Elizabeth Warren Gave Us a Master Class in Saying Goodbye to Your Team
What we can learn from powerful remarks she shared with her campaign staff after dropping out of the presidential race
When Elizabeth Warren dropped out of the presidential race, she left behind a long campaign and a 1,500-word farewell that folks in my circle have screenshotted, shared, and at moments throughout the day, wept over, whether or not she was their #1 candidate.
It was a good speech.
Delivering a formal farewell to your team, whether you’re a POTUS hopeful or someone who’s simply moving onto another opportunity can be daunting. How can you adequately capture months or years of professional collaboration in a single message? You can’t. Don’t go for brevity. Your goodbye speech — or more likely, goodbye email — crystallizes your time there, sure, but, more importantly, it looks to the future. It says to the audience: A new relationship begins now and here’s what’s important to me about this relationship. That’s important stuff. Give yourself room.
Here are seven lessons we can learn from Warren’s exit speech on how to say goodbye to colleagues.
