Stepping down earlier than planned: is it time, or are you just tired?

How do you tell whether it is time, or whether you are just tired?

What drawing your pension early will cost is for the pension fund or a pension adviser; notice period, non-compete and severance for an employment lawyer; the tax for a tax adviser and, if your residence permit hangs on the role, an immigration lawyer, once you have decided. This is about the question before that: whether the decision is yours at all.

Tiredness is a poor adviser in both directions: it makes stepping down look like the answer and, at the same time, like weakness. One test: tiredness fluctuates. It lifts after three weeks away and deepens after a hard quarter. The question of whether it is time does not fluctuate; it is still there on the first morning back. A second test: picture next year exactly like this one. Relief points to tiredness, and tiredness passes; a sense of the walls closing in points to something you already know and have not yet said aloud.

If sleep has been missing for weeks, if nothing gives you pleasure any more, or if thoughts of harming yourself appear, the first person to see is your GP or a psychotherapist, not a sparring partner, even if you are a physician yourself; the Dargebotene Hand helpline on 143, or 144 in an emergency. I do not diagnose, and I will tell you if you need more than a conversation; see When you need a therapist, and when a sparring partner is enough and Running on empty, not burnt out.

Are you keeping the position, or only the structure it gives your day?

A head-of-department post at a clinic, an equity partnership or a divisional or country-head role gives you more than an income: a rhythm, a remit, an answer when someone asks what you do. That is not nothing, and it is not a reason to stay. Strip away the structure in your mind: the full diary, the assistant, the Monday partners’ meeting. If what remains is the work itself and the people you do it for, you are staying out of conviction, tired or not. If little remains, the structure holds you, and structure can be built without a role you no longer want. Perhaps your version is: ‘I am not keeping the firm out of conviction; I am keeping it because it structures my day.’ The reverse holds too: anyone who leaves loses that structure on the first Monday; what that Monday looks like is in Retiring as an owner.

What have others regretted after leaving early, and what after staying?

I know of no robust survey on this and will not invent one. Regret, as far as I can see, attaches less to the decision than to what was left unexamined. So questions, not statistics.

Before leaving early:

• Am I going towards something, or only away from something?
• What will I miss, and where else will I get it? Not the title: the cases, the complexity, being needed.
• Who have I told before I announce it?

Before staying:

• Am I staying because I want to, or because I cannot think of an answer to ‘what else?’
• What does my staying cost the people around me if, in my head, I have already gone?
• If I answer ‘in three years’: did I say the same three years ago?

What do you settle before you announce timing and succession?

Order matters more than timing. Inform the clinic director or the managing partner first and think afterwards, and from that moment you think in public. Three things come first:

1. The decision itself. Not ‘I am considering’, but ‘I am going, and this is why.’ Half a decision invites negotiation: a reduced workload, a consulting mandate, one more year. Some of that may suit you, but it should be your choice.
2. Your role in the succession. A say in who comes next, or expressly none? Both are legitimate; only ambiguity is expensive.
3. The conversation at home. Stepping down early changes two lives and, for a couple who came to Zug or Zürich for the role, possibly the country they live in. Anyone who learns of it from the board announcement has been passed over.

The communication plan comes afterwards, with HR or the managing partner; that is craft, and they are good at it.

Who do you discuss it with when you are the one in charge?

That is the real question. Your direct reports hear their own future in your question. Your fellow partners are part of the vote. The clinic director or group CEO is the last person who should hear of it. Your professional association knows too many people who know you. Your husband or wife is too close, because the answer changes the life you share; see Who do you talk to when everyone around you has a stake?.

What it takes is someone from outside: no position in your organisation, no mandate from clinic, firm or bank, no share in whether you go or stay. You name the topic; I bring none, no model, no slides. You talk, in English or German. I ask which assumption has never been tested and tell you what I see, even if what I see is that you have been circling the same point for three years and deciding nothing. I spent many years as an engineer on large projects and am used to putting assumptions on the table before anyone builds on them. Push back. The decision stays yours, and I give no pension, legal or tax advice, not even in passing. Staying is worth as much to me as going.

Confidentiality is agreed in writing, towards employer, partners and family alike, with three limits named before we start: a legally binding order from a court or authority, an acute danger to life and limb, and the welfare of a child. No recordings; only brief notes, destroyed no later than 12 months after we finish. There is no reference list and there are no client testimonials; if a conflict of interest with your organisation arises, I tell you. I do not have professional secrecy under Art. 321 of the Swiss Criminal Code as doctors and lawyers do; see Is coaching confidential in Switzerland?. We meet at your home, in your office once the floor has emptied, or in a quiet place in Zug, Zürich or on the Gold Coast; nobody sees you walk into a practice (why I come to you). If a deadline is pressing, read A decision under time pressure. Essentials: What is a sparring partner?; the formats: Sparring.

In short

You will not tell whether it is time from the tiredness, which fluctuates, but from what still holds you: the work itself, or only the structure it gives your day. Settle the decision and your role in the succession, and have the conversation at home, before anyone in the building hears of it; pension fund, contract and tax go to the specialists afterwards. For the question before that, you need someone with no position in your organisation and no stake in the outcome; what you say stays there, and that is agreed in writing.