Consider what most organisations invest in beginnings. Onboarding programmes are carefully designed, resourced and monitored. Senior leaders are introduced through structured and paced induction. New hires are supported to settle quickly, perform well and feel part of something.
We know that beginnings shape performance and culture, so we take time to get them right.
Now consider endings.
Endings are inherently more difficult to hold. They are often associated with loss, disruption and uncertainty, and they rarely arrive at a convenient moment. Once decisions have been made, there is a strong pull to move on quickly, to restore momentum and signal a way forward. Sometimes this urgency is conscious and often it is not.
Endings are often rushed, avoided or delegated to process, not because they do not matter, but because they are harder to navigate and leadership development has not focused on the skills of ending well.
This can create a marked asymmetry between onboarding and offboarding. Beginnings are treated as strategic moments that deserve investment and design. Endings, by contrast, are often treated as something to be completed efficiently once decisions have been taken. Yet both influence what happens next, even if the effects of endings are quieter and slower to surface.
What would change if organisations invested as deliberately in how people leave as they do in how they arrive?
An example of asymmetry in action
In the same week, a global organisation both onboarded and offboarded two senior leaders, welcoming one and losing another.
When Sarah joined the executive team, she was given a structured induction programme, coaching support, and clear narratives about culture and values. Senior sponsors were assigned to help her settle quickly and perform well. The intention was explicit: to give her the best possible chance of success.
That same week, Mark, a long-serving senior leader, left following a restructure. His exit was handled efficiently. Systems were updated, handovers arranged and communications issued. There was little space to acknowledge what was ending, what Mark had contributed over time, or what the change meant for those who remained.
Mark moved on quickly to another organisation. Inside the previous organisation, however, the effects lingered. His former team was left with unresolved questions about why decisions had been made. The role Sarah had just inherited carried unspoken loyalties and unresolved dynamics. Trust dipped, decision-making slowed and informal narratives filled the gaps left by the absence of a clear ending.
From a procedural perspective, Mark’s departure had been efficiently managed. Yet the organisation continued to carry the effects of an ending that had not been fully attended to, long after he had left.
The hidden internal costs
When offboarding is treated as a transactional process rather than an organisational ending, the people left behind are often significantly impacted, and those consequences rarely appear immediately. They surface gradually, embedded in how people work, make decisions and collaborate.
How departures are handled teaches people what this organisation does when things become difficult. Endings that are rushed or left unmarked leave individuals and teams to make sense of change on their own.
This in turn shapes trust in leadership, creating uncertainty about what is safe to say or ask.
Over time, organisations begin to notice slower decision-making, more cautious behaviour and longer bedding-in periods for new hires.
New incumbents also feel the impact. Roles that have not been properly concluded often carry unfinished business. Unspoken expectations and unresolved loyalties can sit beneath the surface, making it harder for successors to establish authority or build momentum.
These effects carry real cost, even if they are not easily captured on a balance sheet.
The hidden external costs
The external consequences of neglected endings can often be underestimated because they tend to take longer to show themselves. They rarely appear as immediate problems. Instead, they accumulate quietly.
People who leave do not disappear from the organisation’s world. They move into its wider orbit as future hires, clients, partners, suppliers and referrers. What they carry with them is the lived experience of their tenure in the organisation, and crucially, how that tenure ended. It is this experience, rather than any formal message, that shapes how the organisation is spoken about long after the employment relationship has finished.
When endings are handled poorly, employer reputation is gradually worn down. Recruitment becomes harder, retention more fragile. When endings are handled with care, the opposite tends to happen. People speak well of the organisation, remain connected to it, and in some cases choose to return later in their careers or recommend others.
Seen over the longer term the economic impact becomes clearer. Organisations that attend to endings consistently often spend less time repairing trust, re-attracting talent and rebuilding reputation than those that take less care of their departures.
Offboarding as an organisational capability
One reason offboarding receives less attention than onboarding is that it is often treated as an administrative task. Once legal and procedural steps are complete, attention moves on. Developing offboarding as an organisational capability requires a different stance: recognising that an ending has to be worked with, not just processed.
In practice, this means designing endings with the same intentionality that organisations apply to beginnings. It involves being clear about what is actually ending, noticing who is affected by that ending, and making proportionate choices about what needs to be acknowledged rather than assumed to resolve itself over time.
In our work, and in our book Good Bye, we use the REAR model as a light handrail for this work. Good endings tend to include naming what is ending (Reality), acknowledging the impact of that ending (Emotion), recognising what has been contributed (Accomplishment), and marking the transition in some intentional way (Ritual). This is not about doing more, but about paying attention in different ways.
Applied to Mark’s departure, the Reality step would have meant naming clearly what was ending, not just administratively but relationally. Mark was not simply leaving a role; he was leaving long-standing relationships, informal influence and a way of being known in the organisation. Making this explicit would have helped both Mark and those around him understand what was genuinely changing, rather than assuming clarity would emerge on its own.
The Emotion step would have involved acknowledging the mixed responses his departure created. Alongside professionalism and forward focus, there may have been loyalty, disappointment, relief or uncertainty within the team. Creating space for these responses to be recognised, rather than managed away, would have reduced the likelihood of them resurfacing later as mistrust or hesitation.
Accomplishment would have required Mark’s contribution to be properly witnessed. Not as a cursory farewell, but as a moment that allowed both Mark and the organisation to acknowledge what had been built over time, even though the ending came earlier or differently than he might have chosen. Banking what had been achieved helps people leave with a clearer sense of value and helps those who remain separate the contribution from the person who is no longer there.
Finally, Ritual would have meant creating a clear and proportionate marker that the transition was real. This might have been a visible handover, a deliberate boundary-setting moment, or a formal closing that made it clear where Mark’s authority ended and where the new leaders began. Without this, the ending risks remaining psychologically incomplete, with influence and expectation continuing to circulate informally.
When leaders take responsibility for how endings are handled, rather than assuming time will take care of them, people are better able to disengage from what has ended. What is acknowledged can be left behind more cleanly than what is avoided.
Restoring symmetry between beginnings and endings
Onboarding is designed to secure a thriving future within the organisation. Offboarding, when taken seriously, supports a thriving future beyond it. Both deserve attention, both require design, both shape performance and reputation over time.
The asymmetry between how organisations treat beginnings and endings does not have to be inevitable. When endings are stewarded with the same care, investment and leadership attention as beginnings, organisations reduce hidden costs and create the conditions for continuity, trust and long-term success.
Alison is a professionally accredited coach and facilitator, she works predominantly at board level across the public, private and third sectors. Alison is co-author of Good Bye: Leading Change Better by Attending to Endings (Practical Inspiration Publishing), a book that reflects her commitment to helping organisations navigate change more thoughtfully and effectively.
Professionally accredited as both a coach and facilitator, Lizzie works extensively with senior leaders and boards across all three sectors. She is co-author of Good Bye: Leading Change Better by Attending to Endings (Practical Inspiration Publishing), drawing on her experience of guiding organisations through complex transitions.
