Leading with Empathy During Layoffs

Speaker A: Foreign. Welcome to Leading Under Pressure, a podcast brought to you by Novante Consulting. This podcast explores what it means to lead when everything's on the line. This episode is a part of our first 48 series focused on what leaders can do in the crucial 48 hours following a crisis or some type of organizational disruption. Today, we're talking about one of the most emotionally challenging and difficult, uh, times and circumstances that any leader can layoffs. We're going to explore the mental and emotional impact of layoffs on both the employees and the leaders within your organization. How to protect your team's psychological safety, and how layoffs affect morale, culture, and even the bottom line. Layoffs are often presented as numbers, cost reductions, percentages, or head count adjustments. But behind every statistic is a person, a human being, someone who woke up believing they had a place within your organization and suddenly they do not. And for those who remain, the emotional impact can be just as severe. It's called survivor's guilt. It's the sense of loss, anxiety, or even shame that lingers after seeing your colleagues let go. Layoffs don't just remove roles. Layoffs remove pieces of trust. The reality is, layoffs create a snowball effect. Fear starts to spread. Motivation drops. Cohesion amongst your team members becomes weak. Innovation and creativity seems to come to a screeching halt. Psychologists refer to this as psychological contract breach. This is when employees stop believing that hard work leads to security within their career. And once that trust is broken, rebuilding it takes time and it takes intentional leadership. The leader's emotional load. Let's talk about that, because we rarely talk about this, but leaders feel it too. Delivering layoff news can trigger guilt, sadness, even grief. Many managers say it's the hardest moment of their careers. You're torn between organizational responsibility and personal empathy. And that's why self awareness and support for leaders is essential. If you don't process your own emotions as a leader, it's almost impossible to support your team members effectively. As a leader. You have to give yourself permission to acknowledge that this process is hurting you, too. But remember, your team members need you to be grounded so that you can support them in these moments. Empathy is not an accessory, it's an anchor. So let's talk about the First 48 framework for empathetic leadership during a layoff. Here's how leaders can act, lead, and be present in the first 48 hours after layoffs are announced. So let's talk about hours 0 to 12. This is kind of a process. And prepare, um, stage before speaking to your team members. Prepare Yourself emotionally and factually know why the layoff is happening, what you can and can't control, and the message that you want to communicate to your team members. You want to collaborate very closely with HR and your communications department to ensure that your tone reflects compassion and transparency. Remember, people don't always remember what you said, but they do remember how you made them feel. Hours 12 through 24. This is when you want to communicate in a very clear and concise and compassionate manner. Once those announcements are made, this is the most critical window. So let's talk about some do's and don'ts. Do speak with honesty and do not hide behind jargon and buzzwords and things like that. This is a time for you to speak clearly, speak in a practical manner. Because remember, your team members are experiencing emotional distress, so trying to use big corporate professional jargon probably won't go over well. So you want to acknowledge the emotional weight of what's happening and make yourself available for any follow up conversations that your team members might need to have with you. Following the announcements, do not minimize the loss, pretend that everything is fine, or rush back into business as usual mode. Remember, your team members are experiencing emotional distress. So sometimes things like shock and fear as well. So it's important that you take things down and not slow things down and truly, uh, acknowledge what is occurring and the emotional impact. This is a good time for you to say things like, I know today is hard. I know today is difficult and painful. I wish this decision weren't necessary for our company, but we'll get through it together. Being transparent during times like this builds safety and safety builds trust. So let's talk about hours 24 to 48. This is when you want to support your team members and stabilize your organization. This is the time for you to focus on the people who remain within your organization. Provide space for conversations, emotions and questions. This would be a good time to host a small group discussion, listening sessions or informal check ins. This is a really good time to reassure your team members that it's okay to grieve and that the team's feelings are valid and ask them how they're doing. This is also a good time to activate your EAP if you're going to do that. If you haven't already done it, I would recommend that you actually do that immediately. And if you know the layoff is happening, I strongly encourage you to do it before so that you have mental health professionals on site whenever those announcements are made. And I encourage you to do that for um, during those first 48 hours at minimum. Having someone on site. After layoffs, the belief that it's safe to speak up or take risks is at an all time low, typically. So psychological safety has significantly diminished, most likely after the announcement of layoffs. If leaders ignore this shift in belief that employees can speak up, make mistakes, take risks, things like that. In other words, if psychological safety has diminished and it's ignored, the overall company culture can spiral. Then that's when fear sets in and creativity and productivity shuts down. People, people start working to not get fired instead of working to make an impact. And you don't want that. But here's the good news, guys. Psychological safety can be rebuilt within organizations when leaders show up in the way that they need to, by being visible, by inviting input from employees, um, and to acknowledge what they're actually feeling. Getting together with your team members to celebrate small wins, because small wins remind people that progress is still possible even during this very difficult time. And I want you to know that psychological safety does not come from policies. It comes from presence. Sometimes companies want to resort to policy. And that's one of the things that we help companies do. Uh, create some policies that are consistent with providing a psychologically safe environment and a healthy workplace culture. Um, but just regular policy with regards to day to day operations, business as usual, sometimes that can be challenging. Uh, it could add to the intensity of the emotions. So layoffs don't reshape teams, they reshape culture. So keep that in mind. A lot of the times companies think that, you know, we're downsizing or we're, these layoffs are happening, we're going to do something different with the team once, uh, again, the numbers and such and percentages. But actually when layoffs happen, you're reshaping the culture of your organization. So that's important to remember. The message that employees take away will determine what kind of company you are on the other side of the layoff. If this is handled poorly, morale seems to go down. Like I said, productivity sinks and trust in leadership evaporates. If handled with transparency, empathy and respect, the organization can actually emerge on the other side of this layoff stronger. Yes, you'll be leaner, but you can emerge more united than before. Culture is what happens when the meeting ends. Empathy ensures people still believe in what you are building as an organization. So layoffs are one of the hardest chapters in leadership. They test not just your communication skills, but your character as a leader within your company. And yet in these moments, leaders have a choice to distance themselves from the pain or to lean in to their team. When you lead with empathy, you send a powerful message that even in loss, people matter. So if you're navigating layoffs now or preparing for the future, remember this the numbers may define the business decision, but empathy defines your legacy. The emotional and psychological impact of layoffs extends far beyond those directly affected by layoffs. Leaders must balance with clarity, with compassion, transparency, morale, and in a trustworthy MANNER. The First 48 framework offered by our podcast, Leadership Under Pressure, offers a roadmap for empathetic and strategic leadership during difficult times. A psychologically safe culture after layoffs drives resilience, retention and performance. Thank you for joining me on this episode of Leading under pressure, the first 48 series. If this episode resonated with you, share it with a fellow leader or HR professional who's navigating a tough moment. Remember, leadership isn't tested in calm waters, but in the storm. I'm Carmel Brown. Stay human, stay calm, and lead with empathy.