Let Them Fly
Turnover Isn’t Always A Bad Thing
Let me tell you about Lisa.
When I was hired as the manager of my current team, Lisa had already been a part of it for over a year. I could tell right away that she was one of its strongest members. She was a hard worker, a high performer, and was always seeking to improve our processes. She was every manager’s dream.
Under my leadership, she was quickly promoted to a role with more responsibility and more opportunity. Eventually, she made her way up to my number two. Her ability to drive both herself and the team overall was a natural fit for this role. I knew that I was training my eventual replacement.
Lisa’s gifts were valuable not only to my team but also other departments within the organization. During the early days of the COVID pandemic, our company took an all-hands-on-deck approach, and there were multiple opportunities to provide support to other departments in need. Lisa was one of those who was eager to assist and was able to balance her own responsibilities with the added work.
Lisa helped lead our team to success and provided the necessary support that helped other departments continue to operate. She shined. So much so, that others took notice of her. The result was a job offer with another team that she accepted.
I suddenly found myself saying goodbye to my right arm. I recognized this was a good opportunity, and I was genuinely glad for her. But I wasn’t so glad for myself.
My first response was to question the value of sharing my team members with others. If I had held her more closely to the team, been a little more protective, I wouldn’t have lost her. She would still be on my team, and things would be as they should. I swore I wouldn’t make the same mistake again.
In a more sober moment, I realized sharing her wasn’t a mistake. Yes, I’d lost my best. Yes, I would have to fill another gap. Yes, things didn’t go as I had planned. But these were all realities that only considered my own comfort as a manager. They didn’t consider my main goal as a leader.
As a leader, my number one goal is to build into my team. To help them find fulfillment in their work and to develop them to their potential. When I’m honest with myself, I realize that success will often mean saying goodbye to really good employees. It stings at the time, but it’s a victory.
If I were to become protective of my team, with the intent of holding on to them as long as I possibly could, I would also be holding them back from what I claim to want for them.
So, a choice needs to be made. What do I really want for my team? Do I want them to perform well in a role that helps me run a department as well as I can? Of course I do. But that’s just the function of their job. It isn’t who they are and it isn’t necessarily the end point of their potential.
If I had built a hedge around Lisa, she may have missed an opportunity to advance. If I had kept her my little secret, the company wouldn’t benefit from her skills in an area that needs someone like her. If I had given her the impression that here and now is all there is, she may have doubted her own ability to advance and eventually become dissatisfied and disheartened with her career.
The manager in me wants to focus on the here and now. It wants to make sure every piece is where it should be in order to benefit the team and make it a success.
But the leader strives for something different. The leader in me is focused on each team member as an individual. An individual who has potential. It wants to uncover that potential, develop it, and lift that person to greater fulfillment in their work.
The truth is, my team isn’t about my comfort. It isn’t about making my life easier and my work more successful. I lead a team in order to do just that — lead them.
So, I celebrate losing Lisa. Not because it was easy, but because it was my goal all along.
We should strive to get the best people on our teams and utilize their gifts to the fullest in order to succeed together. But we also need to hold onto them loosely. When it’s their turn to move onto another great opportunity, we need to let them fly. There’s much satisfaction in knowing that we played a part in the greater story of their success.
