Leading Well in Hard Times
Here’s a link, as promised, to an article that I wrote this spring summarizing best practices from the downsizing or, even more euphemistically, the ‘rightsizing’ of the last twenty-five years or so of the 20th century. More accurately, these lessons derive from the seemingly endless string of layoffs that marked that period of upheaval stemming from globalization, technological, and financial market change. This period combined with the first quarter of the 21st century has also seen, not coincidentally, the transfer of over $50 trillion of wealth from the bottom 90% of US society to the top 1% (as legendary baseball manager Casey Stengel would say, ‘you can look it up’. Links at the end of this newsletter).
Shea, Gregory P. “Hard Learned Lessons from the Age of Downsizing.” Directors & Boards, 3/28/25.)
In the article, I expand on the following points,
Measure twice; cut once.
One cannot cut one’s way to growth.
Lay off with the mission in mind.
Minimize impact on the core.
If you’re the leader, then lead.
“Tough” and “mean” are not synonyms.
Doing well by those laid off counts as ethical and practical.
Speak to “What’s in it for me?”
Avoid corporate speak.
Recognize reality, create meaning and adjust the mission.
Foster agency.
Help leaders not to kid themselves.
I’d like to emphasize the poignant complexity here and therefore the challenge, professional and personal, for leaders seeking to embrace the challenge of hard times and hard decisions generally and layoffs particularly, especially if one chooses not to reduce layoffs to a performance involving pirouetting about with a chainsaw…literally or figuratively.
I offer these quotes w/comment and a concluding story:
Max Dupree said, “Leaders don’t inflict pain—they share pain.” Unfortunately, leaders often do inflict pain and have to choose how much to acknowledge that and to share in what they have done, however justifiably. Two historical figures, Napoleon and Bismarck, lay out the domain clearly, even starkly.
“He who cannot look over a battlefield with a dry eye, causes the death of many men uselessly.” Napoleon Bonaparte
“I have a burden on my soul...I was the cause of the beginning of three big wars. About 800,000 people were killed because of me on the battlefields, and their mothers, brothers, and widows cried for them. And now this stands between me and God.” Otto von Bismarck
Less dramatic, but still of personal poignancy, I offer this tale of a young executive attending my Leading Organizational Change course in Wharton’s executive education (course link at the end of this newsletter).
He was in his early 30s, serious, attentive, and reserved. A few days into the course, he suddenly spoke to the class, ‘I’d like to say why I’m in this course now.’ He then laid out the following story.
In his 20s, he’d been a staffing efficiency expert and worked for a large corporation that included numerous manufacturing operations. He received an assignment to study the operation of a major manufacturing facility, one run by a living legend making likely the last stop of his storied career. The young analyst completed his study of the plant and reported out to the organizational deity who ran it. The analyst reported various inefficient, even sloppy areas of operation along with the recommendation to eliminate just over 100 jobs, not a large percentage of jobs in such a big operation but a notable number nonetheless.
The veteran and accomplished plant manager listened quietly and attentively. After the young analyst finished, the plant manager said, ‘You’re right. I have let the operation slip a bit. I will do as you recommend.’
The young analyst felt both vindicated and relieved.
The plant manager continued, ‘However, you don’t know what you’re recommending. Therefore, you will conduct all the exit interviews individually with each laid off employee’. The analyst’s nonverbals likely signaled some combination of disagreement, displeasure, and resistance.
‘If you don’t conduct those interviews, then you will find out how a living legend can negatively affect your career.’
The executive ed participant went on with his story, ‘the deal seemed reasonable so I accepted it. It took weeks, but I conducted all the exit interviews… The plant manager was right—I had the numbers right and I didn’t really know what I was recommending, the impact of what I’d recommended… I switched to operations based on that experience and recently I received my own plant to run, a small plant but it’s mine to run, my first one. That’s why I switched to operations—to run my own plant, because I never want a set of people to go through what those people went through. Never, not if I can help it. That’s why I’m in this course.’
A closing quote speaks to this young executive’s very personal journey into the vocation of leadership, hard times, and hard choices,
“May your anger lead you to sadness, and may your sadness lead you to love, so that you meet the tears of things with a heart of bottomless compassion.” (Adapted from Brian McLaren with Richard Rohr and Valarie Kaur, “What Do I Do with My Anger?” virtual event, Center for Action and Contemplation, March 14, 2025.)
Restated, may you find not merely the important comprehension (cognitive and/or emotional) expressed by the word “empathy” nor only the emotional resonance, the corresponding feeling of another’s feeling captured by the word “sympathy”—rather, may you discover the felt need to act embedded in the word “compassion”, the felt need to affect, to ameliorate the understood and felt condition of another, to provide them aid, succor in a time of or, even better perhaps, in order to forestall a future time of distress.
(If you’d like to explore the impact of macro-economic trends on leader:follower relations consider my article How Leaders Can Regain Trust in Untrusting Times. If you’d like to check the macro numbers, then you could begin with these two older articles:
The Top 1% of Americans Have Taken $50 Trillion From the Bottom 90%—And That’s Made the U.S. Less Secure
Trends in income and wealth inequality
If you’re looking for a course on leading organizational change, then please consider Leading Organizational Change from 2/2/26-2/5/26. I will again serve as academic director.)