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Consultant Molly Graham believes many of us fall loosely into two career archetypes: The leavers and the stayers.
“Leavers walk away. When they’ve done what they came to do, when misalignment creeps in, when the mission no longer feels like theirs, they go. It can look impulsive. Sometimes reckless. But for most leavers I know, it’s rooted in something deeper: A fierce internal clarity. This isn’t mine anymore,” she writes on Substack.
“Stayers endure. They weather bad managers, strategy shifts, reorgs and leadership changes. They dig in when things get hard. Sometimes too long. Sometimes just long enough to shape what comes next.”
She’s a leaver. But she stresses neither is better. It depends on who you are, being true to yourself. Each approach – or is it instinct? – comes with a cost. And each has what she calls “a different currency of growth.”
Leavers, contrary to what you might expect, are often builders. They show up at their new job with energy and ideas – and, above all, urgency. They seek and ideally spark change. Crucially, they’re clear-eyed about when things no longer fit and act on that belief.
“Their reward? Speed. Reinvention. Perspective. Every new role, company or context teaches them something that old systems often can’t,” she says. But the risk is they might leave too soon and miss out on deeper learning and impact.
She also warns: “They confuse discomfort with misfit. They walk away before they’re tested – before they build the muscle of working through conflict or enduring a hard stretch without jumping ship.”
She therefore suggests these questions if you are preparing to leave your current post: Am I running from something or toward something? Have I truly done what I came to do or just hit friction? Is this pain a sign I’ve outgrown the role or that I’m growing in it? What might I learn if I stayed through this next phase?
Stayers are stabilizers who carry the torch for the organization or unit. “They don’t flinch when things get hard – they dig in. They’re often the ones who keep a company grounded through chaos,” she says.
Their reward is influence and mastery. But the risk is their loyalty can turn into inertia. Their endurance might stem from avoidance. “Some stayers tell themselves it’s about commitment, but deep down, they’re afraid of change. Afraid to risk what they’ve earned. Afraid to bet on something new,” she says.
Her questions for them: Am I still learning or just looping? If I were offered this job today, would I take it? What am I afraid I’d lose by leaving? Is this commitment or is it fear dressed up as loyalty?
And her advice to both groups is to choose consciously because both paths can be traps. “The most self-aware people I know don’t cling to one identity. They don’t say, ‘I always leave’ or ‘I never quit.’ They pause. They ask the harder question: Who do I want to become next? What is the next right thing for me?” she writes.
A recent study looked at a different aspect of staying or leaving: People who follow their passion into a career and early on sense it’s not what they expected. A prime obstacle to leaving for something else is fear of being judged negatively for walking away from a pursuit of passion.
“Whether it’s a teacher reconsidering the classroom or a nurse thinking about leaving medicine, people worry that others will see them as immoral and incompetent for quitting their passion,” academics Zachariah Berry, Brian J. Lucas and Jon M. Jachimowicz write in Harvard Business Review.
But those fears were often misplaced. Passion pursuers in the study essentially exaggerated, ruminating on all of the reasons why stepping away from their first passion signified that they were a failure. But observers weren’t burdened by the emotional weight of the decision and tended to simply view giving up as an opportunity to reengage with something better aligned with the individual.
If you’re pursuing a passion, the academics urge you to view it as a journey that can have many stops and pivots along the way.
Quick hits
- Neuroscientist Anne-Laure Le Cunff recommends creating an ignorance map of what you are uncertain about on an issue or topic, the opposite of mind maps capturing what you know about a topic. She argues when ignorance is acknowledged and explored, it can become one of our most powerful tools. Use the ignorance map to brainstorm how you could explore those knowledge gaps.
- Blogger Seth Godin notes that in a buffet we tend to worry that the next dish (or another further down the line) might be better than the one we have now and that “buffet problem” extends to the next email or next text we might receive, corroding our experience as we anticipate what’s next. It’s more satisfying to focus on now.
- Author Mark Manson shares this advice for composing emails, reports and speeches: Every time you try to show how smart you are your writing immediately gets worse.
Harvey Schachter is a Kingston-based writer specializing in management issues. He, along with Sheelagh Whittaker, former CEO of both EDS Canada and Cancom, are the authors of When Harvey Didn’t Meet Sheelagh: Emails on Leadership.