Survival Tip #150

Brett Favre

I am a big fan of Brett Favre. I loved watching him play because it reminded me so much of backyard football. The guy made the game fun. Even when he retired, and unretired, and retired, again and again I still rooted for him. Hell I still think he could step into a lot of teams and kick ass(especially since every year there are new rules protecting the QB).

However, had he stepped down the first time he retired, it would be hard to say anything bad about his tenure at the Packers. People who were looking for reasons to hate this man would have had few to pick from, but because of his indecision on when to step down his image became tarnished.

The lesson to learn from this story is even if you are a great leader there will come a day that someone better comes along. If you can recognize when the next person is ready to take the reigns you should step down gracefully and become supportive of the new leader. If you bow out while you are on top you will be remembered well and just because you’ve stepped down as leader, doesn’t mean your productive days are over.