Brave Leadership after Lay-offs. In 2023 we’ve seen a rash of lay-offs across industries, directly impacting over 250,000 people globally (as of March 2023). Most of the companies laying off people are also reporting significant increases in ongoing profits as well as executive compensation. Now we are seeing this same companies raising their targets, goals, and audaciously expecting more work with few resources.
As of publication, nearly all of the CEOs of profitable companies who laid off employees in Q4 2022 and Q1 2023 have raised their public targets. It is quite literally “do more with less” in real life.
It. Is. Bullshit.
If we believe the press releases, CEOs and investors are laying off people to ensure even greater profits, reduce organisational complexities, and set up companies for innovation.
I do not believe the press releases.
Instead, I believe what investor and executives have repeatedly said during a wide range of conferences, as well as what they have said to reporters: following the Great Reassignment, companies must “reset the power dynamic” back to their nearly complete power of conditions, wage, benefits, and working structures.
Let me put it another way: employees across all the hierarchy levels have embraced – and are continuing to embrace: their own agency, authority and, yes, power. They aren’t willing to take on volunteer work, commute extensively (or at all!), or sacrifice the beautiful hobbies and interests they identified in the last three years for someone else’s profit.
So Investors and executives are coming in hot with lay-offs, stoking fear and scarcity.
Regardless of their intent – if the press releases or their semi-public comments are the truth, the outcome of all these lay-offs is tangible:
- Fear and insecurity throughout organisations, across all levels of the hierarchy, regardless of length of service, function, or performance
- More public conversation that performance and loyalty do not protect anyone, at any level, from lay-offs
- More people suddenly on the market, looking for their new job or, let’s be honest, paycheck
- Fewer people within the organisations; departments and teams are demonstrably smaller
- Growing list of CEO announcements of increased targets, goals, and production expectations
In my own coaching practice, the fear of lay-offs as well as the demand to “do more with less” have become the most common coaching topic of Q1 2023.
I coach women across all levels of hierarchy, in different industries, and literally around the world to build the skill of bravery. We work through their clarity, accountability, and momentum to ensure they craft their brave life and career. None of my clients have been directly impacted by lay-offs while working with me and almost every single woman has faced some sort of “do more with less” requirement following a lay-off. The pressure is highest for my clients with direct people management responsibility.
Most have been asked to cascade messages of decreased resources with increased expectations. These clients often then ask me – a former, global corporate leader – for help in cascading the message of “do more with less” to their team. Some share the drafts provided by their executive management and internal communication teams. Others come with meeting notes.
All of them arrive with big feelings. Of course they do, it’s an absurd ask: investors and C-level humans have reduced the number of people and increased the work demanded of the people remaining.
In these situations, each of my clients receives the same initial coaching from me: Stop. Take a breath. Your feelings are real.
I then welcome them into a short reflection of their leadership with one simple, powerful question: what kind of leader do you want to be?
Then we review the circumstances:
- We talk through the lay-off that impacted them in specifics: when, how much budget, how many people, which specific people and how it impacted their team and outputs/outcomes
- We review their goals: have they changed? How much? (note: not a single client has seen her goals or targets get ‘right-sized’ down to reflect the ‘necessary’ reduction of humans to reach those goals)
- We remember that choices have consequences, even when that choice isn’t hers
And finally I speak bravely from my truth, sounding something like this:
“Before you message to your colleagues and employees any sort of expectation that they push through with extra time (late evenings, early mornings, weekends, holidays) — to deliver against these goals, remember you are a leader with leadership obligations. Your first step is to evaluate: are these expectations feasible with the people available now and within the agreed upon working conditions?
Your second step is to have brave conversations about the expectations with your management. Because bottom line: if the expectations require more time from people, you need more people, not fewer people working more hours.
Right now, reflecting on who you want to be as a leader: How do you want to navigate this moment as the leader you want to be?”
Then each client chooses her focus and her consequences.
Some of my clients decide to focus their coaching session onto how to have that brave conversation with their management, knowing it will impact their relationships up the chain.
Others decided to bravely juggle the competing demands with their teams, knowing they are taking on the extra responsibility and risking their own overwork and potential burn out.
Others decline, and choose to focus on how they can cascade the demand within their leadership values, accepting the risk of losing trust, burning their people, and losing their best talent.
A few have decided they aren’t going to play in a system hacked against people and for extreme-profit-at-all-costs anymore and are either working on their own businesses or looking for a new role. These women accept the additional responsibility as well as time and energy investment of making a professional change.
There isn’t a right answer for every woman. Every woman’s brave choice is her own, as are the consequences of her choice. My role is to support her as her coach with love and with my Build Your Brave Framework.
Because every single choice has consequences for delivery, profit, and, yes, humanity. Her humanity. Her teams’ and colleagues’ humanity. The humanity of her customers and partners. I help her choose intentionally and in line with her unique, brave life and career vision.
Seems like the folks ‘resetting the power dynamic’ need the reminder too: your choices have consequences.
Guess it is me.
