Farewell messages for your boss

Six messages you could actually send

Continue writing opens that message in the card with the words already in it, so all that is left is to change a word and send it. The last message is the longest of the six, and it is the only one you have to copy across yourself.

1. Thank you for the last few years. I learned more working with you than in the five before it, most of it from watching how you handled the things that weren't going well. All the best for what's next.

   Continue writing with message 1

2. Thank you for backing me when it was inconvenient to, and for telling me the hard version early rather than the kind version late. Both of those changed how I work. All the best, genuinely.

   Continue writing with message 2

3. All the best. Thank you for giving me work I wasn't obviously ready for, and for not making a thing of it on the occasions I nearly got it wrong. I've tried to pass that on since.

   Continue writing with message 3

4. Whatever comes next, I hope it's good. Thank you for absorbing a great deal that we mostly never heard about, and for never passing it down, which would have been the easier option every time.

   Continue writing with message 4

5. All the best. I don't think I said this while we were working together, so I'd rather say it now than leave it unsaid: you were fair with me on the days when it would have been easy not to be.

   Continue writing with message 5

6. All the best for what comes next. Thank you for giving me work I wasn't obviously ready for, and for not making a thing of it on the two occasions I nearly got it wrong. I've only understood recently how much of what I took for my own judgement I picked up from watching you work.

   Copy

Writing your own

Thank them for one decision that affected you. A manager leaving hears a lot about their leadership and very little about the specific moment they took a risk on somebody. Name yours; it is the only part of the day that will feel personal to them.

Do not use it to position for what comes next. A card that hints at a reference, or at wanting to follow them, changes what it is. Say thank you properly now and ask for the reference in a separate message next month.