Five signals it's getting late, and how to go on your own terms
Dana is a composite, not a member or a client. At 6:40 on a Thursday evening, she is 49 years old, holds the rank of senior vice president, and has spent eleven years with the same company. Her resignation letter has been sitting in her drafts folder for fourteen months, never sent.
She has her justifications. The transformation she leads has roughly a year left before it reaches completion. Her original sponsor, the CEO who brought her in, has retired, and his successor has yet to decide what he thinks of her work. Her equity vests in March. Her mother is unwell. Every one of the reasons is real.
The new CEO unveiled the reorganization earlier this afternoon. The expanded division goes to her peer, who arrived four years ago. Dana is allowed to keep her title, and the memo credits her with "steady leadership" in a single line.
The price she would pay for leaving
Staying means another year of hearing "not yet," a smaller seat in a larger room, and a manager who has just made his opinion of her plain in the most courteous way he could manage. Leaving means forfeiting the March vesting, the title she spent a decade earning, and the belief she has held onto that one more year will change things.
Looking at the situation, she realizes the recruiters have not reached out to her in two years. Not because she lost value. She turned down three approaches with courtesy, and since then the recruiters have simply accepted that answer as final.
The turning point
Whether she should leave was never the real question. The question worth asking is at what point she stopped being able to walk away from it. She was worth the most to the market in the year she declined the first offer, and her value has been slipping quietly ever since, even as her reasons for remaining kept accumulating.
Few people in Columbus or across Central Ohio ever mention this stage to you ahead of time. Leaving carries risks you can name and see clearly: a forfeited bonus, a difficult conversation, a title that must be re-earned. Staying carries risks that are harder to see and grow over time. They show up as a résumé that tells the story of a single company, a network that has lost track of you, and a memo that praises your steady leadership.
Why Dana's situation reaches well beyond her
According to Deloitte's 2025 survey of 7,500 women, only 5% expect to remain with their current employer for more than five years. During the period Lean In and McKinsey called the "Great Breakup," two women directors departed for each one who received a promotion. Women who step away from their roles are rarely the ones who came up short on performance. They are the ones who have finally run the numbers.
Three takeaways to keep in mind
Learn to recognize the signs that your window is closing. Recruiters have stopped calling. You begin referring to your role in the past tense. Your plan to stay one more year keeps stretching into another. The sponsor who recruited you to Upper Arlington is no longer there. The new org chart was sketched out without your input.
Maintain your external market value even when things are going well. Spending one hour a quarter in outside conversations keeps your name visible, so that when the right opportunity appears, you are already in reach. Central Ohio has plenty of places to start, from the Columbus Chamber of Commerce to the women's groups in the Westerville and Worthington chamber networks, and a monthly coffee with a peer from one of those circles keeps your name moving.
Leave while your position is still strong. The ideal moment to leave is the quarter after a success, when you are closing a chapter on your own terms, rather than the quarter after a slight, when you are escaping a injury. Vesting dates matter, but at the end of the day they are only a figure. A decade is not.
Dana's letter is still sitting untouched in her drafts. Yours need not remain there.