I feel like my resigning employee doesn’t care about the predicament their leaving has caused

A reader writes:

I’m struggling with where the lines are on having personal feelings about an employee leaving, and hoping you have some advice that could help me.

My direct report Sam has handed in their notice to make an internal move to another team, in the middle of an extremely difficult multi-month project. This will add a lot (a LOT) to the workload of myself and another direct report of mine, Mel. I’m working hard to make sure this a problem for the business rather than a huge weight of stress added to people (i.e., the business should solve this difficulty by paying with money, not by burning out great employees like Mel) but it’s impossible to mitigate all of the extra strain this will put on us. I’m not pressuring Sam to change their mind or anything like that and have been supportive about the move but honest about the challenges it presents to the team (briefly, in practical conversations about handover).

In the past, we. have always been a very supportive and caring small team, looking out for each other, supportively checking in on each other when times are busy/difficult, and offering to help out when we see someone trying to take on too much work. And while there have been stressful times for the team, as a boss I have always shouldered as much or more than the rest of my team and have worked (successfully) to improve the things that can be improved and made the team a great place to work (my team has given me this feedback, that’s not just my opinion).

Now I’m dealing with a lot of stress and extra work — negotiating Sam’s transition to the other team, hiring to backfill, looking down the barrel of taking over Sam’s project workload, a bunch of other semi-coincidental work changes I am navigating, all alongside a difficult family health situation. I’m struggling with the feeling that Sam doesn’t care about the predicament they are leaving us in, when in the past we have been such a supportive team. I’m doing my best not to let it affect my work and my interactions with Sam, but it’s definitely getting to me. I want to deal with this situation professionally and remain on good terms with Sam in the future.

I am stressed, and that is a direct consequence of Sam leaving, and honestly I do want them to care that their colleagues are now under much more pressure, because that’s always been our team culture. Is the most professional thing to just pretend it’s not affecting me? Or is it fine for them to see that I’m too busy for some tasks, acting a bit more stressed than usual? For context, I’m talking about being in a rush, or visibly a little bit less organized than usual in an internal meeting due to having to pivot so fast between different priorities, or mentioning that it’s not been possible to complete specific project tasks due to my management workload being unusually high. I’m not talking about showing exasperation with Sam, blaming them for leaving, or pointedly saying things like, “Now that you won’t be here to help with…”

I can’t tell if I’m walking the line right.

You’re taking it too personally, and you are expecting Sam to take it too personally.

It doesn’t sound like you’re showing that to Sam, which is good, but your thinking about it is miscalibrated.

Sam doesn’t need to care about the predicament they’re leaving the team in! Or more to the point, what would it look like for Sam to care in the way you want? They definitely shouldn’t not change jobs, or delay their departure, or take on a higher-than-usual workload in their remaining time with you. Do you just want them to be aware of the increased workload it’s causing? If so, what exactly would that awareness look like? I think if you think it through, you’ll realize there aren’t specific actions it’s appropriate to want from Sam here!

I mean, for the sake of thoroughness, if Sam spends their final week on your team, I don’t know, taste-testing various condiment brands and writing up elaborate assessments of each ketchup while the rest of you are scrambling to cover the workload associated with their departure, that would be an issue. But assuming it’s not something like that, all Sam really owes is to spend their remaining time wrapping up their projects and leaving things in as decent shape as time allows. That’s truly it.

You don’t need to hide that you’re too busy for some tasks or slightly more stressed than usual — although that’s subject to the normal advice I give managers about visible stress, which is that you need to be aware that your own stress can stress out your team and really impact their quality of life (more on that here) and in general it’s better for your team if you project a “yes, we’re busy, but things will be fine” vibe (unless that’s not actually true, which would be a whole different issue). But I do think you need to be careful about the way you’re talking about the challenges Sam’s departure presents. It’s absolutely fine to say something like “We’re still figuring out who will cover X” or “We’re probably going to need to put X on hold until a replacement is hired” or even “I’m not sure if we’ll be able to finish the X work this year, I’m still figuring that out.” But you shouldn’t say things to Sam like, “This is really tough” or “I have no idea how we’re going to handle this” — that’s putting too much of the burden on them. People leave jobs, often (even usually!) at inconvenient times, and figuring out how to roll with that is just part of the job when you’re the manager.

Reading your letter made me wonder if, in your desire to be a supportive and caring boss to your team, you might have inadvertently set up the situation you’re in now. If you’re always trying to make sure you’re shouldering as much or more of the team’s work as they are, you’re not necessarily leaving room for this kind of situation, where the workload on the manager is temporarily going to rise.

Relatedly, when you’re working to ensure that the burden of Sam’s departure falls on the business to accommodate, not on great employees like Mel (which is a good instinct!), make sure you’re working to ensure that it doesn’t fall unreasonably on you as well. Realistically in situations like this, you sometimes will need to push back projects or cancel them altogether — particularly if you were already working at capacity plus dealing with that difficult family health situation — and you should give yourself permission (or obtain it from your boss) to do that here if it’s needed.