Saying Goodbye Without Burning Bridges

Today was day 0 at my new job. This also means last Wednesday was the last day at my old one; that’s always the tricky part.

Leaving a team you actually like is tough. New perks/benefits are nice, but they weren’t what made me hesitate. It was the people. The crew I worked with made logging in every day something I looked forward to. They’re sharp, fun, and they let me sneak into a kind of unofficial leadership role without the title. Looking back, that stretch of guiding and coaching—without the “Lead” word in my email signature—is probably what gave me the push toward the next step.

There’s this temptation when you move on: to leave gaps, to let leadership feel just how much you carried. But the truth is, you don’t actually stick it to leadership. Doing that just make life harder for the peers you cared about most, and those are the last people you want to punish on the way out.

That’s where The First 90 Days hit me. The book talks a lot about transitions being make-or-break, but not just for the person stepping into something new. It’s also about how you handle the ground you’re leaving. A smooth handoff, clear notes, tying up loose ends, all of that makes you look “replaceable.” It’s this mindset, ironically, that shows you were a real leader.

I want to make one thing extremely clear: I didn’t leave because of bad leadership. That wasn’t the case at all. This new opportunity was simply too good to pass up. At Planet Home Lending, I get to step into a role that’s more directly about leadership, with the bonus of diving into the future of Encompass on the web. For me, that’s the springboard I’ve been looking for.

So here I am, day 0. New faces, new challenges, new systems to untangle. It’s exciting and uncomfortable at the same time. But that’s the point. Leaving a team stronger than you found it is one kind of win. Proving you can do it again, in a whole new place? That’s the next one.