A popular meme says, "People don't leave companies, they leave bad bosses." This can certainly ring true as to why good leaders leave.
However, this simple maxim generally does not speak to the full reason a person decides to leave their leadership role. While the sole reason a person departed may be because their boss made it so unbearable that one more day performing under their helm seemed impossible, the likelihood is that a combination of reasons drove them out the exit door.
Here are five reasons why good leaders leave:
1. No new challenges. The initial challenges that rev a leader's engine include things like turning around an under-performing staff, eradicating business unit silos or building revenue and profits in a declining territory. During periods of change, transformation and growth, a strong and motivated leader performs at their peak. Their mind constantly is tasked with creating, innovating, fixing and dialing into the problems at hand. Each day is an adventure, each milestone achieved a small victory, and quarterly and annual goals reached become a marathon accomplished.
If a leader awakens one day to find their teams' performance peaking, business units fully connected and collaborative, and revenues and profits soaring, they may feel an initial sense of pride and overall accomplishment. However, if everything is humming along and their problem-solving prowess no longer is needed in order to keep performance sails full, then they become restless.
Because their leadership inspiration does not come from managing and maintaining, they begin to put their feelers out for the next challenge, either internally or externally at a new company. This moves us to reason number two.
2. No internal opportunities for advancement. If your company does not offer opportunities for leadership to advance and grow their careers, then it is likely leaders will not make a career out of your company. Or, perhaps your organization does encourage promotion and leadership movement, but some of your key leaders feel stuck, because the next rung up currently is filled by someone who plans to retire in that position, which may be another two to five years, or even more.
Or, perhaps your leader has maxed out in regard to promotion opportunities, and there really are no apparent roles for them to move up or even sideways to a more interesting, invigorating, growth opportunity. It's not always about advancing to a particular role, but sometimes just about growing one's talents and skills and stimulating one's mind beyond their original role.
This may mean revamping their existing role, custom-suiting it for the individual leader, even if a traditional advancement role is not at-the-ready available.
3. Overworked. Leaders are known to acclimate well to undulating environments. This includes contributing considerable intellectual and physical commitment to their jobs when a new product is rolled out when there is an uptick in customer activity or during seasonal and marketplace fluctuations.
In fact, while the rigor of working long days, traveling out of town and/or bringing home work on the weekends may tax their lifestyle, they are ready for such innate job stressors and are committed to the ultimate goal. This generally includes achieving revenue objectives, growing their customer base, building a more sustainable business and ultimately, increasing their own salary and compensation bottom line.
However, if the work stress consistently increases but the rewards consistently decrease or become flat, the leader becomes weary and acutely aware of the imbalance. Not only do they start calculating the return-on-investment and begin to notice diminishing returns, but they also feel the wear and tear on their personal and family lives.
As the situation mounts, so does their interest in other companies and other opportunities.
4. Lack of trust. When leaders witness the winds of corporate change shifting and blowing them around like rag dolls, but are not being clued in by the people they report to as to what is happening, and why, they begin to lose trust. When trust begins to crumble, so does their commitment and loyalty to the enterprise. An executive recruiter's advancements, therefore, become more appealing.
5. Bad boss. Dictatorial bosses, bosses who micromanage, bosses who refuse to listen to innovative ideas, bosses who are always right and never wrong, bosses who berate, bosses who back-stab and bosses who never uplift but are quick to reprimand earn a reputation for being both uninspiring and stressful.
If you take any one of the four reasons above and add in the fact that a bad boss is piloting the enterprise, the odds increase that your leaders will begin defecting.
Sometimes, a bad boss is enough to inspire a good leader to jump ship; sometimes, it's another reason, and often it is a combination of several reasons that ultimately define why your high-performing leader decided it was time for a new home.
