April 2000

In my 25 years of working with numerous managers, it has become obvious that fewer managers are retiring in their “dream jobs.” Fewer managers are able to remain healthy after 20 years in one place. Jobs go south, turn bad, so quickly—often without fanfare. Managers are not given the time either for course correction or for seeing projects through to the end. The dream changes, with survival taking center stage. Nightmares, and life in the survival mode, usually precede the loss of their dream jobs.

Statistics suggest that the median longevity for managing in one place ranges from five to seven years, except in California, where the range is shorter. New electorates often want their own people, so the manager’s welcome mat is removed. One manager may feel, “I can beat the odds,” or “It’s still worth a try.” Telling themselves, “I hear the footsteps at my back,” however, managers are not realizing that they are running faster to escape their upcoming problem and are in fact ignoring the wake-up calls.

Some managers have become more vigilant and are acknowledging that they don’t care for the people they see themselves as becoming (scapegoats chosen without reason, for instance). Is it time to leave? Today, it seems reasonable to ask: Why is it so difficult for local government managers to decide to leave?

Nightmares and the Survival Mode
There seem to be several interwoven and complex factors that explain the reluctance of managers to leave their jobs. What I hear most often is the rationalization that “I am not done; there is more I need to accomplish.” Another, subtler theme is “I am not a quitter.” Many managers ignore the warning signs because “it’s so inconvenient to uproot my family or children in school” or because “my lifestyle is good; why change it unless it’s clear I have no choice?”

Administrators say to themselves, “This feeling, this perception of a warning bell, will pass (is it just a bad dream?), and I will ride it out.” The managerial thinking is “Ride it out!” After all, it may actually be a test of courage.

Sadly, attention paid to intuition may decrease as a function of time spent in one place. Intuitive feelings and themes are not mystical but are commonly experienced by managers and spouses alike.

Heed Your Intuition
Current experiences with managers in transition show that more public managers are looking for new opportunities outside the public sector to satisfy their yearnings for new experiences, excitement, compensation, and entrepreneurship. People who are “change agents” appear to succumb earlier to these thoughts and urges, as has been observed by more traditional managers.

For some, questions begin to surface, such as: “Have I done what I came here to do? What important contribution could I make in other arenas to solve complex social problems in education, development, or health care?” Some managers want challenges with different pressures from those of living in a public fishbowl. Some want to use their skills for higher or more idealistic purposes.

Higher financial gain often is secondary to other purposes as an impetus for leaving a current job. Frankly, many public managers have skills they want to exercise in a variety of businesses. Indeed, most public managers do possess skills that would enable them to operate in varied entrepreneurial environments.

The Indicators
Experience with many in-transition managers suggests at least seven reasons that reveal that it may be time to leave. Apparently, no one reason causes a decision, but two to three usually combine. It’s clear from my years of experience that one reason usually outweighs the others.

Of the seven indicators listed, it’s interesting to note that four come from personal rather than outside influences. It’s time that witnessing traumatic firings among colleagues, as well as your own traumatic health warnings or family circumstances, become important in decisions to quit. Many professional organizations like ICMA, the California City Manager Foundation, and the Innovation Groups are supportive to the manager who is in transition.

Here are the seven major reasons for quitting:
 

1. When you stop caring or lose the passion (burnout). Few managers admit to caring less, but anecdotes suggest otherwise, giving away the traditional signs of burnout in the profession:
   • Preoccupation with retirement dates and obsessing about life plans after managing.
   • Choosing not to fight important personnel battles (avoidance).
   • Rationalizing away conflicts with elected officials.
   • Spending more time outside the organization till this trend becomes dominant—without, however, relieving the need for personal change.
   • An increase in grumpy behavior and fault finding, with fewer experiences of satisfaction.
   • Venting inappropriately to subordinates.

   
   This burnout symptom is like a psychological train moving through your life as you are trying to decide whether to buy a ticket. The clear message is that it’s time for you to embark on a different journey. Buy the ticket to change.
    

2. When you begin to care too much. Personalizing your work can be a motivating factor and often helps focus laser-like thinking. Excessive caring for your work, however, can become addictive, requiring you to care more while getting fewer results. Managers experience this phenomenon when they find themselves pulling the organization and pushing the staff harder to complete their work objectives. The next effect is that you must work harder and personalize more in order to receive the same result. Eventually, the end product is negative. When your effort continues to exceed that of most people around you, your leadership tends to disappear. At the same time, carrying other people’s problems begins to feel normal.

   Managers caught in this dilemma experience less ability to delegate, longer hours, and less satisfaction. Aggravation with staff and elected officials becomes evident and pronounced. Interjecting yourself into all projects or micromanaging them often is a necessary result. In burnout, intuition should tell the manager and family, “We are not in balance here.”
    

3. When you are out of sync with the team. This symptom is mostly evident when managers feel that most initiatives and ideas must start with them! Usually, many staff begin to reinforce the effect by slow response, resistance, or “checking out.” Small obstacles slow progress or stop projects altogether, and planning activity decreases markedly.

   The manager who is out of sync usually directly contributes to intrastaff conflicts that go unsolved and unmediated. Resulting organizational behavior either drifts or otherwise moves in a different direction from that of the boss, creating alignment issues. Within a short time, the disparate goals and organizational misalignment cause clashes in values, which usually indicate that leadership has gone out of sync with the team or even that there is no team!
    

4. When there’s a change of the elected leadership. When this happens, you must be “rehired.” Most councils and boards want to be served by their own selected managerial leader. Managers resist the notion that elected officials will not naturally see their own (the managers’) best qualities, and they leave it all to be worked out naturally. Many goal sessions of elected officials forget to question out loud: “Is the current manager part of our plan?” Do not take it for granted that this will happen for you, however. Some councils and boards want to be served by their own chosen leader.

   Elected officials must decide whether the current manager is part of their plan. Sixty percent of newly elected, one-term officials want to improve or change the current way of doing business. The simplest way is to change the manager. Managers need to renew their agreements with all newly elected officials and not simply to assume the best (see Darcey/Caravalho’s December 1999 PM article on manager evaluations). The key question for the manager becomes: “What does superior performance look like to the new group?”
    

5. The need to move on into the next phase of your life. A recent in-transition manager stated, “I didn’t realize it would be so much a relief. I feel so free. I became more assertive and alive.” The decision to move on and to stay in control of your dream emphasizes this positive thought: many talented professional managers do experience three to five professional phases or careers in their lifetimes. Numerous public managers now consider careers in financial planning, nonprofit management, consulting, education, and public advocacy.

   Becoming aware and “okay” with the phase after public management provides the professional manager with an easier transition and clearer thinking in decision making.

   Clearly, survival is not enough for managers to think about when considering the next phase of their lives. Their thinking should consist of such thoughts as these: “What different talents do I need to use? What is next? And what new challenge do I need?”
    

6. Desire to leave the fishbowl (privacy). When the need to undergo less public scrutiny reaches its crest, public managers tire of worrying about how the public or elected officials will judge their personal actions. “I want to buy a new sports car, but my council would not accept it.” “I would like to have property and a pool.” “I want to own my own home.” All these issues become wearisome to many.

   Some get openly resentful of or rebellious against public scrutiny. “Open access to my family, children, and finances becomes burdensome.” Managers under pressure may come to resent the public’s critique: “It is no longer part of the job—it now is unacceptable to my family.” “Enough is enough.”

7. When outside events won’t allow you to stay. Every manager faces circumstances or economic events that cast doubts on his or her longevity in a job. Events range from tax losses, staff mistakes, and economic downturns to personal mistakes. A business decision to relocate a store can trigger events that are not controlled by the local government but that may seem to require a scapegoat. Past “escape” behaviors often blind a manager to a new wake-up call that may signal having to leave.

1. Stay in charge of your dream job; look ahead, and do not try to regain it when it is gone.
2. Maintain control of your direction, fate, and employment because this approach helps to avoid much of the negative trauma to your self-esteem, no matter how strong your ego. Manage your own transition, with help.
3. Stay aware of the wake-up calls in your life. Do not compare or measure your colleagues’ capacity, or place in development, with yours.
4. No one reason qualifies as enough reason to quit, but several reasons may begin your questioning process.
5. Become aware, and realize for yourself: “I have run the race; I have fought the good fight; I have finished the course; I have kept the faith. Now, I realize my personal goal is to live my dream.”
6. Sometimes, outside consultation provides better support for your decision to leave than you can get from your colleagues in the profession. Colleagues clearly are the primary supporters for “hanging in there.”

R. William Mathis, Ph.D. (e-mail, R. William Mathis), is a consulting psychologist in Napa, California.