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Over my lifetime, I’ve established relationships with individuals and organizations at different times. Often, these end up being very productive relationships that last decades, as with the church for the majority of my life. Most of the time, they work out and then lead to other productive relationships. At other times, they sour due to differences in personality, operational issues, doctrinal issues for some people, relationship or conflict about the best way to get the job done, etcetera. What do you feel is the best way to reduce or remove a relationship from your life? At one time, particularly if I felt the entity had really misbehaved, I would be open about why I was leaving. But this would tend to sever completely the relationship. People would probably say “he was pretty vocal about his reasons for not participating anymore — there is no way we can ask him to do X, Y or Z”.
Another approach is to give an innocuous reason for leaving. I think this is what many people do — to avoid conflict. The advantage of this approach is that it leaves doors open. It means the resources of the organization you are leaving or reducing your involvement in may still be available to you if need them — simply by reengaging again with the organization. It means you can always return to the organization if your perspective changes — while the “naked honesty” approach often make sit much harder to return again.
When is it appropriate to provide the unvarnished reasons for leaving an organization? When should you give a soft reason for leaving, while not disclosing the reasons that might hurt your long-term relationship?
I favor the “quietly step away” or “slowly reduce involvement” approach. This fits with my personality and help me to avoid conflict.
I also find it helpful not to bad mouth past relationships of any sort. If I make a habit of complaining about my previous employers I may send a message that should you become my employer I will eventually complain loudly about you. If I make a habit of complaining about people that I have dated I may send a message that should you date me I will eventually complain just as loudly about you.
I know that I have had this impression about other people as a potential employer/romantic interest.
I seek to not only leave the door open for re-engagement but also for positive references, letters of recommendation, or any other future favors I might need.
I am with Roy on this one. It may feel better to slam the door shut, but it makes it harder to open in any way later. The only exception would be if I saw a leader that was really hurting people and I could get some attention to the issue by making a big fuss, then I might consider it. Otherwise I would fade away.
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