When Leading Means Leaving

Or, What I learned about myself, about leadership, and about the world when I walked away from the organization I founded

A Note from Camille
As many of you know, I recently stepped down from the organization I founded nearly a decade ago. In the final month of that chapter, I sat with thirty days of reflection - on what it meant to build something from scratch, to lead through crisis, and ultimately, to let go.

This essay isn’t a goodbye. It’s a look at what I’ve learned about leadership, about growth, and about what happens when we stop holding on and start becoming.

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On my last day as CEO of Immigrant ARC, I sat in one final huddle, listening as my team outlined plans for a project I had once led. They didn’t need me anymore - and that was the point.

I had built something real, and now I was leaving it behind.

Over the last 9 months, I often wondered what this moment would feel like. From the moment I made the decision it was time to go - to hand the proverbial baton to the next generation of I-ARC leadership - I knew that walking away from the project I created out of thin air and fueled by necessity, with no blueprint for something that had never been done before, would be emotional. From the very beginning, I was adamant I did not want to fall victim to “founder’s syndrome.” I wanted to create something that would outlive me, because anything else felt like it would be an exercise in vanity.

As I entered my last month, I decided to answer a series of prompts - one a day - to help me reflect on what the last five - but really eight and a half - years had meant to me. I knew leadership and the hard work of non-profit start up life had changed me, but I wanted to understand how exactly it had shaped me.

This is what it looked like for me.

The Beginning Was Also an Ending

When I launched I-ARC, I was also ending my marriage. I didn’t realize it then, but those two decisions, both seismic, were deeply connected. One relationship was breaking down. Another, with an idea, a vision, a mission, was just beginning. Both were efforts to reassert agency, to chart a path on my terms. I wanted to build something real, and I wanted to prove - to myself as much as anyone - that I could do it.

I didn’t know what I was doing. I just knew what I believed: that our legal service community needed something different, and that our immigrant lawyers deserved better than a series of disjointed efforts as they defended immigrant New Yorkers against an opaque system designed to make them fail. That collaboration wasn’t a buzzword, it was a necessity. I had spent years inside systems that told me I was too much, too ambitious, too outside the lines, too vocal when I was reprimanded for not falling in line. This was my chance to prove I wasn’t wrong.

But I also needed to prove it to myself. I wanted to see if I could lead. If I could fundraise. If I could build something meaningful without having to ask for permission. With the exception of a couple of years as a solo attorney, I had spent most of my career since law school working within the confines of institutions that were built to be rigid. Neither law practice nor traditional non-profits were made to break the mold. I had butted heads with every attempt to do things differently And so I jumped headfirst into risk, into uncertainty, and into something that would ask more of me than I could have possibly imagined.

What It Took

People think leadership is about big moves. And yes, there were those. We built a statewide network from scratch. We passed laws. We secured millions in funding. We helped thousands of immigrants access justice. We showed up over and over again as our immigration legal system buckled under the pressure of a global displacement crisis that was colliding with government inaction and political polarization.

But that’s not what cost the most.

The cost was emotional. It was physical. It showed up in my body: chronic pain, weight gain, sleepless nights. It showed up in my daughter’s disappointment when I told her I had to work again tonight, or in the frozen microwave meal I reheated her for dinner while I sat on the couch writing emails. It showed up in the way I stopped recognizing who I was when I wasn’t working.

The cost was in the quiet moments: when I had to fire someone and cried after. When I poured myself into building a safe, supportive workplace only to be blindsided by a staffer’s accusations that cut to my core. When I made a mistake and took the hit publicly, while those who agreed with me only whispered their support behind closed doors.

People rarely saw the toll. They saw the title. The public-facing calm. The wins. But behind the scenes, I was carrying all of it - every tension, every funding gap, every conflict between coalition partners, every staff dynamic I didn’t know how to fix.

The early years were thrilling and exhausting in equal measure. We moved fast because we had to, responding to travel bans, family separations, shifting policies, and the sheer unpredictability of immigration law in a broken system. I had no blueprint. I was building culture while writing grant applications, setting up HR while answering media calls, and trying to stay grounded while the world around us spun. Crisis wasn’t the exception, it was the job.

In the midst of that chaos, we grew. We built programs, launched initiatives, welcomed new partners. We fought for funding and carved out space where immigrant legal services had been overlooked.

But I was breaking, too. I didn’t always notice it in the moment. I just kept moving. But the signs were there: I internalized every setback, I stopped prioritizing my own voice, I poured myself into the work hoping it would be enough to hold it all together.

There were wins, yes. But the cost of those wins added up. And somewhere along the way, I began to wonder if I would ever feel whole again.

Becoming a Leader

I used to think I was a leader because I had a vision. But vision without humility isn’t leadership - it’s ego. What I learned, slowly and often painfully, was how to lead from a place of groundedness. How to trust my instincts. How to not over-explain. How to listen more than I spoke.

Leadership meant learning to make unpopular decisions, and live with them. It meant understanding that people would project things onto me that had nothing to do with who I really was. That they didn’t always want my transparency. They wanted my authority. They wanted to feel safe.

That was the loneliest part. I don’t think I truly understood what people meant when they said leadership is lonely until I lived it.

And yet, I wouldn’t change it.

Because through it all, I grew. I became someone who doesn’t flinch when things get hard. Who knows how to sit in discomfort. Who shows up in the middle of the storm, not just for others, but for herself.

I remember a staff meeting where I stopped mid-sentence, took a breath, and said, “I don’t have the answer yet, but I trust us to figure it out.” It was the first time I let go of needing to be the fixer. And they stepped in.

The Grief of Letting Go

What surprised me most was the grief.

I expected relief. Maybe pride. What I didn’t expect was the disorientation and feeling that I was losing a part of myself - not just any part, but the part that I knew the best. Suddenly, I was no longer central to the thing I had built. But if I wasn’t needed here, who was I?

As the weeks to my departure grew closer, I realized I wasn’t just letting go of an organization. I was letting go of a version of myself. The version who said yes to everything. Who pushed through every wall. Who stayed up late juggling payroll and case strategy and HR drama and coalition politics. She got us here. But she also forgot how to rest.

With only a few days left, it finally hit me - I was leaving the version of myself I had outgrown.

What I Leave Behind

I leave behind a workplace where people feel seen. A culture built on care, not control. I leave behind a coalition that has learned how to show up for one another, not just compete.

I leave behind systems I designed, trainings I created, relationships I nurtured, laws I helped write. I leave behind the quiet wins no one will ever know were mine.

In the early days of Trump 2 - when the reality of what we were facing hit us all like a ton of bricks - I remember a partner texting me and saying, “You made it possible for us to do this work, because we don’t feel like we are doing it alone.” That’s the legacy I hope I leave behind.

And most of all, I leave behind the weight. The pressure to fix everything. To carry it all. To be everything for everyone.

That doesn’t belong to me anymore.

Who I Am Now

I am still the person who sees patterns where others see chaos. I still want to connect people, to build bridges, to speak truth with compassion. But I no longer want to live only in service to crisis. I want a life that’s not built around the next emergency.

I want to write. To walk. To re-meet the creative side of myself that has been ignored for far too long. To read. To raise my daughter with more presence and less panic.

I want to still serve, but not at the expense of myself.

So who am I on the other side of this chapter? I am someone who knows that she did something that mattered. And I’m ready to become whatever comes next.