"Quiet quitting" has been a favorite buzzword this year, a TikTok fueled follow up to the Great Resignation. The central argument is usually that people invest the "bare minimum" into a job when they're experiencing burnout—or career laziness—depending who you ask. In the Atlantic article The Cure for Burnout is not 'Self Care' Amelia Nagoski argues that it's more likely associated with employees who had previously sold not just their time, but their self and purpose to their employer—without the expected returns. This aligns with an NPR survey of workers who prefer to call quiet quitting "working to thrive," "reverse hustle," or "morale-adjusted productivity."
It's tempting to ask if employees are expecting too much of the work environment. In searching for an answer to that, Millennials like myself have watched as their parents retire finally ready to "live their life," but instead it looks more like taking a breath after decades of holding it. Gen Z seems to look towards their future even more cynically: why sacrifice the moment for a future that may never come?
If we're expecting too much of the work environment, it follows that we're expecting too little of ourselves.
So what does the contemporary professional do if they want to bring their self—and not just their skills—to work with them? Organizational leaders often look for tactical ways to encourage this: happy hours, inter-team lunch and chats, offsites, recognition awards, personal interest activities, expanded channels of communication, career support 1:1s with managers, project ownership and open door policies.
But in our lives in general, we don't use "tactics" to self-actualize. In personal relationships, the ability to give one's self depends almost entirely on the respectful reciprocation of the others in that space. When that doesn't happen, it spawns countless think-pieces about toxic relationships. It's arguable that the same thing is the case in the workplace: if you want people to stick around and invest themselves, as a leader it can't be about you. Selflessness as a leadership "style" is fairly well recognized, but the argument this generation of professionals is starting to ask is: if that's not your style—who are you leading?