Changing Leaders

The letter said all good things come to an end.

It's from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation which is continuing it's current trend of throwing out the old to do something else.

Now they are killing the Community Health Leadership Program.

"Community Health Leaders are an extraordinary group of creative, health care service providers, health advocates and authentic leaders whose work often serves as the catalyst for changes in communities across the U.S."

This comes a few months after that the Foundation also decided to kill the Local Funding Partners Program.

"It was named as one of RWJF's Top 40 Programs, Local Funding Partnerships used community-based interventions to improve the health and health care of underserved and vulnerable populations from 1988 to 2011."

Things that have been extraordinary for decades are now apparently rather ordinary.

"All things must pass," George Harrison taught and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation is continuing to move on to new things under the leadership of a new General.

This is important to me for several reasons. I'm a Community Health Leader, a Local Funding Partner recipient and a member of it's National Advisory Committee.

It's fascinating to see old leaders, answers and solutions done away with by those professing to have better solutions.

That's part of leadership though isn't it?

Knowing when to boldly move in new directions or when to gracefully step aside.  The hardest trait of them all is to allow the new leaders to do new things ... even though they may not be the right things.

It's alright.

Having no choice in these matters, I've moved on to.

"You've come full circle," my fellow Community Health Leader Lucy Hall told me recently as we spoke at Morehouse School of Medicine. "You've reclaimed your roots, helping people who are desperate for help, damn what the leaders tell you."

It's true, now at Micheal Elliott Enterprises I'm all about helping people find hope when they're use to fear. Like my fellow leaders at the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, it's all about moving forward, even if you're left behind.

Don't get me wrong. I am forever indebted to the Foundation. It enriched my life and introduced me to scores of incredible people and wonderful friends. Together, we changed a corner or two of the world.

The Foundation likes to do big things which merit lots of attention so it can continue to be a national leader in the health care world.

I wish them the best.

As for me, it's about one-one-one connections. Finding people where they're at, extending a helping hand to help get them to where they can be is more important.

In the end, as the Talmud says, the world will be changed ... one neighbor at a time.

I believe that's true.