Leading Through Layoffs
The true test of a leader is how you help your team navigate difficult times
It’s the middle of February—halfway through the first quarter—and layoff season is upon us once again.
Microsoft, Workday, Meta, and Salesforce all announced layoffs in recent weeks. Boeing, too. Even the federal government is getting in on the layoff game. 😢
And I suspect we’re not done.
Layoffs are one of the crappiest things a leader has to navigate.
They are shitty for everyone—the employees being laid off, the team members remaining, and you, their leader. Although shitty isn’t nearly a strong enough word.
One of the few times I’ve cried on the job, in front of my team, was in 2023 when five of my team members were unexpectedly laid off … the first time ever Amazon had done widespread layoffs. Lucky us?
Leadership is felt and needed most not in the best of times, but in the worst of times. The true test of a leader is how you show up for your team when times are tough, and how you steer them through it.
So many leaders fail this test.
Whether you initiated layoffs or they were entirely outside of your control, the only way to navigate your team through them is with transparency, empathy, and respect.
Share your feelings, but don’t make it about you.
Layoffs are a stressful experience for everyone—acknowledge that. Don’t sugar coat it. If you are surprised, or hurt, or angry it’s totally acceptable to tell your team that, but don’t center on yourself.
Share your feelings so your team knows it’s okay for them to feel hurt, or afraid, or angry, or any of the dozens of other emotions they might be feeling—and to create space for them to share their feelings, too.
No matter how difficult it is for you and your remaining team members, however, it is 1000 times more difficult for the folks who were laid off. Don’t. Ever. Forget. This.
Keeping your laid off employees’ experience in the forefront of your thoughts will help you put everything else into perspective.
Pull your team together quickly, and tell the truth.
When layoffs happen, pull your team together as quickly as possible and tell them what happened, and to whom. They will eventually figure out who was or wasn’t impacted anyway, so let them hear it directly from you first.
And while you can’t speak about individual employees’ situations, your team will want to know that folks were treated fairly. Tell them how layoff packages are structured (e.g., employees are given X weeks of severance for every year of service) and the support laid off employees will receive to help them through the process.
Be honest about what you don’t know, as well. Don’t guess. Don’t give false hope that you can get or give answers to some questions. Sometimes you have to be okay with the unknown—and you can help your team accept this reality, too.
Be clear that it’s done.
Let your team know when layoffs are done, and that they’re safe. If your company has any heart at all it will take a one-and-done approach and you can assure your team that no further layoffs are planned.
Of course, the operative word here is planned—it would be naive in corporate America to think that layoffs will never happen again.
Once layoffs are done, I try to remind my team that layoffs are outside of our control, but what isn’t is the quality of work we do and the impact we drive. I encourage them to focus on those things they can control.
Treat your laid off team members with respect.
I don’t care if your laid off employees were low performers, not good fits for the team, or folks you didn’t like personally. Don’t be an a**hole and throw them under the bus on their way out the door (looking at you, Meta).
These are people with feelings, families, and mortgages … the very least you can do following a layoff is treat them with dignity and respect.
If you’re able, reach out to your impacted team members. Although I felt powerless to help them, I talked to most of my team members as soon as I knew layoffs had occurred (some folks, understandably, did not feel like talking).
There was nothing I could do to change the situation nor did I have an answer to the one question they all had—why did this happen to me? All I could offer was a sympathetic ear, my sincerest apologies, and my support.
Although I’m told it helped, it really didn’t feel like enough.
It never feels like enough. Do it anyway. Write a LinkedIn recommendation. Connect them to your network. Respond to reference requests. Do everything you can to help your laid off employees land on their feet.
Don’t forget about the rest of your team.
Your remaining team members are going to have all the feels for awhile. Let them. They may cycle through the grieving process: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. They may have survivor’s guilt. Recognize that everyone will deal with the layoff in a different way, and it will take time to recover from it.
Check in with your team members regularly. Encourage them to take time off, to focus on self-care. Reduce priorities, shift deadlines.
Remember that folks will be on edge, so don’t call sudden meetings—individually or as a team—without providing clear context or reassurance.
After giving more than one team member heart palpitations when requesting a quick meeting, I’ve learned to say something like “Don’t panic, nothing bad … but I need to chat with you for a minute, are you free?”
Read the f***king room. Acknowledge the sentiment. Then help your team through it, thoughtfully.
Please, for the love of g*d, don’t say or post things like “Happy Friday!” at the end of a week that was decidedly not happy.
Your job is to both recognize and acknowledge the current situation and sentiment toward it—and to help your team through it. It’s a delicate balance but it can be done. Here’s one tiny example of how:
“Hey team, I know it’s been a difficult week. I hope y’all can unplug this weekend and take some time to focus on yourselves. We have an amazing team and while this is a challenging time, I am confident we will get through this, together.” ❤️
And get through it, you will.
You will miss your teammates, but the shock and fear will slowly dissipate.
Little by little, day by day, things will get better. Work life will return to “normal.” (In my experience, it takes about a month for this to happen.)
One way or another, your team will get through the layoffs. How they get through it, though, is up to you. In the immortal words of Maya Angelou:
“People will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”
Your team will not forget your leadership—or lack thereof—during this critical moment.
Do not fail them. Do not fail this test.
Bonus Read: You may need to rebuild psychological safety on your team following layoffs. Here are some thoughts on how:
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It starts with bad managers. They get rid of people, but not work, so they have to hire back. I work in a company of 1000 people, it's margins can afford 900. Every year we fire 100 or so, but then we hire the jobs back, because "we need to invest to go". A year later we scream, we have 1000 people, how did that happen. Rinse and Repeat.
Thank you for writing this. I know we aren’t done with layoffs for this year and I’ve forwarded to friends who it might find the guidance helpful. When I was in the mortgage industry, layoffs were cyclical as rates changed. It is never ever easy to navigate.