The Quiet Power of Staying

People Staying. Credit: Rich Baker

Why the boldest career move might be the one you don’t make.

I’ve had 15 ‘proper’ jobs in my career. I know the buzz of the leap — the new challenge, the sharper title, the dopamine hit of forward motion. But lately, I’ve been thinking more about what happens when you don’t leap.

When you choose to stay. Not because there’s nowhere else to go — but because there’s still something to build where you are.

We don’t talk enough about that.

Quiet quitting isn’t new — but it’s not harmless either.

The term “quiet quitting” caught fire a couple of years ago, but the behaviour behind it has been around far longer: disengagement, wrapped in polite professionalism. You show up. You deliver. But you’ve mentally stepped away from the work.

Gallup estimates disengaged employees cost the global economy $8.8 trillion a year — about 9% of global GDP. In the UK, it’s £257 billion annually. That’s not just missed targets. It’s missed energy. Missed opportunity. Missed potential.

And it’s easy to see how it happens. Burnout, misalignment, bad managers, or just a creeping sense that no one’s noticing — all of it adds up. Until you stop giving your best, because no one seems to care that you did.

But staying? Staying can be something else entirely.

There’s a version of staying that looks a lot like quitting — just quieter. But there’s another version, and it doesn’t get nearly enough airtime. Quiet staying. Not as resignation. But as intention. It’s the decision to dig in. To evolve. To grow where you’re already planted — and to choose presence, even when others are moving on.

It doesn’t trend on LinkedIn. But it changes organisations.

In fast-moving industries, staying put can feel like falling behind.

Especially in tech and knowledge work, staying longer than two years can feel like a risky play. The average tenure at some of the world’s biggest firms hovers just above 18 months. If you haven’t changed jobs lately, someone might assume you’re out of ideas.

But here’s what’s less visible: the people who stay — and grow — often become the most valuable people in the room. They hold the context. They shape the culture. They spot the patterns everyone else misses. They’ve built capital — not just social capital, but strategic capital. And they use it to quietly make everything work better.

Sometimes, that’s what real leadership looks like.

Quiet staying isn’t passive. It’s a different kind of ambition.

If quiet quitting is a slow retreat, quiet staying is a steady climb — the kind you don’t always notice until you realise how far someone’s come. It’s ambitious, but less about noise and more about depth. And it’s not just about individuals — it’s about what organisations choose to value. Because staying well doesn’t happen by accident. It happens when people see a path. When they feel stretched, trusted, seen.

In other words: it happens when they’re engaged.

What quiet staying actually looks like.

For individuals, it means learning to craft your role over time. You take on stretch projects. You mentor others. You slowly shift from execution to influence. You invest in your growth without waiting for your next title to give you permission. You quietly build a reputation for being someone who shows up, steps up, and makes things better — without needing to change companies every 24 months to prove it.

For leaders, it means recognising that people don’t leave jobs. They leave jobs that stop feeling like they’re going anywhere. So you make growth visible. You offer challenge, not just comfort. You encourage mobility within the business, not just out of it. And crucially, you don’t overlook the people who are quietly delivering, just because they’re not the loudest voice in the room.

Because those people? They’re probably holding your team together.

Engagement is everything.

This is where I circle back to my time with Engage for Success, the UK movement for employee engagement. We always said engagement wasn’t about beanbags and birthday cupcakes. It was about trust, purpose, clarity — and the belief that your contribution matters.

Engaged employees stay. Not just physically, but mentally and emotionally. And that’s the sweet spot: not just keeping people in the building, but keeping them switched on.

Another way to grow.

We’re conditioned to see growth as movement. New company, new title, new manager, repeat. But there’s another path — one where growth is about deepening, not just climbing. One where you become someone the business relies on — not because of your email signature, but because of what happens when you’re in the room. Some of the best leaders I’ve known didn’t bounce around. They stayed. And they changed the place from the inside out.

That’s not stagnation. That’s legacy.

Final thought

I’ve done the moving. I’ve also done the staying. And I’ve seen how powerful both can be — depending on what drives them. So yes, we should talk about quitting. But we should also talk about staying. And what it really takes to do it well. Because quiet staying isn’t about fading into the background. It’s about choosing to grow in place — to deepen, stretch, and lead from exactly where you are.

That’s not a soft option. That’s the hard work. And sometimes, it’s the most powerful move you can make.

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