“I’ve done everything I can here,” Alex told me. “But every time I think about leaving, I feel a massive sense of guilt, like I’d be abandoning my team.”
Alex is an executive vice president at a technology and manufacturing company, and she leads one of the highest-performing divisions in the company. But Alex is stuck. The founder is also the CEO, so there’s no clear path upward. She’s a respected and results-driven leader, and because she has a protective nature, she worries that leaving might mean that the business hands her team off to someone less impactful.
A Gartner survey shows that over half of C-suite leaders are likely to leave over the next two years and an LLH report found that burnout rose to 56% among leaders in 2024. As executive tenure shortens and burnout rises among senior leaders, many leaders want the answer to “What’s next for me?” But too few leaders examine how emotional loyalty, especially to teams they built, may be clouding their judgment and keeping them trapped.
Here’s how to move forward, even when it feels emotionally complicated.
ASK WHETHER YOUR LOYALTY IS STRATEGIC OR SENTIMENTAL
Loyalty is one of the most valued traits in leadership, but when it overrides objectivity, it becomes a liability. A respected senior leader who stays too long out of loyalty can stall succession planning, miss the opportunity for creative new approaches, and risk eroding their edge and engagement. They also often experience burnout and resentment from doing work that they’ve outgrown. A study on entrepreneurial leaders found that when their cognitive style did not fit the structure or demands of their work, they reported significantly higher burnout, reduced job satisfaction, and stronger intentions to leave.
It is worth considering whether your current role still aligns with your growth, or if you are staying to avoid letting someone down. Loyalty exists on a spectrum. On one end, there is no loyalty. This looks like low commitment, few team relationships, and constant churn. On the other end, there is excessive loyalty. This can look like staying in roles too long (sometimes at extreme costs). Where do you sit on the spectrum?
BE WARY OF COMMITMENT BIAS
One of my clients regularly evaluated whether her commitment to her organization was still valuable. She did this by assessing whether she was actively growing, if the work still reflected her values, and whether her efforts were creating the kind of impact she wanted to have.
When those benchmarks no longer align, consider whether staying is truly helping your team or simply keeping you both stuck. Loyalty, unchecked, becomes commitment bias: the tendency to stay committed or remain in place out of obligation, even if this behavior isn’t producing the results we want. Behavioral science shows this bias often keeps talented leaders in roles they’ve outgrown to avoid the discomfort of change, because leaving feels like discomfort and disloyalty. Deepening the trap, organizations hang on to long-term leaders in the name of loyalty and exploit it to place increased demands on them, resulting in extra hours or more unpaid work.
SHIFT FROM A NARRATIVE OF ABANDONMENT TO ONE OF LEGACY
Staying too long in a misaligned role isn’t service-minded; in the long run, it can undercut both you and your company. A corporate example of this is Steve Ballmer. He took over from Bill Gates during Microsoft’s peak, following two decades of working closely to build Microsoft. In the early years of his leadership, Microsoft saw significant revenue increase, built a powerful sales and operations system, and launched the Xbox. However, during the later years of his 13-year tenure, critics argue that he was too focused on protecting Windows and Office revenue, rather than embracing disruptive innovation. As a result, Ballmer missed the mobile revolution and was overcommitted to legacy products. Critics also claim that he created a rigid culture that killed collaboration, and his emotional blind spots clouded his objectivity.
Staying too long in a misaligned leadership role can undermine the example you set as a leader and shift your legacy from one of impact to one overshadowed by burnout, resentment, or even failure. You might not need to leave immediately, but you do need to initiate a plan for succession, delegation, or redesigning the role in a way that reinvigorates your leadership and supports your team’s sustainability.
DISTINGUISH LOYALTY FROM OBJECTIVITY
Consider that the opposite of loyalty isn’t disloyalty or being a traitor, it is objectivity. The ability to be objective about the right decision for your career and the organization starts with taking your ego out of the game. As you reach the highest levels of leadership, it becomes harder to get direct and honest feedback. Your team may withhold honest feedback, creating an echo chamber of overly positive data. A sense of healthy loyalty includes the ability to objectively evaluate your performance against business results, future business goals, and honest employee feedback. Consider how often you invite uncomfortable feedback or alternative viewpoints on your perspectives or performance. What critical evaluation do you invite on a regular basis?
The leaders who leave the strongest legacies are not the ones who stayed the longest; they are the ones who know when their continued presence limits what is possible next.