Every manager has to deal with people leaving. When they’re valuable employees, you want to do everything you can to motivate them to stay. Here’s the paradox: if you’re a good manager, you’re going to be powerless to prevent their departure.

People leave teams and companies for a few different reasons:

• Overworked
• Underpaid
• Under-appreciated
• Dislike their coworkers
• Dislike their manager
• Dislike the environment
• Work is not engaging
• Disinterested in the product

Every single one of these is something that is usually in your power to, if not fix, then at least influence. Of course, the employee could be wrong about all of these things. If they are, then there’s a discrepancy between their perception and yours. You either educate them, educate yourself, or live with it. If you can’t or won’t resolve it, then maybe it’s not such a problem for you when they leave.

Then there are the difficult situations where you recognize these problems, want to fix them, but are powerless to do so. Can you blame someone for wanting to leave then? And if you were powerless before they announced their resignation, you’re not going to be any less so after.

But let’s suppose you are appropriately empowered. If you’re a good manager, you’re listening to your people and attending to their concerns, preventing and preempting problems. You monitor and adjust their projects and commitments to ensure a good work/life balance. You find money to give them a competitive pay package. You recognize and appreciate their accomplishments. You foster positive relationships and intervene when they’re going bad. You do your best to be fair, attentive, caring, trustworthy, and all the other things someone needs from their manager. You work with other leadership to establish and improve the environment. You steer people toward work that gives them the right mix of challenge and mastery, and you help them connect to the product and the customers.

In spite of all this, one day they tell you you’re leaving. You’ve been a good manager. You’ve done everything you realistically can do to shape their job to fit their needs, but it wasn’t enough. In that moment, what is there that you can do? If you’ve been a good manager, the answer is probably almost nothing.

On the other hand, suppose you can think of a number of counter-moves. You can move them to a different project, change their manager, give them a raise, or something else to address the problems they described when they explained their decision. Why do you have those options available only when the person tells you they’re quitting? Why weren’t you tending to their needs before? Why weren’t you working proactively to make this the best job you could? It might be that you’re, if not a bad manager, perhaps just not a good one.

That’s the distressing fact about dealing with unwanted departures. If you can do anything to convince them to stay, then you failed as a manager. If you did your best already, then there’s nothing more you can do.