Choose leaders over companies

You may have heard the adage, “people leave managers, not businesses.” If this is true, what does it mean for your next job? Through a story with two endings, I’ll demonstrate that this adage means more about your job hunt than your exit strategy.

At the beginning of my career I believed, if I honed my skills and lengthened my resume, eventually I’d be hired at one of the star tech companies of my generation. A career in tech was like a staircase to the roof - if I climbed enough steps I’d arrive at the top.

Instead of slowly climbing until I reached a dream company, I started at the top. Relativity was (is?) the leader in its industry, with the culture and perks to rival any Google startup. In five years, the gratitude I felt to work at such a vibrant, energizing company never waned. If I’d reached tech nirvana, why’d I leave?

The short answer is, I didn’t want to leave. I tried with all my might to stay. But finally, at imminent risk of being fired, I left.

The first two years I had no aspirations. Dazzled by the glamor of high-speed tech and privileged just to be there, I spent my energy proving I wasn’t an imposter. When I could debug a 200-line SQL script, write a Relativity plugin, and operate Mercurial, an opportunity to get closer to our customers arose, and I took it. Then three factors converged.

First, I learned how lonely it is to pioneer a blended position. My boss gave weekly feedback about my customer service skills and discouraged further technical proficiency. The absence of affirmation and constant criticism sapped my motivation. There were those better at customer service, and those better at development, but none bridging the two.

Second, a tragic event dropped me into a multi-year counseling process to grieve, forgive, and repair a broken relationship. I don’t know how to measure what that did to my motivation, but it was significant.

The fallout of the first two factors led to a slow decline in motivation and trust that ultimately drew me to leave.

To supplement my absent tech growth, I began a Python budget app project. When I wasn’t responding to client requests, I’d play with my app. I became highly proficient at my customer work to give myself more time to develop.

One day, my boss called me on it. He claimed that my colleagues felt unfairly treated. They were kept occupied with work while I could pursue side-projects. I apologized to him and immediately deleted the repository.

Our relationship never recovered. The more I’d strive to prove myself, the better my boss became at finding fault. When my pioneered role grew and I’d trained our newest members, my boss promoted his best friend over me.

Later, the third factor; Amie and I became expectant parents. Before we were pregnant I was wary of my boss' absorbtion with work and responded with a firm boundary between work and family time, but the imminent arrival of our first child heightened the intensity of our disagreement. Perhaps naively, I still felt that trust could be rebuilt after I returned from paternity leave. In retrospect, my decision to be a primary care provider and accept three months of paternity leave instead of two weeks may explain why, two weeks after my return, my boss affirmed that he didn’t trust me.

Why do I tell you this story? Consider this alternate ending.

I was lonely in my blended position and struggling with family tragedy, and my boss took notice. He repeatedly shared his own struggles with loneliness and family to establish trust and concern. It took a month of one-on-ones, but finally I told him how I really felt about my role. He asked what would help and we decided that I could make it work until our team could interview and hire another person to share the load. He put me in charge of a small development project to create a new build tool for our developers so I’d have a place to sharpen my technical skills.

After we hired another person, my boss let me in on his plans to promote his friend to manage us. He validated my hard work and confirmed that he needed my expertise in this role and to train the new person, but he didn’t feel that I was ready for a managerial position just yet. He still promoted his friend, but he also promoted me to respect my pioneering efforts.

When Amie and I learned we were pregnant, my boss was happy. He remembered how intense a transition his first child was and recommended that I take three months paternity leave. Two weeks after I returned to work, he affirmed that I’d been missed and thanked me for all I’d done to train and transition people so the team operated well in my absence.

So, dear reader, look for a great leader first, and don’t worry so much about at which company he/she works.