How to leave a company gracefully

There's no muse quite like a dysfunctional workplace to rouse that venomous sensation of injustice and reprisal that begs to come pouring out in a bridge-burning -- but oh-so-satisfying -- letter of resignation.

All too often, the opportunity to reclaim your good name and speak truth to power is thwarted by the insipid advice of career planners, who say a graceful exit is always the way to go.

The advice to never write a sharply worded resignation is good in general, but violates a Zen principal of "not always so" followed by enlightened managers, says William Duggan, an associate professor of management at Columbia University's School of Business.

"Even 'thou shalt not kill' doesn't always apply in defensive war," Duggan says, "which is why sometimes in history Buddhist monks have taken up arms."

Duggan said a few instances come to mind in which the advice of writing a polite and thankful exit letter should be resisted: when you've uncovered an ethical breach and failed to get a manager to pay attention or when you know colleagues are being wantonly mistreated or managers are blatantly ignoring strategic opportunities for the company.

But it can never be about you, he advises: "The unethical thing can't have you as the victim. The legally mistreated person can't be you, and the strategic blind spot can't be about something you championed and failed to get through."

Then it's just sour grapes.

"You have to be defending something where you yourself had or have no personal gain," he says.

Sometimes it's a matter of your own self-esteem, says Peter Cappelli, a professor at the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania and the director of the school's Center for Human Resources. "If you've been fired by the guy, you're not going to get a good reference from them anyway, and should you swallow your emotions and just go gracefully? Why?"

An eviscerating resignation letter, if not personally vindictive, can boost your reputation with your former co-workers, Cappelli says. "Your boss is not the only deer in the forest."

In an era when your old boss might be a friend on Facebook, the conventional wisdom about a graceful exit isn't defunct, says Michael Feiner, who as the chief people officer of PepsiCo for 15 years did a fair share of terminating workers and watching others resign.

"If the purpose is for you to seek vengeance, then life's too short," says Feiner, who left PepsiCo in 1995 and wrote a book on management, "The Feiner Points of Leadership." But since you won't be around to defend yourself, the people you criticize will have free reign to counterattack, he says.

A wiser step in some cases may be to leave with a terse and polite note. "You can just say (to yourself), I'm out of here, this place is a sewer, and I'm going to start looking for another job. And you just leave thinking, thank God, I feel cleaner already."

Another step, though one not available in layoffs or terminations, is to address your concerns directly with your manager, Feiner says. If they're not addressed, you can build a coalition of likeminded colleagues and raise the issues with a more senior person, he says.

Young workers simply can't avoid workplaces where feelings of discomfort of unhappiness are always absent. "It's not if you'll work, it's when you'll work with a knucklehead," he says. "You can have a very bad experience working at a terrific company."

When Feiner retired from PepsiCo., he says he wrote no letter to mark his exit. "I left thinking, 'What a great company. What a great career.' " But he acknowledges that many workers don't share his experience. "People join bad companies and leave bad managers."