Requesting a Leave of Absence

Post date: 14-May-2009 20:47:25

I started thinking about how I would ask for a leave of absence about 6 months ago when I came across this website with the New York Times. The article discussed a number of great ideas and how you should stress that your leave will be a benefit to the company. One of those reads that left me with some doubt because I live in the real world. Having me leave the company for 6 months would not be a benefit for them.

But that article did get me thinking about how I would approach the eventual conversation that I would need to have. It recomended bringing the leave of absence into light around 3 months before the planned departure date. That was the date I would aim for.

Out of pure coincidence, I had a Project Management course scheduled a few weeks before the big conversation. I am completing my certification in Project Management and was signed up to take a course in negotiation. Going into the course, I was looking forward to learning some new tactics to hardball my case and a few rhetoric tricks to sway the conversation my way. During the course, I realized that I couldn't have been more wrong about what a negotiation actually is. I learned that I need to move beyond the initial positions that we both will have (I want to leave, company doesn't want me to leave) and move on to the interests that are driving those initial positions.

My interest wasn't that I wanted to take 6 months off work. It was that I wanted to fulfill a dream of traveling around the world that I've had for a long time. It was that I wanted the security of knowing that I had a paycheck to come back to. The company's interested was that they were loosing a key resource during a pivotal time. Before the big conversation, I would need to figure out how we can satisfy both of our interests. Negotiating is not about compromising, it's about both of you getting what you really want.

When the words first left my mouth, "I would like to take a leave of absence for 6 months", I was pretty terrified at what the response would be. My only chance to get it approved would be to assure the company that I would be able to satisfy their needs, even though I wasn't at work. That involved two major items:

Transition Plan. The initiatives that I was PM'ing had to be sustained and I needed to ensure that I had a plan to make this happen. I documented all of my responsibilities and we talked about what would go where and how we would manage the transition.
Team Growth. You don't realize it, but you're actually part of a team that is growing in a certain direction and you are actually a big part of that growth. I outlined a few suggestions that I had on how I could help put the team in a strong position to be able to grow without me for the next 6 months.

The biggest misconception is thinking that the company will see your leave as "oh no, he's leaving, what will we do?" You need to turn that around and say "oh no, I'm leaving, what will I do?" What will you do to ensure that your responsibilities (current and future) will be covered? What will you do to ensure that the interests of your company are satisfied?

The mindset that I put myself into during my conversation with my boss wasn't that I was asking for time off. We were having the conversation so that I could find out what I need to do to ensure that the company's needs are met.

When all the talk was over and we moved beyond what our positions were and explored each others interests, the last step was for me to actually ask for the time off. I said it simply, "would you be supportive of me taking this time off work?" Just as I am giving the company all the support I can before I leave, I expected the same in return.

I've been asked a few times how exactly I went about getting approved for a leave of absence from work. The answer I give is that I got lucky. The only difference is that I subscribe to Thomas Jefferson's view on luck: "I am a great believer in luck, and I find the harder I work the more I have of it."

Have you ever had to request a leave of absence? How did it go for you?