By Katia Del Rivero

Versión en Español

“It’s just that my former colleagues still come to me for answers. They don’t feel comfortable with their new boss. You don’t know how bad they are being treated! And they are making things, that, nobody really understands… They’re asking me why I left and want me to go back.”

Many times I’ve heard this or similar things from people who have left companies.

When I asked them: what drives you to keep this relationship? Their answers were: “I feel responsible”, “I think they’re making things wrong”, “I don’t know how not to answer them”.

It was like they couldn’t see that they weren’t there anymore, that this people were not their work team and that it wasn’t their job anymore.

How Many Possible Implications Could This Have?

The first one, I think, is that while they keep this bond with their former co-workers — one based on work issues — , it’s hard for them to truly be available for a new position.

And it’s likely that the less emotional availability they have, less chances they’ll find then it will seem more reasonable to keep this relationship and keep feeding, what perhaps, is still open for themselves.

It also has a great impact in the former co-workers, those who are supposedly being taken care of. While the leader doesn’t let go this bond, less likely will the co-workers feel “free” to embrace their new boss and give themselves a chance to build together a whole new possibility.

Finally, this which I hadn’t seen or lived first hand like I experienced this past weeks, it also affects the company, its results, the company’s environment and even, in the new leader’s inclusion process.

When the previous boss “hasn’t left completely”, there’s not a real space for the new boss to arrive. The time needed for the integration process or closure of business relationship, has a direct impact in the company operations, productivity, and customer support (is astonishing how many times this happens and I believe is just an issue of misunderstood loyalty).

Like all of these wasn’t enough, the way this gets handled sets the way things get handled within this social system and shapes the culture and organizational climate.

Recently I saw a former boss protect a previous colleague who wasn’t willing to collaborate with the new boss, and even after many unprofessional behaviours (that caused the ceasing of the professional relationship), she avoided this form happening by successfully moving him to a new area. I can understand why in this system relationships are based on power, instead of being oriented, at least in many cases, to build together, because that’s what gets built with this “little day by day” choices.

Getting closure, learning to let go, paradoxically means keeping in your heart what’s useful, what’s worthy and what contributes to the next step.

When this doesn’t happen, then we remain “tied up” to something that’s not there anymore, and prevent ourselves from taking “whatever that could be”.

And you? Have you let go what must go?

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