by Nayab Naseer

Created on: February 15, 2009

Following your boss to a new job depends on the circumstances.

If you have a healthy working relationship and a good rapport with your boss, you might want to follow him to his new firm. The advantages of doping so would be:

1. Your boss would be familiar with you, your strengths, and your weakness, and you can carry on in your new job in the same fashion as before. Establishing such a rapport with a new boss would be starting all over again, akin to a new job.

2. Your boss would know better about the industry, the firm, and external environment and might be leaving for a good reason. There could be some impending bad news in the present firm, which you can escape if you quit along with your boss.

3. The boss is more likely to favor you in the new job, where others would be relatively unknown. This can help you get ahead.

However, there are compelling reasons not to quit when your boss does. If you are at loggerheads with your boss, or if you feel your boss is a moron, then you would obviously never follow him to his new job. There are other reasons as well:

1. The new boss would need someone to rely upon, and this someone could be you. By helping the new boss out, you could gain his favor and thereby get ahead.

2. The new boss brings in new ideas, new expertise, and new experience that can help you broaden your skills and exposure.

3. The management might be easing your boss out, or he might have received a poor performance review. On the other hand, the management might have marked you out for growth in the company. Changing the job would mean loosing your accumulated goodwill and having to prove your worth all over again.

4. Your boss might be changing jobs due a better pay package, better position, better learning opportunities or simply because his new job is more in lines with his area of competency. Even if your boss takes you in the new firm, enhanced pay or other benefits need not necessarily be available to you.

5. Your boss might be changing jobs due to personal reasons like lesser commuting time. This need not be applicable in your case.

6. Relationships can change when the settings change. Your boss will take you in the new job either because you are good or because you are too incompetent to be a threat. In the former case, the new management might notice, and you could be a potential threat for the boss, thereby spoiling your relationship. In the latter case also, the new management would notice, and you could face the axe. If you are following your boss when he is starting out on his own, he will invariably start demanding more from you.

7. Having the same boss will put you in a comfort zone, and you might loose the incentive to perform or remain updated. Nothing lasts forever, and you will eventually have to separate from the boss. It is better for your career to rapport with as many new people, bosses included, as you can.

In short, whether to follow the boss to a new job depends on the circumstances under which the boss is changing his job, how that change would affect your present job, and how you will be affected if you change your job. If you are confident of your abilities and your performance, and all other things are fine, it is better to stay put in your present job.

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