One of the exercises each student at the International College of Businessery and Managering is required to complete before graduation is to write a “goodbye” letter. Something heart felt and inspirational. A message a great leader should feel compelled to share with their team upon accepting the inevitable promotion a degree from ICBM brings.
We include this important, and compulsory, exercise because it is an essential skill. Rather than burning a bridge, saying ‘goodbye’ the right way paves a way forward for your best employees to (perhaps) again follow in your footsteps or, equally likely, gives you a well prepared thoroughfare in case you need to double-back for a safe retreat. It reinforces and reminds your former employer of your significance and contributions, while making clear your skills outgrew their ability to challenge or nurture. The goodbye letter is equal parts epitaph and welcome back hug.
The format we encourage all our students to follow covers several vital aspects of a good going away letter:
- Start with with a positive and uplifting opening.
- Detail your accomplishments; this is no time to be shy!
- Demonstrate how you didn’t just encourage, but forced growth in everyone around you.
- Show how much fun you had helping the team.
- Most of all be gracious and humble!
The following example combines the best of many such letters submitted to the ICBM (Con)Gradulatory Acceptance Committee:
“It is with a heavy heart that I bring you fantastic news. I have recently been promoted and will be leaving this group that I have nurtured for so many years. As I share this news I am reminded of the many accomplishments achieved together under my constant leadership.
Through many years of mentoring, struggle and growth over our journey together I have seen fit to promote several of you, probably beyond any place you thought you could possibly reach. You’re welcome. It took perseverance from both of us, but eventually you achieved everything I believed you possibly could. Coaching is defined as the act of helping others unlock their maximum potential and I don’t feel it’s being immodest to say that I have coached each and every one of you beyond your maximum.
It is said that in this journey through life you should listen to the stories of others, when you hear your own you have come full circle. Taking this advice to heart I have listened to each of you, looked deep into your soul and found my greatness reflected back. In many of those of you that I worked with most closely that greatness was amplified many fold by the time I spent coaching.
For others of you, I have searched for signs of buried brilliance, hoping that years of following in my wake would have uncovered a diamond in the rough ready to be cut into something beautiful. But alas, together we found nothing. For those of you who are burdened thusly, my fondest wish is for my absence to be the necessary motivation to keep striving for greatness. We both know that without my relentless guidance it is unlikely you will ever achieve your true greatness, but that’s no reason for you to give up even if I have. To me you will always be that 16 year old girl whose acne cleared up right when her braces where removed revealing a beautiful exterior. To you I will always be the dermatologist that prescribed the Doxycycline as well as orthodontist that straightened those crooked crooked teeth. In my heart I carry that twinkling, photoshopped Olan Mills headshot showing how my presense transformed you from ugly duckling to elegant swan.
But enough about you.
Of the many, many accomplishments I’ve had over the years, nothing means as much as the team spirit I have instilled in each and every one of you. Seeing how each of you attends every meeting I’ve scheduled for fear of missing a nugget of wisdom warms my heart. Allowing me the opportunity to share my vast knowledge with each of you on every possible occasion brings me joy. Providing me the chance to force you to work together to solve issues placed in our collective path was a true pleasure.
Certainly at times my methods may have seemed strange or confusing, but understand that I always had a greater goal in mind. For instance: if I openly disagreed with you in public it was to force you to stand up to your convictions. When I abruptly changed course it was only to encourage your flexibility. Those times I assigned more work than you thought you could handle it was simply so you could realize you are capable of more than you ever believed possible.
This won’t be the same team without me, but I believe that my presence will be felt long after I’m gone. And THAT may be the greatest gift I could give either of us.”