When to Stay and When to Go
- Apr 28
- 2 min read
Most leaders make the stay-or-go decision wrong. Not in direction — in timing.
They wait until they’re depleted, frustrated, or blindsided enough to act. By then they’re making a reactive decision, not a strategic one. And reactive decisions made from a depleted state are rarely the best ones.
Here are the two tools I use in coaching to help leaders make this decision on data instead of mood.
The first is the Energy Audit.
Take the five things that consume most of your time at work right now. Write them down. Then mark each one — not difficult or easy, not important or not important. Energizing or draining.
Energizing means: even when this is hard, it gives something back. You’d miss it if it were gone.
Draining means: even when this goes well, it takes something out of you. You’d feel lighter without it.
Not everything draining is wrong. Some necessary work is just expensive. But the pattern matters. If the majority of what fills your days is draining, that’s data — and it’s been data for a while.
The second is the Two-Year Test.
Ask yourself: if nothing changes in the next two years — same role, same structure, same growth trajectory — who am I and what do I have? Be honest. Don’t answer with what you hope might change. Answer with what the current data projects.
If that two-year picture is one you genuinely want, you have your answer. If it’s not — if the honest projection is someone more tired, more limited, or less aligned with where you want to go — that’s also your answer.
I coached a senior leader through this exercise last year. Her Energy Audit showed that the three most time-consuming parts of her role were all in the draining column. Her Two-Year Test produced a version of herself she didn’t recognize. Both answers pointed the same direction.
She stayed, but differently. She negotiated a scope change that shifted the ratio. She’s still there eighteen months later, and the Energy Audit now reads very differently.
Sometimes the answer is leave. Sometimes it’s stay — but change something real. What it almost never is, is ‘keep doing what you’re doing and hope things improve.’
What does your Energy Audit say right now?
Comments