Anu Bharadwaj was a rising star at Atlassian, but just two years into her role, she was ready to quit. Exhausted from long hours and constant pressure, Bharadwaj walked into her boss’s office to resign. Instead, he made her a counteroffer: Take a year off to do whatever she wanted and if she decided to return to tech, the door at Atlassian would remain open.
Anu spent the year as far away from tech as possible, devoting her time to her longtime passion for wildlife conservation.
She ultimately returned to Atlassian, a Sydney-based software company, and went on to lead its massive transition to the cloud, advancing to COO, and then president. Her year in the wild inspired a different approach to listening, navigating company interests, and taking on new challenges.
When you’re burned out and ready to quit, it can be hard to tell whether you’ve outgrown your job or simply need some distance. Here are some helpful questions to answer before you make your decision.
1. Is the job the problem, or the company?
Anu was no stranger to the tech world, starting as a game developer for Microsoft. But Atlassian felt different. Her personal ethos aligned with the company’s in a way she hadn’t experienced before.
“The company values were no bullshit, which meant speaking your mind was encouraged,” she said. “I was pretty much the only Indian woman among 500 people in the company. But what motivated me was building technology that matters with a group of people who matter.”
I spent 20 years as the chief marketing officer at Mayfield, a top venture capital firm. During that time we had two generations of leadership, an asset class that changed from a cottage industry to an institutionalized system, and boom-and-bust tech and economic cycles. I was able to navigate all these changes as I had leaders who were my champions and I felt completely aligned with the firm’s values of putting people first.
So if you feel comfortable speaking your mind and the company’s values match your own, it’s worth asking whether leaving is the right change for you.
2. Do I respect my current and likely future boss?
Anu’s boss at Atlassian, Scott Farquhar, the CEO, saw a future for her at the company even when she couldn’t see it herself. Rather than push her to stay, he gave her the space she needed to figure out what she wanted next. Scott is what I call a champion.
There’s a difference between mentors, sponsors, and champions. Mentors guide you, sponsors speak for you when you are not in the room, and champions go the extra mile to help you thrive. At Mayfield, I had the opportunity to work part-time for a decade while raising young kids, then returned to full-time when I was ready. With the support of the managing partner, I never felt undermined for being a fractional employee.
When you leave a job behind, you also leave the people. A boss who sees your potential and gives you opportunities to grow is hard to replace. That’s worth factoring into your decision.
3. What part of my job still gives me energy?
Anu was tired, but she wasn’t drained by every part of her job. She enjoyed interacting with customers, which was still one of her favorite parts of her work.
“There’s aspects of our jobs we would do for free, and there’s aspects of our jobs that we feel like, ‘Man, this is the tax I have to pay in order to get the goodness of the rest of my job,’” she said. “I could talk to customers for eight hours straight about their problems and potential solutions and still feel like I have energy for the day.”
I’ve found the same in my own career. One of the privileges of being an early-stage venture capital firm is that you get to champion founder journeys from idea to iconic stage. So when the first-time founders of Lyft said they wanted to disrupt transportation, I was along for the ride. Supporting dreamers like them is what kept me going through industry and company challenges.
If there are parts of your job that you would happily keep doing, then focus on what is keeping you from that joy, and see if you can eliminate that, versus throwing the proverbial baby out with the bathwater.
4. Will I continue learning if I return?
While Anu didn’t know what her role would look like when she returned to Atlassian, her year away exposed her to challenges far beyond the world of tech. In her conservation work, she had to consider the interests of multiple stakeholders, including farmers, conservationists, and law enforcement. She returned with a fresh perspective on how to approach complicated problems and bring people along.
That prepared her for her next challenge: proposing and leading Atlassian’s transition to the cloud, which required navigating the interests of employees, customers, and shareholders through a major change.
Maybe there are challenges at your company that could still push you in new directions. If you can see room to learn and grow, you may not be finished with the job yet.
5. What else could I see myself doing?
This is an important question that requires self-examination and also the luxury of stepping away from a safe financial path. It took Anu a few years after her sabbatical, but she has since hung up her operating executive boots, leaving behind constant international travel for a job closer to home. She now applies her experience in building products and companies to guide founders, while also finding time for hiking and caring for her cats.
“When people ask me for career advice, I tell them to take a sabbatical and do something you would never do in your day-to-day job,” she says. “It really helped me understand how to listen deeply. It teaches you how this other person is thinking about this problem, which looks so different from the way you would think about this problem. That’s what good leaders do.”
Give yourself the chance to try something different, and you may discover that you miss the work left behind, or realize there’s a new path that fits the life you want now.
