Gut Says Go: knowing when to leave a workplace that does not fit your values
Staying in a workplace whose culture conflicts with your values is not automatically resilience. Sometimes resilience means staying and doing the work of repair. Sometimes it means recognising what staying asks you to surrender. If the price is a boundary, a value or the kind of professional you want to become, leaving can be sound judgement rather than failure.
If you work in government, not for profit, professional services or a purpose-led organisation and have quietly started wondering whether the values of your workplace still align with your own, this one's for you. Particularly, if you have been second-guessing yourself, postponing a decision to leave, or telling yourself that staying is what resilience, professionalism or commitment looks like.
Recent reporting about a Top Tier Consulting firm has brought a very short period of my own career there back to mind. Even today, despite the extensive media coverage, I hesitate to name The Firm. Perhaps that hesitation says something in itself and I am not about to make any allegations here. This isn't the place for it. This article is about something broader, affecting many of us across many organisations: what happens when the culture around us does not fit the values we carry into it, and what we risk losing if we stay too long.
Key takeaways
An environment does not have to be objectively bad, and there does not always need to be a villain, for it to be wrong for you.
Endurance and resilience are not always the same thing.
Staying in the wrong environment does not build character, it destroys it.
In public-interest work, your values shape what you notice, what you question and what you are prepared to challenge.
Sometimes the only validation for leaving is the life you build afterwards.
Part of being good at conflict resolution is recognising its limits.
Resilience or endurance: how to tell the difference
What is happening | Resilience: staying and doing the work | Endurance: staying and putting something down |
Discomfort | You name it, have the difficult conversation and listen to uncomfortable feedback | You normalise it; what once made you uncomfortable stops registering |
The story you tell yourself | This is hard, and worth working through | This is simply what ambitious or committed people do |
What changes | The relationship or the process, through repair and negotiation | You: a boundary, a value, or your idea of the professional you want to become |
Where it leads | Repair, a workable compromise, or leaving with your values intact | Losing sight of what mattered when you first walked through the door |
My six weeks at The Firm
I worked at The Firm for six weeks. The friends and colleagues who were close to me at the time know how difficult those weeks were. I had never left a job that quickly before, and I haven't since. There were genuinely kind, clever and impressive people there, and I learnt a lot in a very short period. Many things I would never have learnt but for that experience.
But I also knew quite quickly that I did not want to stay. When I left, for years afterwards, senior people in my profession told me that leaving so quickly was a mistake. I should have stuck it out, given it six months and put it on my CV, or stayed and changed it for the better.
I chose not to. To be clear, I did not experience anything as serious as the conduct now being described in media reports of whistleblower allegations. What I experienced was much less dramatic but no less malignant: unsettling conversations, unrealistic expectations, suffocating hierarchy, celebrated long hours, and particular ideas about success and sacrifice.
There were very good people within that environment, but the culture as I experienced it during those six weeks was not one in which I wanted to spend most of my waking hours in life. I knew I didn't fit and it hit me in the face pretty quickly.
When the room asks you to change
An environment does not have to be objectively bad to be wrong for you, and there does not always need to be a villain. Nobody needs to intend to harm you for the impact of an environment to become heavy. We all arrive at work carrying our own values, experiences, needs, expectations and ideas about what good work looks like. Sometimes those things fit comfortably with the culture around us, and sometimes we can adapt without giving up anything particularly important.
The harder question comes when staying starts asking us to put something down: a boundary, a value, a belief about how people should be treated, or an expectation about the kind of professional we want to become. Looking back, that is how I understand the choice I made.
Be careful what you call resilience
I think we need to be more thoughtful about the way we talk about resilience at work. Sometimes resilience absolutely means staying. It means having the difficult conversation, listening to uncomfortable feedback, repairing relationships, negotiating and working through something hard. Much of my professional life as a mediator and conflict consultant is devoted to helping people do exactly that.
But endurance and resilience are not always the same thing.
When we stay in cultures that repeatedly conflict with our values, we can gradually begin to normalise what once made us uncomfortable. We adapt, rationalise and tell ourselves that this is simply what ambitious or committed people do. The risk is not only that we become unhappy. Over time, we can lose sight of what mattered to us when we first walked through the door.
Staying in the wrong environment does not build character, it destroys it.
For people working in government, regulation, consulting and other areas that serve the public interest, I think this matters enormously. Our values influence what we notice, what we question, what we are prepared to challenge and how we exercise judgement.
Why I was lucky
I see myself as lucky today, but not because I left. Leaving was a decision I made based on judgement, intuition and my values, despite receiving advice from people considerably more senior than me to do otherwise.
What I have been lucky to receive, years later, is some external validation for trusting that judgement.
Many people who walk away never get that. There may be no headline, investigation or later event that causes somebody to turn around and say, You were right.
Sometimes the only validation available is the life you build afterwards: the weight you no longer carry, the opportunities you make room for and the gradual realisation that you no longer wonder whether you should have stayed.
One thing that stayed with me from those six weeks was watching extraordinarily bright junior staff work extraordinary hours, often in the hope that the sacrifice would eventually lead somewhere: recognition, progression, partnership or security. I think about those people now. I hope they find organisations where their intelligence and hard work are valued, but where they can also feel proud of how they work, who they work with and what their work asks of them.
At the time, I had enough experience to trust my gut and act on it. People earlier in their careers do not always have the same confidence, financial freedom or perspective, particularly when everyone around them is telling them that what they are experiencing is simply what success requires.
Knowing when to go
I remain someone who believes deeply in staying in the room and compromising where you can. I believe in difficult conversations, repair, curiosity and finding ways forward when relationships become strained. But part of being good at conflict resolution is recognising its limits.
Not every relationship needs saving, and not every environment needs enduring. Sometimes resilience is staying and doing the work; sometimes it is recognising what staying is asking you to surrender. The choice may eventually become whether to put down what you carried into the room so you can remain there, or to leave the room still carrying the values and identity you walked in with.
If your gut is saying go
If you are sitting with a similar decision, wondering whether something can still be repaired or whether it really is time to leave, I have written a more practical guide to working through that choice.
And if you lead a team and want a workplace people stay in for the right reasons, that is the work I do with leadership groups in-house, built around your context rather than a generic program.
You can find this article in my LinkedIn Newsletters - Disputre Resolution Insights here: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/gut-says-go-shiv-martin-igbkc/
Frequently asked questions
Is leaving a job after a few weeks a career mistake?
Not necessarily. Senior people told me that leaving after six weeks was a mistake, that I should have given it six months and put it on my CV. I chose not to, and years later I received some external validation for trusting that judgement. Many people who leave never get that headline moment. Sometimes the only validation is the life you build afterwards.
How do I know whether the problem is the culture or me?
Nobody needs to intend harm for an environment to become heavy, and an environment does not have to be objectively bad to be wrong for you. The clearer test is what staying asks of you. If you can adapt without giving up anything that matters, that is ordinary adjustment. If staying asks you to put down a boundary, a value or the kind of professional you want to become, that is a fit problem, not a personal failing. My step-by-step guide separates burnout, job misfit and workplace conditions, because each points to a different next step.
What is the difference between resilience and endurance at work?
Resilience can mean staying: having the difficult conversation, listening to uncomfortable feedback, repairing relationships, negotiating and working through something hard. Endurance is staying while gradually normalising what once made you uncomfortable, rationalising it as what ambitious or committed people do. The first keeps your values intact. The second slowly costs you sight of them.
Should I try to change the culture from within before I leave?
Often, yes. I believe in staying in the room and compromising where you can, and much of my work helps people do exactly that. Part of being good at conflict resolution, though, is recognising its limits. Not every relationship needs saving and not every environment needs enduring. One well-prepared conversation about what would need to change is usually worth having before you decide; my January guide sets out how to hold it.
What if I do not have the confidence or financial freedom to leave?
That is the position many people earlier in their careers are in, particularly when everyone around them says this is simply what success requires. Leaving is not the only alternative to enduring. My practical guide frames the decision as three options rather than two: stay and stabilise, stay and redesign, or leave with intention. Naming the real issue and having one structured conversation can open the middle option, and it costs nothing to explore.
References
Safe Work Australia, Model Code of Practice: Managing psychosocial hazards at work, https://www.safeworkaustralia.gov.au/doc/model-code-practice-managing-psychosocial-hazards-work
Fair Work Ombudsman, Resignation and notice, https://www.fairwork.gov.au/ending-employment/notice-and-final-pay/resignation-and-notice
Shiv Martin, How to Know When It's Time to Quit a Job (and How to Quit Well), https://www.shivmartin.com.au/post/when-to-quit-a-job-and-how-to-quit-well
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