Leaving a Good Boss

Leaving a Good Boss

Harvard Business Review recently published an article on employee turnover that challenges conventional wisdom. The article is titled Employees Leave Good Bosses Nearly as Often as Bad Ones by Ravi S. Gajendran and Deepak Somaya. The authors write in a thought-provoking approach that leads me to question how as leaders may we stem the loss of our most talented people.

As I posted on LinkedIn, the leaders whom I have worked for invariably encourage me to take on fresh challenges.  They consistently work with me to help focus my attention inside and across the company for new prospects of growth and development.  In many businesses, there is enough opportunity internally that finding an external position may not be warranted and may arrive from a lack of awareness on behalf of the employee or leader. This was my big take away from the article.  As leaders, we need to show our best people how to move internally to achieve the growth and development opportunities they seek, need and deserve.  I would rather “lose” a star employee to another department inside of the firm instead of to another company.

We spend a significant time developing our people, and we need to help our team look at all opportunities inside of our walls. This includes actively lobbying on their behalf and working to open those new assignments. We cannot let our best people become our future competitors because we fail to help them explore all of their options before they consider an exit.

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