‘Burning bridges’ when leaving a job may not be bad – 12/07/2023 – Balance

Abbe still remembers the exact moment it all happened.

She was in a brainstorming session at the American magazine where she worked as an editor and had walked into the meeting with a list of ideas. But she noticed that whenever she tried to speak, she was interrupted.

Abbe became more and more frustrated, until she lost her composure. “Can I just complete my thought?” she asked.

Silence fell over the room, Abbe recalls. And she says she was treated with the same silence at work for two days.

On the third day, the human resources department called her. The news was bad: she had lost her job.

Abbe believes that interaction in the boardroom was a decisive factor. Losing her cool burned the bridge she had built and she felt it would also “destroy her career” in the industry.

Professional “burning of bridges” can happen in several ways. In some cases, like Abbe’s, it can mean the accumulation of tension throughout the role; for others, it may mean quitting without notice, publicly disparaging the employer, or committing any other action that permanently destroys your professional relationship.

This situation has long been considered a career killer, an action that can wreck a professional’s reputation and make it difficult to find a new job, especially in competitive sectors.

But in a time of shifting workplace priorities, burning bridges may not be the final nail in the professional coffin it once was, experts say.

As professionals increasingly speak out about workplace problems and toxic professional environments, open discussions about the negative aspects of work are becoming more normalized and, professionally, less harmful.

And experts say burning bridges isn’t just no longer taboo — in some cases, actions that were once considered career-ending may be necessary to change the workplace for the better.

Protection from toxic work environments

The expression “burn your bridges” may originate from the Roman military tactic of crossing the river in search of foreign lands and then destroying the bridge behind you, which eliminates the possibility of retreat.

In the context of work, it means damaging a relationship to the point that you may become professionally alienated, either damaging your reputation as a good employee or losing valuable connections that could boost your career in the future.

In some cases, this can happen. A professional who leaves a job in a negative way, for example, can harm their ability to get a job at a new company where their former colleagues now work.

Still, the expression is not just “dramatic”, according to Erin Gallagher, CEO (executive director) and founder of the American corporate consultancy Ella, specializing in diversity, equity and inclusion. It is also increasingly out of step with the goals of modern professionals, who prioritize healthy work environments.

This is because, although the central idea of ​​not burning bridges is to protect the professional and their future prospects, it can also protect a bad employer, according to Gallagher. And this fear of career repercussions can end up “silencing” professionals, causing unfavorable work environments to persist without consequences.

“It builds all these barriers that prevent structural change and makes it very difficult for people to tell the truth,” according to Gallagher.

Fears of burning bridges prevented public relations professional Kristen from taking action against a workplace culture she perceived as discriminatory against her due to her disability.

In 2016, she moved to New York, in the United States, to take on a new job. But Kristen had to delay her start date due to difficulties she encountered finding an apartment that met her special needs.

She says her manager asked her why she wanted to live in the city if it was so difficult to settle there and told her several times that she was “lucky” to have the privilege of occasionally working from home, even though that arrangement was part of her legal obligations. to your disability.

Kristen claims she endured what she perceived as bullying because she needed her employer to provide health insurance. But even when she ended up leaving in 2018, she followed traditional advice and didn’t burn her bridges with the company manager. Today, Kristen regrets the decision.

“I really wish I had defended myself loud and clear,” says Kristen. “It hurt my self-confidence. When you don’t do something empowering, you feel diminished.”

Gallagher agrees that professionals can have these types of feelings. “When we follow traditional advice and still have one foot in that toxic work environment, we never fully move forward,” she says.

“I think we need to reclaim the phrase ‘burning bridges’ because it has a negative connotation. Instead, we should ask, ‘Do you want to stay connected to a place that harmed you? And do you want to participate in it continuing to harm other people?’

‘Humanizing’ action

In 2018, Kristen may have believed that trying not to burn a bridge would ensure her own safety. But experts say that in today’s environment, it is potentially less harmful to express yourself in ways that in the past would have been considered career-ending.

Speaker Sarah Aviram is the author of the book Remotivation: The Remote Worker’s Ultimate Guide to Life-Changing Fulfillment. She highlights that, in the pandemic era, many sectors of professionals’ lives were out of control.

“Many have realized that working in a toxic work environment, doing a job you hate, or working for a terrible boss is not worth it,” she says. “Their priorities changed. They began to desire work opportunities with more meaning and purpose, perhaps even ones they could enjoy.”

“At the time of the Great Renunciation [nome dado à tendência que levou um grande número de trabalhadores americanos a deixar seus empregos durante a pandemia de covid-19]the job market was so strong that people were less worried about burning bridges in their previous company”, explains Aviram.

Currently, even though the pendulum of power has started to swing away from professionals, she says they still want jobs that they can value and where they feel valued.

“I think the narrative about wanting a new beginning is the one that many people understand around the world,” she said. “So I think a future employer could completely understand this narrative from a job candidate. They would understand the candidate’s honesty, their disclosure about how they weren’t happy, and the shift in priorities for the individual.”

Aviram points out that sometimes hiring managers can even respect professionals who talk about their negative experiences. For her, “sharing these experiences in private, even in an interview with a potential new employer, humanizes you and opens up the conversation to discuss what kind of company culture and values ​​you are looking for in the future.”

The main difference

Still, not all negative comments will be productive. Aviram advises not to focus on personal grudges or repeatedly insult your former employer.

“There is a difference between making derogatory public comments about a former employer and being able to talk openly and honestly about your experiences, including the negative ones,” she said.

Furthermore, the two experts and professionals advise that people consider the possible personal burdens of bridge-burning actions. For Abbe, for example, the experience was extremely stressful.

When friction with his manager became unavoidable, there was a small window of satisfaction, but it was immediately followed by panic.

“I was deeply angry with myself,” she says. “I thought I would never get a better job than that.”

Careers consultant Joanne Rampling, from Duality Careers in London, says it’s okay to “go on the attack” if you leave a job because of problematic workplace situations, such as value conflicts.

“But if you do it at the cost of your own energy,” she explains, “I go from burning bridges to being ‘increased stress’.”

Abbe is now 37 years old and has discovered that his burning of bridges did not end his career. She was able to find another job in the same industry, which she loves.

And even Rachel Garrett, a New York-based career and leadership coach who advises her clients to sever professional relationships on the best possible terms, recalls an incident early in her career in which she bounced from one job to another. The woman she asked to resign said she was burning an important bridge.

“It took me a while to shake off that moment,” she says. “But what stuck with me is that some people think they have this power over you. And in fact, you control your story, your narrative and how you direct your career.”

After all, “the idea of ​​burning bridges is actually in the eye of the beholder,” continues Garrett.

“We’re talking more about the importance of setting boundaries, especially since the pandemic. If you work with a toxic colleague or someone who doesn’t respect you, setting your boundaries can feel like burning a bridge. But there is a need for self-defense, even that some people don’t like.”

Abbe and Kristen withhold their last names for professional security reasons.