Dream with me a bit ... your sabbatical is coming. Maybe it's in 8 weeks, maybe 8 months. You've started planning:

✓ Identified interim leadership
✓ Created coverage plans
✓ Communicated with your board
✓ Blocked your calendar

Here's what you probably haven't planned: Your return.

I see this constantly in my work providing interim leadership for nonprofits—thoughtful (and in rare cases, meticulous) departure planning, with a hellacious and chaotic re-entry.

Leaders return on their first Monday back to 800 emails, a full calendar, and an unspoken expectation: prove the sabbatical was worth it.

Here's what 20 years of research shows: The Durfee Foundation's sabbatical studies found that re-entry is where sabbaticals either transform organizations or revert to old patterns. The difference? Intentional planning.

What Actually Happened While You Were Gone

Research shows:

• 60-85% of organizations restructure jobs and delegate during sabbaticals
• 60% of boards become more effective through the process
• 80% of people on sabbatical return to their employers
• Teams discover capacity they didn't know they had

Your organization didn't just survive. It likely improved.

Decision-making got faster. Bottlenecks got resolved. Someone implemented the system you'd been meaning to create for two years.

The Week Everyone Skips

Your re-entry calendar probably starts with "Week 1: Monday."

It should start with "Week -1: Sunday."

You're asking your brain to shift from sabbatical mode back to leadership mode. That doesn't happen by flipping a switch at 8am Monday.

Week -1 Protocol:

Monday: Review organizational updates sent during sabbatical (if you've been honoring boundaries, you haven't been reading these in real-time)

Tuesday/Wednesday: 15-minute check-ins with board chair and interim leadership—not to dive into details, just to reconnect

Thursday: Review your Week 1 calendar and block off 50% of Monday

Friday: Mental transition day—journal, plan, ease back toward work thinking

(the BIPOC ED Coalition's research emphasizes this pre-return buffer as essential for leaders navigating cultural pressure to immediately resume overwork patterns)

Your First Month Back (The Real Roadmap)

WEEK 1: Observe & Listen (50% capacity)

• Email triage only. Don't respond to everything
• No meetings during week 1!
• Protected reflection time (non-negotiable calendar blocks)

WEEK 2: Integrate (60-75% capacity)

• Board chair check-in
• 1:1 with interim leadership—ask "What worked better while I was gone?"
• 1:1s with key staff. Ask everyone: "What worked better while I was gone?" Listen for patterns.
• Integration Session—90 minutes with board liaison, interim team, and you to decide what changes become permanent.

WEEKS 3-4: Gradual Full Re-Entry (75-90% capacity)

• Implement ONE permanent change based on sabbatical learnings.
• Consider post-sabbatical debrief with full staff.
  ​Every Friday: Check-in with relaunch buddy or coach.

What Your Interim Team Actually Needs

Want to know what most sabbatical plans miss? Supporting the people who held it down. O2 Sabbatical Awards allocate $15,000 for interim leadership stipends. Clare Rose provides $4,000. This isn't gratitude, but is instead compensation for real additional work.

Your interim team needs:

1. Financial recognition for expanded responsibilities
2. Debriefing space to process what they learned
3. Clarity on what delegation stays permanent
4. Professional development acknowledgment for capacity they built

Sabbaticals succeed long-term when organizational capacity gains are institutionalized, not abandoned upon return.

The Hardest Part (That No One Talks About)

You will likely return from sabbatical with clarity about:

• Boundaries you want to maintain
• Delegation that proved itself
• Work you don't actually need to do
• A slower pace that serves you

Then you walk into:

• "Just one quick question" that derails your morning
• Meetings you used to attend (do you still need to?)
• Decisions you used to make (should you still?)
• A pace that exhausts you within two weeks

Integration requires active choice:

→ Name 3 non-negotiable boundaries. Put them in your calendar.
→ Keep one delegation that worked. Make it permanent.
→ Maintain one practice from sabbatical (walking, reading, morning routine).
→ Schedule a 3-month check-in on these commitments.

Research shows leaders who successfully integrate learnings shift organizational culture around work/life balance—benefiting everyone.

But this only happens when you actively protect what you learned instead of letting organizational momentum pull you back.

This Is Actually About Succession Planning

From years of interim leadership work, here's what I know: Sabbaticals are practice for the inevitable. People Leave™. Leaders retire. Roles change. Life happens.

Your sabbatical tested your succession plan in a controlled way. It revealed:

• Leadership capacity you might not have known existed
• Which systems actually need your direct involvement
• Which processes have been running on autopilot disguised as necessity

That knowledge is gold. Don't waste it by reverting the moment you return.

What We've Created For You

A full sabbatical re-entry guide with research, specific protocols, and practical tools:

→ The complete 4-week re-entry calendar
→ Common challenges and how to navigate them
→ What your interim team needs (with research-backed protocols)
→ Integration strategies that actually stick

Read the full article here: Coming Back from Sabbatical: Why re-entry deserves the same planning as your leave. ​

Plus, I created The Re-Entry Roadmap—a one-page visual guide with fillable fields for your dates, notes, and commitments. For email subscribers, just reply "send it over!" and we'll send you that PDF resource.

One More Thing

The most important recommendation I have for leaders returning from sabbatical: Take it slow.

It's easy to be lulled into societal pressure to come back on Day One ready to jump right back into the hectic pace you left. The best re-entries happen when teams create roadmaps for returning leaders—filled with key knowledge, a planned strategy for resuming meetings, and clear paths for reintegrating without reverting.

Your organization invested in your sabbatical through coverage, funding, and the work of people who stepped up.

Don't let the return undo all of it.

Plan the re-entry. Honor the team. Integrate the lessons.

Organizations prepared for sabbatical re-entry are prepared for every transition.

Need support planning your sabbatical or re-entry?

Reply to this email. Whether you need help with sabbatical planning, interim leadership during your leave, or a structured re-entry roadmap—let's make sure your sabbatical investment actually transforms your organization instead of evaporating on Day One.

Here's to Leaving Well (and coming back better),