Why Good People Go?

It can be devastating when your top performers leave.

The worst thing is that they will rarely tell you the real reason why. To avoid offending you and to maintain relationships, they are likely to give a secondary reason rather than the whole truth.

Having coached hundreds of senior high performers, some of the most common reasons I hear from behind the scenes about why people leave are:

• Not feeling the love. Not being explicitly told that they are valued for their efforts. Even the best, brightest and seasoned people are full of insecurities about their performance and need to be told why and how much they matter.

• Lack of financial reward. Constantly going over and above and finding that they are getting paid the same or less than others whose performance is just ok. Once, I raised a pay discrepancy only to be offered a 30% increase when I resigned. It was too late, I had already checked out and lost faith.

• Lack of progression. High performers get bored and need ongoing stretch and opportunity. Don’t and assume that if they’re busy, that it’s enough.

• Being used/overworked. People with a strong work ethic and high standards risk being driven into the ground. They may leave to seek a healthier balance (but will feel like a failure admitting it).

• An unsafe or uninspiring culture. I once worked in a place where the silence was deafening and the threat of getting something wrong hung in the stifled air. It was very short-lived! Work should be a positive experience on the whole, not something to dread.

• Toxic behaviour. This contaminates a workplace and makes people miserable. Your good people will exit left, particularly if they have had the courage to raise the issue and it's not been addressed.

There are countless nuances in workplaces, but any of these factors are risks that good people will simply leave and probably never tell you why.

If you really value someone, don’t hope for the best or assume they know how much you value them - because I promise you, nine times out of ten, they don’t.

👉 What’s the real reason you’ve left a role in the past?