Bursts of Color - How to Quit
My friend and Gusto COO Lexi Reese recently posted some Advice on How to Quit with which I heartily agree. Here's a sample:
Give a heads up in advance to your manager and offer to support a smooth transition unless (1) you don't trust that leader and/or (2) you feel like burning the relationship.
Decent leaders will say "let me support you finding a great alternative if it's not this current role" and will appreciate you giving them time to plan for a transition.
So How Much Notice is Enough?
Of course there's no single right answer to this; a lot of it depends on your relationships within the company. But I think it's generally fair to say that as your tenure and seniority increase, so should your notice. Two weeks' notice may be fine for an individual contributor with less than a year's service at the company. At the other end of the extreme, if you're a founder or executive who's been around for years and wants to leave the company in good shape, hopefully you can start talking about your transition 6-12 months before you turn into a pumpkin.
The Corollary for Managers: This is Your Problem
People leave jobs for all kinds of different reasons: good, bad and ugly. In my experience, a typical team of 10 in a start-up will lose 2-4 people every year. The best managers accept this and plan accordingly: they learn to see departures coming and smooth the transitions, so their team doesn't miss a beat. How do they do it? There are all kinds of different techniques here, but I believe it usually starts with talking openly with the team about departures and letting them know you welcome those conversations. If folks know it's okay to talk about life after this job, you're a lot more likely to get an early warning... and you may even convince them to stay longer!