TikTok is flooded with clips of Gen Z workers quitting mid-shift or nuking their exit interviews. It’s part of a broader surge: #QuitTok has generated millions of posts, making resignations a viral trend. These dramatic exits aren’t the problem. They’re the signal.
When an employee rage-quits on camera, it doesn’t come out of nowhere. That moment is a lagging indicator of a leadership breakdown that started well before anyone hit record. Expectations were missed. Feedback ignored. Trust eroded. These public resignations are the final stop on a road paved with poor leadership, not generational dysfunction.
We fixate on the spectacle of how people leave, but the real story is why, and more importantly, why leaders never saw it coming.
Disengaged employees
The distance between Day One and a public resignation is filled with missed off‑ramps: onboarding that never clarified expectations, one‑on‑ones that never happened, or feedback that never landed. According to Gallup, only 12% of employees strongly agree that their organization does a great job onboarding new hires. That means most people begin their jobs with confusion, not clarity, and weakened connection before they’ve had a chance to succeed.
The signs of disengagement are often visible long before a walkout happens. Quiet quitting. Diminished communication. Off-camera meetings and half-hearted check-ins. According to Gallup’s 2023 “State of the Global Workplace” report, only 21% of employees are engaged at work, a decline from the year before. And it’s not just frontline workers who are checking out. Manager engagement has dropped to just 27%, showing even leaders feel unsupported or disconnected.
More than three-quarters of the global workforce operates below full engagement, and many are already psychologically checked out before the dramatic departure ever occurs.
But not all disengagement ends in a viral resignation. Some of the most damaging losses are invisible. High performers who used to raise their hands, offer solutions, and go the extra mile start pulling back—not because they no longer care, but because no one noticed when they did. Recognition is among the most overlooked tools in leadership. And when there’s no acknowledgment of their contributions or value, your best people don’t blow up on the way out; they fade out long before you realize what you’ve lost.
Gen Z is not to blame
In my work as a leadership consultant, I’ve seen how quickly this pattern unfolds within teams, especially those under pressure. A manager assumes a new hire “just isn’t motivated.” A high performer stops volunteering ideas. Check-ins get skipped, then forgotten. Before long, both sides feel disconnected. One person stops trying. The other assumes the worst. And then one day, the employee is gone.
That’s not a Gen Z issue. That’s a management issue.
And here’s the deeper problem: When someone revenge quits, it’s often the first time their absence is fully felt. They’re only visible when they leave. Their disengagement went unaddressed. Their concerns went unheard. And now, in a single moment of public rebellion, they’ve made a point, whether you like the delivery or not.
As leaders, we have to ask: What are we bringing out of our teams, if this is how they’re leaving us?
There’s a gap between how companies think they lead vs. how employees experience it. We claim to value feedback, but don’t make time to give it. We treat onboarding like a checklist instead of a foundational experience. And when feedback does occur, it often falls short: Only one in four employees strongly agrees that they receive valuable feedback from colleagues, according to Gallup. That silence doesn’t motivate; it breaks trust. And when you fail to recognize top performers, it doesn’t take long before they quietly stop showing up with their best.
Yet the inverse is equally clear: 80% of employees who received meaningful feedback in the past week were fully engaged. That one number reveals what most headlines about revenge quitting don’t: This isn’t about entitlement. It’s about missed leadership opportunities.
Out-of-touch leadership
It’s time for a reset, not just in how we talk about revenge quitting, but in how we lead. That reset begins upstream, long before a resignation letter is drafted. It starts with how we hire, set expectations, and consistently show up.
A strong culture doesn’t eliminate attrition. But it reduces volatility. It makes space for hard conversations. It ensures exits happen privately, not with a mic-drop. By the time someone revenge-quits, they’re not just frustrated. They’re finished.
And it’s not just a reputational problem, it’s an economic one. Gallup estimates that disengaged employees cost the global economy $8.8 trillion in lost productivity every year. Not just a TikTok trend, but the cost of leadership neglect.
Revenge quitting may feel new, but it’s just a modern symptom of an age-old problem: leadership that’s out of touch with what its people are trying to say. The message is clear. Are we listening?
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