WHEN STAYING IS ALREADY A WAY OF LEAVING

There is a way of leaving that leaves no trace. The person is still there in their chair, greeting everyone each morning and finishing their tasks on time, but if you look closely enough, you notice that something inside has faded. They have stopped proposing ideas, stopped arguing passionately, stopped staying five extra minutes because the conversation was worth it—yet they haven’t slammed any doors.

They have done something quieter and far deeper: they have withdrawn their soul from what they do, leaving only their body to perform the work. Today, we call this quiet retreat quiet quitting. And I suspect that, starting with the name itself, we are already getting it wrong.

Calling it a "resignation" places the action—and with it, the blame—on the worker's side. As if the person had decided, in a private and somewhat cowardly act, to simply stop giving. The word carries a whiff of reluctance, of comfort, of a generation that no longer wants to dedicate itself. It is worth being skeptical of that reading, because it closes the wound far too quickly. Quiet quitting is understood differently when we listen to it as a response rather than a whim. Before someone stops giving, something stopped reaching them. The silence into which they fade is usually the echo of an earlier silence: that of not being seen or recognized.

We are not talking about isolated cases. When the American consulting firm Gallup looks at the world of work globally, it finds that nearly two out of three people experience their jobs with quiet disengagement—present in the task, but absent from the connection. It is a figure that seems to describe individuals, individual disinterest added up one by one, but deep down it describes something else. It describes relationships that grew cold, recognition that never arrived, and conversations that were never had.

It is worth stopping here to ask ourselves with honesty: When was the last time someone on our team felt truly seen? Do we remember the moment their spark began to fade, or did it happen without anyone noticing?

Gabriel Marcel distinguished presence from mere physical proximity. Someone can sit right beside us and be entirely absent, while someone far away can sustain us with their presence. For Marcel, to be present is to make oneself available to another, to open a space for them within oneself. We always work within this web of presences that either sustains us or lets us fall. When people feel we are available to them, they dare, they propose, they expose themselves; conversely, when they perceive that we merely occupy a role, they guard themselves, protect themselves, and retreat into the minimum required. Quiet quitting is born there: in the exposure of feeling like a resource rather than a face. No one withdraws their enthusiasm from a place where they feel seen and recognized.

At the Relational Institute, we have confirmed through research that relational quality directly impacts the decision to stay by fostering emotional commitment. It is a finding that is both simple and demanding. Simple, because anyone who has ever nurtured a bond recognizes it: we stay where we feel we belong, where someone trusts us, where what we give meets a response. Demanding, because it shows that retention cannot be bought with incentives; it must be cultivated through presence. Emotional commitment is that dedication no clause can demand, and which only flourishes when the relationship deserves it.

When that commitment fades, the phenomenon appears in all its sadness. Recognition thins, trust fractures, and affection retreats; what remains is a hollow presence, being there without truly being present. Quiet quitting is the prelude to departure. A person says goodbye on the inside months or years before signing anything. And that quiet farewell, precisely because it appears in no turnover statistics, is the most costly of all.

Simone Weil left a phrase that should govern any reflection on recognition: attention is the rarest and purest form of generosity. Recognizing someone begins by truly looking at them, by offering them the kind of attention that restores their certainty of mattering. Recognition precedes effort and makes it possible. Thus, an organization that measures without looking and evaluates without recognizing unwittingly removes the very ground upon which it will later ask commitment to grow. It demands the fruit while letting the root dry out.

The temptation at this point is to view quiet quitting as a problem with individuals who need to be re-energized—with a campaign, a bonus, or a purpose workshop. Affection resists this approach, because no one gives it by decree. It awakens when the conditions that make it possible exist, and those conditions are almost always relational. That is why those who have left while staying are not an organization’s failure: they are its most honest mirror. They reflect back to us, with a fidelity that hurts, the quality of the relationships they have received.

The useful question then changes direction. It stops being "how do we get them committed again?" and becomes "what did we stop offering them, in the realm of care and recognition, for staying to end up hurting as much as leaving?" The first question looks for someone to point a finger at and almost never finds them. The second, more uncomfortable and more fertile, forces us to look at ourselves. And unlike the first, this one does have an answer we can start working on today.

https://youtu.be/xjMxs36MBKA