Should I be loyal to my company? Rethinking what it means to be loyal at work

Freya came back to me for a return coaching session last week. She’s a year and a half into her role as the executive director of a small nonprofit in the Midwest. They do meaningful work that she deeply believes in. They are powered by a small, hardworking staff who make so much happen with so little. They are led by an ambitious board that continually has new ideas and high expectations for the impact they can make.

This is Freya's first time leading a full organization. She wants to prove that she can do it. She wants to earn the trust and admiration of her board and staff. And she wants to increase the impact of the organization’s work.

But from day one, it’s been an uphill battle. The organization wasn’t in as strong of a position as the board led her to believe in the interview process. Because of some reporting oversights that happened before she arrived on the scene, in her first six months they lost a major operational grant that made up about 30% of their budget. Freya didn’t find out until the final stage of her interview process that the organization didn’t offer health insurance as a benefit; she had to purchase it independently for herself and her kid.

She works 70+ hours a week (never mind the hours spent awake in the middle of the night). She doesn’t do the math of what that ends up working out to as a per hour rate—it would be too much to face.

Before this role, Freya was a freelance consultant. She juggled multiple projects and didn’t know what income would look like month to month.

This role offers some more stability—regular work and a regular paycheck. Plus, the opportunity to grow and learn in an exciting role and a small but mighty organization.

But she’s feeling stretched far too thin. The board is pushing forward while the staff is barely treading water. In the weeks ahead, Freya might need to make the difficult decision to forgo her own pay in order to make payroll for the rest of the staff. The weight of it all is too much. She tells me she is burned out to a crisp. She can feel her presence, performance, and motivation draining.

She came to me for coaching today because she wants to apply to other positions but feels so guilty. It’s only been a year and a half, but something tells her that if she stays it will only get worse.

She wants the organization—and herself—to stay healthy and in a strong position. But the team and board are counting on her. What would it do to the organization if she leaves after just a year and a half? What would it say about her?

Questioning loyalty at work

Mission driven leaders are loyal to the mission. Loyal to the team. Loyal to the organization.

But what about loyalty to self?

Freya was never set up for success in this role. She was handed an organization in need of massive repair—of scaling back to a reasonable and realistic set of core programs, of building its operational infrastructure in order to support its existing programs, never mind add new ones. But boards members aren’t excited by anything but expansive programs that meet community needs. Funders don’t offer support to cut things instead of add, or strengthen foundational systems. And it's nearly impossible for a new executive director to share these hard truths when they're expected to magically solve the problem through grit and passion.

While this position seemed to offer more stability than her last, Freya is still teetering on the edge of precarity, this time not just for herself but for her organization and team as a whole.

It’s no wonder she wants to find a new position! This is an untenable situation that is normalized and glorified by nonprofit culture that tells us: This is just how things work in a purpose-driven organization that wants to do good! Fight the good fight! Make sacrifices in service of the mission!

Freya shouldn't have to feel so guilty about wanting to move on.

It’s ok to want a job that has reasonable expectations.

It’s ok to want to work for an organization that is strategic about focus.

It’s ok to leave a job that you haven’t been at for long because you need one that actually provides you with health insurance.

It’s ok to be loyal to your own wellness over the wellness of an organization. Especially if you’re in a leadership role, the organization cannot be healthy if you are not.

​Bearing the responsibility of leadership means that you need to be able to respond. An organization that hollows you out using the nonprofit ethos of loyalty as a driver prevents you from being able to respond.

In my experience as a coach, mission-driven leaders struggle with giving themselves permission to leave a company. One factor is their loyalty to the team and to the mission of the organization.

But what about loyalty to self? To your own wholeness?

Practicing loyalty to yourself

As I’ve integrated my Autism diagnosis, I’ve had to acknowledge just how often I am more loyal to others’ comfort and needs than I am to my own. I’ve developed a habit so deep of silencing my own needs that I stopped acknowledging them not just to others but to myself. Especially at work.

I wonder how much of this came from masking my Autism and how much of it came from growing up professionally in nonprofits. Through role models and the organizations' cultures, I learned quickly that good nonprofit workers value others' needs over our own—that's how we end up in organizations that provide services for people living below the poverty line and somehow justify staff salaries that also fall below the poverty line.

I’ve had to slowly, step by step, acknowledge what my needs are and what it means to be loyal to myself.

I made this punchcard, and maybe you need one too (print it out!).

Print out your self loyalty card here.​

Each time I take an action that is loyal to my wholeness, I give myself a sticker. I’ve had to reroute my neural pathways—loyalty to myself isn’t selfish and wrong. It’s positive. This reinforces that.

Freya worries what it will say about her if she leaves her organization. But what does it say about her if she stays?

Coaching questions to consider:

• When was a time that you struggled with staying in a job out of a sense of loyalty?

• In what ways are you currently being more loyal to your organization than to yourself?

• What does it look like for you to you to be loyal to yourself?