How to Navigate Stressful Transitions with Your Integrity Intact

By: Kathy Kent Toney, CEO & Founder of Kent Business Solutions

Photo by Brett Jordan from Pexels

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We all have gone through difficult transitions in our lives, some by choice and others not of our choosing.

There’s leaving a place, be it a job or physically moving, where we would love to have stayed but couldn’t.

And then there are the situations where bridges were burning down all around us, and we couldn’t get off the bridges fast enough! 

Either way, it’s not fun, but how you handle these situations can make all the difference in the world.

For instance, you can:

• Learn to recognize and then prevent “burning bridge” scenarios before they start
• Choose to leave situations (good and bad) both intentionally and graciously

By doing so, you can leave those situations with high levels of integrity, self-respect, and goodwill. Here are three things you can try towards this end:

1. Recognize When It’s Time to Leave

How many of us have stayed in a job too long with poor results? It’s happened to me too frequently! Here’s one example:

I had just moved to Kansas City, didn’t know anyone, and had to take any job I could find. I landed a role as an admin at a good company. And I must admit that I admire admins for what they do because I am NOT good at it. I had a great boss, so I could tolerate it at the time. Even so, it was time to leave, but I wasn’t too motivated to make the change. Even so, I was experiencing the following:

• Increasing conflict within myself and with management
• Dissatisfaction with the status quo
• A yearning for something more

Out of this experience, I’ve learned to recognize these signs of when it’s time to leave and then to do just that.

Here’s my advice: Once you recognize signs like this, carefully consider if it’s time to make a move, and then decide accordingly. If you choose to stay, analyze why you’re experiencing these feelings and work towards a resolution.

2. Try to Keep Your Bridges from Burning Down

In this same example, things got intense when new leadership came in. They started me down the path of firing me. Thankfully, I was able to find a great job before they could.

Once I told them I was leaving, I decided to prove that I was not the slacker they thought I was. I prepared desktop procedures for my job, even though they didn’t ask me to. Throughout the whole process, I was respectful. I think all of this shocked them!

Management accepted my two-week notice and gave me the second week off. Woo hoo! In the end, it paid off!

My advice: If you are in a similar situation, be the bigger person--don't burn your bridges. Retaliation and non-conformance will get you nowhere. And you never know, you may have to cross those bridges at a later date.

3. Ensure Continuity

Next, do something like what I did.

Help the next person coming in to fulfill your responsibilities to be successful. A potential benefit is watching abusive leadership reframe what they think of you! Kill them with kindness, I say!


These tips are just scratching the surface. You can do many other things to leave intentionally and graciously. Doing so can bring a sense of satisfaction, self-respect, and higher levels of integrity. And who doesn’t want that?

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Speaking of burning bridges, many companies feel burned by past IT projects that didn’t succeed and now don’t want to step their toes into the water again anytime soon.

That’s one reason why Michael Cantu and I wrote our book, No-Nonsense Digital Transformation! We wrote it with these rightfully cautious leaders in mind.

And we’re excited to announce that we are launching our paperback soon!

If you’d like to learn more, click the button below!

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