
Why leaders should learn to value the boundary spanners
Entrepreneurial talent who work with other teams often run into trouble with their managers. Here are ways to get the most out of your ‘boundary spanners’...
by Michael D. Watkins, Chris Donkin Published May 9, 2025 in Brain Circuits • 4 min read
a. Yes! I’ve already booked us on a three-month cruise with your extended family.
b. Good idea – let’s have weekly brunch brainstorms.
c. Do you mean together together, or just at home at the same time?
a. Great! We can hang out in a way we haven’t done for years.
b. Sure – as long as they understand this house still runs on a performance-review system.
c. This is how it starts. Next thing you know, I’ll be doing their laundry again.
a. Buy matching monogrammed robes and host quarterly ‘Grandkid Strategy Summits’.
b. Build them a LEGO family organizational chart.
c. Explain that you’re not a CEO anymore (and boy, do you regret it).
a. Drafting a household mission statement and assigning KPIs to the vacuuming.
b. Outsourcing laundry to a third-party vendor (aka the cleaner).
c. Faking a Zoom call until the topic changes.
a. Use your status as head of ‘the firm’ to mediate all internecine disputes.
b. Tell war stories from the corporate trenches.
c. Fall fast asleep in your rocking chair by 8:30pm.
Mostly As: You’re the new family COO (Chief Off-duty Officer). Retirement hasn’t slowed your leadership; it has merely shifted your focus – in a good way.
Mostly Bs: You’re starting to adapt, but you need a different kind of strategy now.
Mostly Cs: Sounds like you could do with a family onboarding package – see below.
Retirement requires carefully renegotiating roles, responsibilities, and decision-making processes in the domestic sphere. This needs sensitivity to existing patterns and recognition that domestic efficiency may not align with corporate management principles.
Retirement expectations often differ significantly among family members. These differences extend beyond daily routines to encompass fundamental questions about lifestyle, time allocation, and future plans. Resolving these differences requires the kind of strategic thinking you applied to corporate challenges, but with an added layer of emotional complexity.
The development of new shared activities and interests is crucial in retirement. This requires building new patterns of interaction and finding fresh ways to connect outside the familiar context of business life. The goal is to develop activities that create mutual engagement while respecting individual interests and needs.
Preserving individual autonomy while increasing togetherness is a crucial challenge. This balance requires a conscious effort to maintain separate interests and activities while building a new shared life.
Moving from having limited family time to being constantly present demands careful navigation. The key is to develop patterns that allow for independence and togetherness, creating a sustainable rhythm for your new phase of life.
The Executive’s Guide to Retirement: Making Peace and Building Your Next Chapter (The European Business Review, issue May-June 2025).
Preparing Leaders For The Next Chapter: Tips For A Fulfilling Retirement
Coping with the Stress of Retirement
Retiring CEOs: how to avoid the pitfalls of leaving the top job
Professor of Leadership and Organizational Change at IMD
Michael D Watkins is Professor of Leadership and Organizational Change at IMD, and author of The First 90 Days, Master Your Next Move, Predictable Surprises, and 12 other books on leadership and negotiation. His book, The Six Disciplines of Strategic Thinking, explores how executives can learn to think strategically and lead their organizations into the future. A Thinkers 50-ranked management influencer and recognized expert in his field, his work features in HBR Guides and HBR’s 10 Must Reads on leadership, teams, strategic initiatives, and new managers. Over the past 20 years, he has used his First 90 Days® methodology to help leaders make successful transitions, both in his teaching at IMD, INSEAD, and Harvard Business School, where he gained his PhD in decision sciences, as well as through his private consultancy practice Genesis Advisers. At IMD, he directs the First 90 Days open program for leaders taking on challenging new roles and co-directs the Transition to Business Leadership (TBL) executive program for future enterprise leaders, as well as the Program for Executive Development.
Chris Donkin is Managing Partner at Savannah Group. He advises clients operating at the intersection between established industrial markets and disruptive new technologies on how to identify, attract, and develop leaders with the attributes to succeed in an increasingly volatile and complex business environment.
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