So you’re in a leadership role. Your title might be Team Lead, Supervisor, Manager, Director, Vice-President, or start with a C (C-suite).
Whatever the title, you likely manage people. You complete performance reviews, delegate and assign work; you are responsible for your team’s overall performance, and you know the delicate dance of learning and working with various personalities.
Don’t ask Janice about that report until she has her morning coffee…
Don’t bother Roger while he’s preparing for new hire orientation unless you want an epic meltdown…
Among a million other responsibilities, of course.
Most likely you’ve worked hard to reach this point on the proverbial career ladder. You’re in a leadership role and it’s awesome….!!!
…Right?!
Don’t worry. You aren’t alone if you’re starting to have doubts, or even think leadership isn’t for you anymore.
As a former Human Resources professional for 15+ years, I’ll let you in on a secret. It’s freaking hard to be in a leadership role, especially if you manage people. In fact, I don’t think we’re honest and transparent enough about how challenging and stressful it can be to manage others. Additionally, we don’t come close to adequately preparing and training those in leadership roles to manage others. Unfortunately in most companies it’s sink or swim.
Were you promoted into a leadership role because of your highly technical, specialized skills combined with your years of experience?
As an HR professional I’ve seen this happen more times than I care to admit. And to be honest, sometimes it works out okay, but sometimes it doesn’t. Regardless, if this is your story I bet you didn’t receive enough training and preparation to step into a leadership role, especially if you started managing others.
So it’s no surprise to me, as a former Human Resources Director who left leadership, to hear more leaders pondering and asking:
Can I leave a leadership role? If I’m not moving further up the ladder, what will I do? How do I leave leadership?
You Can Leave Leadership
I’m here to tell you you can leave a leadership role.
Back in 2017 and into 2018 I had a bit of a quarter life crisis. At the time I was an HR Director for a 300-ish employee organization, and I led a HR small team. I had recently left a HR leadership role at a smaller organization for this new, larger role. In theory I should have been living the dream.
Over time I had worked hard to climb the career ladder to reach this level. I should have felt like I was on top of the mountain–elated and successful.
Note: the “shoulds” were the red flag.
But I was miserable and stressed beyond belief. Ever an anxious person, somehow my anxiety sky-rocketed to new levels. Despite having a team, they were undertrained and lacked core HR skills. I had no budget to bring in resources or even send them to training. The message was clear: do more with less.
As 2019 approached, I knew I had to make a change. At this point I was working with a coach to help me figure out what was next. She helped me manage my insane levels of stress and anxiety. Importantly, she helped me understand nothing was wrong with me. No matter how hard I worked the organization’s environment was just not conducive for my work style and the work I wanted to do.
Through our work together she helped me identify I no longer wanted to climb up the leadership ladder. I have never known anything so clearly in my life: I didn’t want to be in a leadership role anymore.
The only future where I could see myself in HR was an individual contributor role, no longer managing a team.
With this realization, I reached out to my network to schedule at least one or two coffee or lunch meetings a week to share the direction I wanted to go. My primary goal was to transition to HR consulting, but figured I’d be a less than desirable candidate given most of my experience was in nonprofit organizations.
Low and behold, right before Thanksgiving I received an email from a contact about a HR consultant opportunity at a local HR consulting company. The company wanted to hire someone who had a focus in nonprofit organizations.
I couldn’t make this up if I tried and still have the email to this day.
As of January 21, 2019, I started in my new individual role as an HR consultant working with various nonprofit clients. I’ll be dammed if my salary potential didn’t go up to six figures, too.
I successfully left leadership.
Leaving Leadership: What’s Next?
When considering how to leave a leadership role, first pause and zoom out. Take a moment to consider all your options.
When we reach leadership we often assume the only way to go is up. That’s what society and American, grind culture tells us is the appropriate answer…
Why would you ever take a lower position? It’s like you’re getting demoted. You’ll earn less money. People won’t respect you as much. People will think you couldn’t handle the pressure.
And of course, there will be tradeoffs (which we’ll discuss below). But I’m encouraging you to give yourself permission to think about what you truly want and feel is best for your situation. Here are some options to consider. As you read along, I challenge you to think of the possibilities for each of these options versus immediately saying, “That won’t work for me.”
Individual Contributor Roles
One benefit leadership positions offer is the opportunity to experience (survive?) a wide variety of work. With a large scope of work you have the perspective to say, “I like this [task, responsibility, function],” as well as, “I don’t want to do [x, y, z] again.”
A great option to consider as you think about how to leave leadership is an individual contributor role. The beauty of individual contributor (IC) roles is typically they are narrower in focus, well-defined, and don’t include managing others. These roles may offer more autonomy, flexibility, and allow you to lean into and expand your technical expertise in a more hands-on way.
I often think of IC roles as specialists; they are doing high level work in a specific area. Look for IC roles that align with what you want to do and the specialized skills you have developed over the years.
Going back to my example, I knew I didn’t want to manage a team anymore. I didn’t want to oversee talent acquisition, or benefits administration anymore.
Instead, I wanted to work closely with leaders on a one-on-one basis to help them develop and implement their people strategies while solving business challenges. I determined a HR consultant role or HR Business Partner role were good options to exit leadership and still do the type of work I enjoyed most.
Think back to your roles prior to leadership, especially those where you felt satisfied and the mental load of your role and stress level was (potentially) more manageable. Roles where you think–
Life was just easier…
Go Out on Your Own
Another option is going out on your own to focus on the work you want to do. Start a small business or work in the growing gig economy as a 1099 contractor and focus on the type of projects you enjoy.
I know many people who left leadership positions and started a small business consulting in their area of expertise, or focused on one particular part of work they enjoyed. Yes, you may have to be cautious of non-compete agreements you’ve signed if you go this route.
When I left leadership, I was in no frame of mind to think I could start my own business. In fact, I would have told you I could never start my own business (partially due to my limiting beliefs). I felt incredibly lucky to find a W2 HR consulting position so I could focus on the work without having to drum up my own clients.
However, fast forward five years later, and I actually wanted to start my own business to focus on the part of HR I enjoyed the most, coaching. Lesson: never say never.
For you financially savvy folks out there, also keep in mind the tax code often benefits small business owners.
Take a Break
I recently led a breakout session on sabbaticals, mini-retirements, and gap years at EconoMe. I was thrilled to see a good portion of the 75+ people in the room raise their hand when I asked who had taken a break from work. Work breaks are growing more common and more acceptable.
Taking a break from work can be one of the biggest gifts you give yourself. A work break can help you get space and help clear the path for what’s next. And who knows what amazing opportunities will come your way during or because of the break.
Do you dream about starting a side hustle, hiking the Appalachian Trail, or living nomadically? Work breaks are also a perfect time to experiment with your ideas and dreams for your ideal life.
I took a 60-day unpaid sabbatical in 2022, and ultimately decided it was time to leave my HR career later that year. Taking the break gave me the confidence I needed eventually quit my career.
Need help requesting a sabbatical?
This option may not be financially feasible for everyone. However, with some advance planning and saving it could be more within reach than you think.
The Tradeoffs of Leaving Leadership
One thing I’ve come to understand is life is a series of tradeoffs. No matter how confident my decision there are always pros and cons. So let’s address the elephants in the room
But My Pay Will Go Down If I Leave Leadership
I took a very informal poll on Instagram stories yesterday to see what concerns people had about leaving a leadership role. One person commented on giving up good pay.
And yes, absolutely if you leave a leadership position there is a chance your pay will decrease. For some, that trade off may not be worth leaving leadership, especially if you enjoy your work and are able to do the things you love outside of work.
However, if you’re miserable and your mental and physical health are suffering, the trade off of making less money may be worth reclaiming your overall health and happiness, or literally anything else that is important to you–time with family, time for recreation, travel, adventure, working less, etc.
I’ll also point out that in my (unique) situation, I earned more money leaving a leadership position. I worked in nonprofit where salaries across the board are generally lower, so it wasn’t too difficult to increase my income moving to a for-profit company employing high level HR professionals.
And no, I’m not naive enough to think this will be the norm. But it’s possible.
The lesson here is don’t under-estimate earnings potential for individual contributor roles, especially those roles requiring highly specialized skills that only come after many years of experience.
And of course if you go out on your own you’ve got to expect a period to ramp up, find clients, and establish yourself. But it is possible once you are established you could make more money on your own terms, all while giving yourself more flexibility and autonomy.
What about taking a break, like a sabbatical or mini-retirement? The beauty with those options is you can plan and budget accordingly for the lack of income.
But How Do I Explain Leaving Leadership in an interview?
The second concern on my Instagram poll was how to explain leaving leadership in an interview.
We may be stuck in all-or-nothing thinking and believe we’re doing something wrong if we aren’t moving up in our careers. And I get it, for a period of time I was in that same boat.
However, I’ve interviewed hundreds if not thousands of candidates over the years, and participated in a more-than-average number of interviews myself for all my job changes. People make all types of position changes for very valid reasons, and its possible to truthfully explain those reasons in an interview.
In addition to leaving leadership in 2018, early in my career I took a (perceived) step down moving from an HR Generalist role to a HR assistant role. I remember interviewing with the VP of HR at a Fortune 500 company and explaining why I was okay with this step down. Which basically equated to:
I’m excited about the opportunity to have much more potential to broaden my HR experience at your company versus where I’m at currently.
Basically, just tell the truth in a positive way.
When I interviewed with the owner of the HR consulting company, I explained I needed a change and wanted to work more closely with leaders on their HR strategies. I was honest about the fact I needed a break from managing a team, as well as talent acquisition.
I focused on what I wanted to do and why, instead of complaining about how horrible my stress level was and how my role was making it impossible to be a semi-functioning human.
Tell me what you’re good at, what you want to do, and why. All you have to do is…
How Do I Tell My Boss I want to Leave Leadership?
First of all, trust me when I say I understand these situations are way more complicated and nuanced than the two scenarios I’m sharing here. But, for the sake of what I’m trying to accomplish (basically, you can take the necessary actions to leave leadership), here are a couple different scenarios. Let’s start with the simpler one.
Scenario 1: You want to leave your leadership role and the company you work for.
In this case basically you resign. You don’t have to relay a ton of details. Prepare though to have some questions come your way.
Would you share more about why you’re resigning?
What could we have done differently?
Is there any scenario where we could retain you?
What company are you moving on to?
Again it’s up to you in this situation to share what you are comfortable sharing.
OR, potentially negotiate if there is a scenario where you could see yourself staying… In a different position?! After taking a sabbatical or mini-retirement?! This is your shot… Go for it if it makes sense!
If you planned on resigning anyway, what have you got to lose?
Scenario 2: You want to leave your leadership role but stay at your current company.
This scenario is definitely trickier. And admittedly scarier too, because you’ve got to have a tough and vulnerable conversation. And you have no idea what the outcome will be.
But you can do this!
In this situation, first come up with a loose plan of a role you’d like to transition to and the approximate timing. Maybe it’s an existing role; maybe it would be an entirely new role. I use the term “loose” plan because it’s important to understand the company will obviously have input and the final say on what’s feasible and what isn’t (but also, so do you).
For the best plan, think through the details and play out scenarios. Some may cringe when I say this, but put a plan together to make this change easy for the company. The more thought and consideration you put into it, the better. You’re also more likely to get their attention and consideration.
After you’ve come up with a loose plan, then it’s time to have the conversation.
Only you know the best way to approach your boss and who else may need to be involved. Some may want a heads up, like in a calendar invite. Some may want the full written details ahead of time because they need time to process before the conversation.
Potential verbiage:
I’d like to schedule time with you to discuss a potential position change. I’d like to transition out of [Position] and into X position. I know this may come as a surprise and would like to set up a time to meet to discuss further..
After much thought and consideration, I’m requesting the company allow me to transition out of X. I value my time and experience here at [Company], and I’d like to share some ideas I have to make this work for me and the company...
As with any tough conversation, once it starts there isn’t really a play book.
The best guidance I can give is approach the conversation with openness and curiosity. Seek to understand. The goal is keep the discussion going. Understand you likely won’t get 100% of what you want, and that’s okay. You’re still advocating and asking for what’s best for you.
Beware if the conversation becomes adversarial and demanding. That is usually when discussion falls apart and walls come up.
No matter the outcome, be proud for communicating your needs and trying to come up with alternate solutions to best meet those needs.
I know you might be wondering,
What if I lose my job for starting this conversation?
What if they say no altogether, then what do I do, leave!?
There are many different potential, fear-inducing outcomes.
In the Financial Independence community we often talk about our tendency to focus on what can go wrong. It’s human nature.
But also, there is just as likely of a chance things can go right. It may not be easy or painless to get there.
But if you truly want to leave leadership, it will be worth taking action to find a better path for yourself.
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Leadership is not for everybody. I hated managing teams, but I liked the one-on-one aspects of coaching/leading. I’ve found that I’m actually better at being a “leader” when it’s in an unstructured scenario. In other words, helping people because I want to, rather than because my job title demands it. People want to be led; they don’t want to be managed. I’ve found that my life has flown much more freely during the periods when I have not been in a formal leadership role. Just because you aren’t in a formal leadership role doesn’t mean you can’t still be a leader.