How Leaders Can Avoid Quiet Quitting

Quiet quitting isn’t just an employee behavior—it’s something leaders have been unknowingly doing for years.

In this episode of Relationships at Work, we explore what happens when leaders disengage, doing only the minimum required without investing in their teams, vision, or culture.

We focus on practical steps to help leaders stay engaged: reconnecting with purpose, setting clear goals, building stronger relationships, fostering curiosity, and embracing change. Leadership is more than a role—it’s a responsibility to inspire, guide, and make a lasting impact.

If you’re ready to re-engage and lead with intention, this episode is for you.

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Transcript

Welcome back to Relationships At Work – Your guide to building workplace connections and avoiding leadership blind spots..  I’m your host Russel Lolacher

I’m a communications and leadership nerd with a couple of decades of experience and a heap of curiosity on how we can make the workplace better. If you’re a leader trying to understand and improve your impact on work culture and the employee experience, you’re in the right place.

This mini-episode is a quick and valuable bit of information to help your mindset for the week ahead. 

Inspired by our R@W Note Newsletter, I’m passing on to you… 

Quiet Quitting is Nothing New for Leadership

Ever been in a job where it felt like the leaders were just doing enough but not any more than they had to from a leadership standpoint? Maybe during a performance review, it's all about whether you did the job or not. It’s not about our growth or next steps in our careers.

Maybe the organization puts corporate values on a poster on the wall or the website, but they don't have anything to do with day-to-day operations or decision-making or the hiring.

Maybe we have meetings just to have meetings so the leader can get updates on what their team is working on. You know, the kind of meetings that could have been an email.

Our former guest Amber Naslund has a great line that I often reflect on, “Meetings are NOT for you to organize your thoughts.” Meetings like that. 

Or maybe employees are sent to conferences to learn something because that’s what they’re supposed to do, but no one asks those same employees what they learned or provides opportunities to implement those new ideas.

I’d like to share more maybes, but I have a feeling these are more of a reality for many of us than just a maybe.

This is an example of "checkbox leadership," where the leadership style focuses on what's expected and instructed, not on what's impactful or valuable for the individuals, team or the organization. 

I remember a few years ago, there was such an uproar from employers about employees quiet quitting -  doing the minimum requirements of one's job and putting in additional time, effort, or enthusiasm than absolutely necessary.

And yet those same organizations have allowed their leaders to quiet quit for a looong time. 

“Leaders” doing the bare minimum required to keep their jobs, strictly adhering to those deliverables and/or job descriptions without going above and beyond in their roles.

Checkbox/quiet quitting leadership is essentially minimal engagement with the team, a lack of vision or initiative, avoiding opportunities to mentor, and being reactive rather than proactive when challenges arise. It's compliance over culture.

We as leaders know we can do better and need to expect better from our leadership and organizational culture. If we want to prevent ourselves from going down this path, here are a few suggestions in how we can stay engaged:

1.     Reconnect with Our Own Purpose and Vision: Reflect on why we chose and accepted a leadership role in the first place. Reconnect with our personal and organizational goals, and remind ourselves of the impact we want to have. This is about digging into our "Why."

2.    Set Clear Goals: Regularly review our vision for the team and set both short-term and long-term goals that align with the organization’s mission. This can reignite our sense of purpose and drive when you see what we’re trying to achieve.

3.    Build Strong Relationships (surprise!): Make a conscious effort to build authentic connections with our team members. Get to know them—their strengths, aspirations, and challenges. This helps foster our compassion and care for those we're responsible for.

4.    Foster Curiosity: Stay curious about new trends, technologies, ways of working, practices, and so forth. This helps inspire us to introduce new ideas and innovations to the team and organization. It prevents things from getting stagnant.

5.    Embrace Change: Be open to change and willing to adapt. Leaders who embrace change are more likely to stay engaged and motivated in their roles.

If we want to combat checkbox leadership and not be quiet quitters ourselves, it starts with us. Leaders model the behaviour we want in our teams. 

That’s why I found it so hypocritical for organizations to get so bothered by this employee approach rather than looking at how they themselves inspired it. 

Leaders, we have to start with inspiring ourselves to not be complacent and to view this not just as a job, but rather as a responsibility—a responsibility to ensure our teams are better off due to our leadership, not just an inconvenience to our work.

Let's be excited, engaged, and find that passion about our leadership. It’s better for us, our teams and the culture we really want to work for.