Between corporate layoffs, office closures, promotions, rebrands and internal transformation, we experience endings every day. Despite this, very little attention is paid to processing these endings.
In their new book Good Bye, top leadership coaches Alison Lucas and Lizzie Bentley Bowers argue that, by not giving space to the messy and uncomfortable feelings that come with an ending, we are unable to properly let go – often leaving both leaders and employees with scars that negatively impact our workplaces and careers.
Good Bye reveals how leaders can manage endings with care, respect and emotional agility. This is key to creating better beginnings – to the success of new jobs, change initiatives, mergers and company culture.
Distilled from two decades of working with leaders in transition, and born out of practice, this highly practical book guides readers in navigating the four steps of endings – Reality, Emotion, Accomplishment and Ritual – offering a powerful framework for working through past, present, and future endings.
Packed full of exercises, stories, and reflection prompts designed to help leaders (and their teams) process endings, recognise what’s been achieved, and create meaningful closure, Good Bye equips leaders to lead with emotional intelligence and transform endings into opportunities.
Readers will learn how to:
- Lead with compassion through change, disruption and transition.
- Support themselves, and others, through endings with grace.
- Navigate the discomfort of notice periods, as both a leader and employee.
- Process and heal the scars left by endings such as redundancy.
- Remove the invisible weight of past transitions, and untangle the emotional knots from past endings.
Good Bye is the missing piece of the change leadership puzzle: a powerful roadmap to leading through change with compassion, clarity and care.