Sometimes leadership doesn't feel good

a rough day at work

Thursday afternoon my boss called. I knew a big change was in the offing, because it was time for our strategy to shift, and that meant big changes for our staff alignment. I don’t mean that entirely as a euphemism for lay-offs, because we really do need to focus on our next strategy as a company. Sadly, the people around us today aren’t always the people we need to take us to the next goal… and sometimes we have more people than we can afford to pay. This is why my boss was calling: we were about to have a reduction in force, and I was about to lose five people on my (matrixed, cross-functional) team. One of those five reported to me as a manager, and my boss offered me the decision: did I want to have the call with my employee, or would I prefer for my boss to do it? Well. Obviously I’d prefer not to do it. But I knew it was my responsibility, and even though I’d never had to tell someone I was letting them go, I knew I needed to do it. Leaders show up. Dammit.

Photo by Kiana Bosman on Unsplash

So we discussed plans for the day. Human Resources had talking points written up so that every manager would say the same things to their employee. The strategy was to talk with all of the affected people by about 11 or 11:30. We scheduled the call with my employee at 8:30am. I moved my team’s daily stand-up from 9am to 12 noon, which was a little rough for my team members in Europe. And the CEO was to speak at an all-hands meeting at 3pm.

Yesterday was supposed to be a vacation day for me. My quarters for school have a two-week break and I try to take a day or two off during those breaks. And for my day off, I would be laying off an employee, being there for my team, and being on the all-hands call so that I was seeing and hearing the same news as everyone else. Fun.

I had two people reporting to me as their manager, so after my call with the employee we laid off, I knew it was important to speak with my remaining direct report as well as with our scrum master. They had a one-on-one call scheduled for exactly this time, so that was convenient. The three of us sat with the suck, and every so often one of us would get a message on company chat or by text, asking what was going on this morning or learning about another person affected. We knew we were safe, but our hearts ached for everyone around us.

At noon we had our team call, and it was obvious that there were people missing. I covered the same talking points I had with my employee: this is what we’re doing and these are the business reasons and it’s awful and we’re going to miss our former colleagues both personally and in picking up some of their work. I tried to bring out some of the positive sides along with the negative, that this is what our young company needs to achieve our next goals, enabling us to get to profitability. I work for a startup, in an emerging industry that is still learning how to operate, so profitability is a major milestone not only for my company but in this industry.

We had smiles and laughter as well as our disappointment and sadness… and, to be honest, fear. What we didn’t know was that our fifth person was on the call with us and hadn’t been told yet. He dropped to take a call from a leader in the organization, and then rejoined our meeting to tell us that he was also included in the lay-off. We had a farewell with him that included gratitude and tears, and it might even have been really important for the team, who hadn’t been able to have any sort of farewell for the others who were let go.

Photo by Stefan Johnson on Unsplash

Because it was (in theory) a vacation day, we went out for lunch. I even ordered a glass of wine, which may have been my second or third alcoholic drink in 2024. It was a glass-of-wine kind of day, though. After the all-hands call—which had to be brief because the CEO needed to board a plane for a trip home from a major partner’s HQ—our CTO held an “Ask Me Anything” call for everyone in our technology division, and this was an opportunity to learn more about our next steps and the strategy we’ll pursue. It was a smart thing to do, our CTO showing up for us as our leader.

And just after 4pm, I logged off from work to wrap up my vacation day. I felt tired. Tired and sad. There are conflicting feelings when you survive a lay-off, similar to the conflicting feelings when you survive a big crash or other traumatic event. You’re glad to still be alive, grieving for those you’ve lost, wondering what stroke of luck put you where you were, feeling guilty for surviving or feeling guilty for being glad to still be alive. Although I’d known something for a few weeks that something like this was coming, the 25 hours between my boss’s call Thursday afternoon and logging off yesterday were intense. I’m glad those hours are over, and I feel like I gave my best to my team. I hope I gave my best to my team. Because at these times, leaders give their best. (Dammit.)