I completely understand resigning on principles. It's a reflection of an internal state where you cannot fight (due to reporting chain of command) and the idea that leaving to fight is a stronger position than staying and fighting within a corrupted/damaged organisation.
There is also the idea: you can order other people to do it, but I'm not going to do it - I resign.
In business/corporate world, it's more like: I can't fight the idiotic director level decisions, so I'm going to quit and either
1) start another company to directly compete
2) quit, join another company to compete or
3) quit, get more experience, and then come back years later at a much higher pay / position to fire the director who was braindead in the first place.
3) in particular plays out way more often than you'd think in silicon valley/tech industry, where by quitting and changing jobs, you can easily get a bunch of promotions and experience outside, so you can come back in to the company at a much higher level.
Think Intel and Pat Gelsinger. As an engineer, Pat couldn't get anywhere so left in 2009 to go lead VMWare. Then he returned to Intel as CEO in 2021. He still didn't get anywhere and got fired, but at least it was for executing his vision. If he stayed at Intel, he would have just been a peon engineer for the rest of his life. At least by quitting he got the CEO job later.
Same story re the current Intel CEO Lip-Bu Tan, by leaving the board, he was signally his unhappiness with the conditions, and by rejoining as CEO, he gets to make the decisions.
Resisting and fighting from within is usually your weakest play in organisational change.
There is also the idea: you can order other people to do it, but I'm not going to do it - I resign.
In business/corporate world, it's more like: I can't fight the idiotic director level decisions, so I'm going to quit and either
1) start another company to directly compete
2) quit, join another company to compete or
3) quit, get more experience, and then come back years later at a much higher pay / position to fire the director who was braindead in the first place.
3) in particular plays out way more often than you'd think in silicon valley/tech industry, where by quitting and changing jobs, you can easily get a bunch of promotions and experience outside, so you can come back in to the company at a much higher level.
Think Intel and Pat Gelsinger. As an engineer, Pat couldn't get anywhere so left in 2009 to go lead VMWare. Then he returned to Intel as CEO in 2021. He still didn't get anywhere and got fired, but at least it was for executing his vision. If he stayed at Intel, he would have just been a peon engineer for the rest of his life. At least by quitting he got the CEO job later.
Same story re the current Intel CEO Lip-Bu Tan, by leaving the board, he was signally his unhappiness with the conditions, and by rejoining as CEO, he gets to make the decisions.
Resisting and fighting from within is usually your weakest play in organisational change.