support, such as the kind MyNextSeason provides, would’ve mattered. It’s the part people rarely talk about, but it’s so important to address.
What do you want other leaders to understand about this transition?
You are the architect of what comes next. If reading a book is what makes you happy, that’s enough. You don’t have to force yourself into a stereotype. If you want another CEO role, that’s great, too. But it’s YOUR choice. The key is not measuring your next chapter against the prior one, but against the purpose you want to fulfill in that chapter.
What advice would you give others starting the process?
You have to give yourself grace and let your brain adapt. What I thought I was going to do in June was different by October. Don’t be rigid about your plan. Reevaluate often. It has to be dynamic and evolve with you.
Lou Shapiro is the Former CEO of Hospital forSpecial Surgery. He is the author of From Seat to Soul: A leadership journey beyond the title, towards what’s next.
