Challenges to your integrity are troubling. You may get pushed out or choose to leave a place. Let’s explore why leaving is so hard.
Knowing It’s Time to Leave
It’s tough when you realize it may be time to leave a place where you’ve invested much of your emotional, spiritual, and physical energy.
There are any number of situations that bring you to that realization.
For example, you may have outgrown that place professionally. Or, their strategic direction no longer fits who you are. Hence, there’s a lack of alignment between you and the organization.
Worse yet, you may recognize that the ongoing reorganization and downsizing there is coming for you.
Most unfortunately, you may be compelled to leave because a deceptive leader is demanding blind loyalty while pushing you to compromise your integrity.
In my career, I’ve outgrown a place, been downsized, and most recently, walked away from a position of service in order to guard my reputation.
It’s not who I was, or who I am today that matters. Actually, who I’m becoming is what returns long-term dividends! Proverbsforprofessionals.net
Why Leaving Is So Hard
Leaving is hard for several reasons.
The financial impact is obvious. Similarly, relocations are hard for the entire family.
Sometimes, you leave to pursue a new opportunity and it doesn’t work out – – at all. Been there, done that!
Those types of career setbacks are really tough on your self-worth because you’re digging out of a hole financially and emotionally.
All that said, guarding your integrity by leaving is especially draining.
Some will be supportive, thanking you for your efforts to preserve unity. However, others will believe you have abandoned them. They will say you’re not willing to stick it out, but instead are running away.
Fact is, you don’t make these decisions alone since others in your family are impacted.
In my case, when I chose to resign, it directly affected my wife’s activities in that same organization. Her long-standing relationships with close friends were strained by my decision because we chose to leave together.
These direct and indirect impacts explain why leaving is so hard.
Sense-making connects disconnected life events. Thus, life experiences lead to measurable growth when I take time to reflect on what’s happened. proverbsforprofessionals.net
The Precept
In Proverbs 4.23 we’re cautioned to guard our character. It says to protect your heart above all else because who you are is the essence of your life (my paraphrase).
In short, without your integrity, what else do you have?
For me, it was easy to tell a group of my peers on a committee that the issue on the table was a matter of integrity for me.
Conversely, it was much more gut wrenching to explain in a resignation letter why I refused to participate in deception of the organization’s members.
Others disagree with me about my position on this matter. But that’s their choice.
Apply This Today!
Be thoughtful about leaving. And, be clear about why you are doing so. The hard part is enforcing what’s right by guarding your integrity.
When you resign, it’s reasonable to explain yourself. Afterward, you must move on, leaving bitterness behind.
Compromising your integrity is a classic short-term/long-term tradeoff. It’s easy to make a short-sighted decision to keep the peace by placating a deceptive leader. But, it’s more difficult to deal with the long-term damage of compromised integrity.
A leader who demands blind loyalty, to the point that you’re expected to act without regard to right or wrong, is building a cult. As it turns out, cults are never good for the followers!
Remember, organizations tend to exist longer than the term of office of one leader. A blip-on-the-radar leader doesn’t justify the damaged integrity you will carry with you as the payment for being blindly loyal.
I’m Dale Young. My posts share the balanced life to build wise character and guide wise behavior.
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