The pros and cons of quiet quitting and what it means for your career
Episode 368 | Author: Emilie Aries What is quiet quitting?
You've seen it in the headlines. You've seen it go viral on TikTok and everyone seems to be talking about “quiet quitting” - but not everyone is a fan of it. Although this conversation started years ago with the rumblings around the great resignation or the great reshuffle, it recently made its waves on TikTok and raised some eyebrows with the idea of “acting your wage.”
As a manager myself, I can understand people’s concerns with the idea of quiet quitting, and if done right, I believe quiet quitting is a helpful strategy to prevent burnout from completely consuming you - because so many of us are feelin’ the burn these days.
Whatever the reason behind the rise of quiet quitting, it has a lot of employers freaked out. I saw a recent statistic from Gallup that shows only 32% of full and part-time employees are currently engaged in the work that they're doing. People are not only fried, they're just mentally checked out after years of managing multiple global crises, on top of one another.
WHEN SHOULD YOU QUIETLY QUIT
When we’re talking about quiet quitting, what we’re really talking about is boundary setting, and I'm all for it. I think at the end of the day, it’s a different approach to boundary setting than the one a lot of us have been conditioned to take. Instead of asking for permission to set boundaries, this is about asking for forgiveness and implementing those boundaries, unapologetically, despite whatever consequences might come your way.
For example, it’s the difference between asking if you can wait to respond to an email that you received on the weekend, versus simply not responding to that email until Monday morning. If that's what quiet quitting is all about, I'm here for it.
When you feel like setting boundaries less directly hasn’t gotten you results.
I actually spoke with Business Insider last month about quiet quitting, and I made it really clear that it should be a manager's job to set clear expectations.
Not every manager has training and knows to do that and frankly, not every manager is perfect. We're all human beings. So even if we know these things - like the lessons we teach in the Level Up Leadership Accelerator, like setting clear expectations for direct reports, it's all well and good, in theory, but it’s hard to make time for! So what I said to Business Insider, is to remind yourself of the standards and expectations required to do your job well by revisiting the job description that you were hired with and write down all of the tasks you complete regularly in order to fulfill that role. Oftentimes a lack of role clarity is what leads to an overwhelming amount of work falling to you.
If setting boundaries for yourself by just waiting for others to take things off your plate or begging for permission to take things off your plate is not working, it's time to quietly quit. It's time to take those things off your plate without permission.
2. When you’re actively job-searching
If you are currently job hunting, and I talk about this all the time with our clients and our HIRED job search accelerator, you gotta give less to your current job. Even if that means disappointing others. Sometimes you gotta disappoint some people to make yourself proud.
If you find yourself just disengaging from work, know that you might ruffle a few feathers, you might let some people down and that might create some really tense feelings for you, right? If you're a people pleaser, if you're used to making everyone around you happy and comfortable all the time, it's hard. It's a total mindset shift, but keep in mind what it is that you're doing this for. Who are you putting first? When you put your employer second, you know, you're putting yourself first. You might be putting your dog first. You might be putting your boo first. You might be putting your baby first. There is more to you than your job. And so when you are quietly quitting, remind yourself that you're actually putting those other parts of your life on the front burner.
3. When you don’t see a future where you currently are.
The same thing applies when you do not see a future for yourself at the organization anymore. Let's say you've been patiently waiting for that promotion that was promised to you a year ago and it hasn't materialized. How much patience is too much patience versus not enough, right? If you are being told one thing, but you just do not see any action that would give you evidence to show you that you have a future there, then it’s in your own best interest of self preservation to quietly quit.
4. When you’re totally burnt out
And finally that brings me to the burnt out boss. If you are burnt out and, and trust me about 50% of women report failing burnt out right now - which is a truly groundbreaking statistic - you might want to consider quietly quitting.
WHEN SHOULD YOU NOT QUIET QUIT?
Now, let me switch gears here. There are also certain times in your career where quietly quitting is a career-killer.
When you’re vying for a promotion
If you are actively positioning yourself for a promotion at your current place of work, quietly quitting’s not gonna help you get there. And I'm not saying that you should always be angling for progress in your career or that you should always be driving towards a promotion -but if you are putting your foot on the gas pedal and trying to show your boss and those around you, that you are ready for more, this might not be the season for quietly quitting.
Of course, that doesn't mean you have to Marty yourself continuously and suffer your way to success. That's no fun, but there's also nothing wrong with burning the midnight oil on occasion, right? I certainly have worked hard in the past decade to try to position myself now for more work-life balance than ever and for a team, hopefully that I can design a workflow that delivers work life balance for everyone. But I was not exactly the poster child for work-life balance in the first couple of years of starting my own company.
I actually think that this cult of quiet, quitting this, like the cult of work-life balance in and of itself can actually make you feel ashamed if you're in a season of your career where you're putting in extra hours, right? If you are burning the midnight oil burning the candle on both ends, you are pushing yourself to the limit.
2. You have brand-new boss
Same thing if you have a brand new boss and you really want to impress this person. There's something to the energy of, “I'm here to help. Let me show you my value. Let me show you what I can do for this team.” And that makes a really good, strong impression.
3. You’re taking on a new stretch opportunity
That brings me to my final point. Here's when I think quiet quitting is not going to be helpful: is when you're in a new stretch role. You've just been given a leadership opportunity. You've just been given a special project, which is an opportunity to prove yourself. Some company cultures, whether you like it or not, don't promote you (especially women) until they've seen a proven track record of your performance. Should it be that way? No, we should all be earning our own wage and acting our wage and be frankly assertive about keeping things off our plates that we didn't sign up for when we took the job. But that's not how a lot of workplaces work. A lot of workplaces reward people for better or worse with a promotion after they've seen you prove yourself through a special project.
If you are aiming to Upshift your career to Level Up into a leadership role, to try to prove yourself and test out your leadership capacities, there's no shame in seeking out those kinds of stretch roles and stretch opportunities. That's when quiet quitting can do serious harm to your career.
BOTTOM LINE: QUIET QUITTING CAN BOTH HELP AND HARM YOUR CAREER
Whether or not “quiet quitting” is for you depends on the phase, stage, and era of your career that you find yourself in. That is nobody's call but yours. It’s a topic that I think has gained a lot of heat and controversy because everyone has a lot to say about it. But that is not how this works at the end of the day. You are the boss of your career.
Got a career conundrum you want us to cover on the podcast? Leave a voicemail at 910-668-BOSS(2677) or shoot us an email at info@bossedup.org.
