Management Material

Leading After Your Company Has Experienced a Layoff

• Season 1 • Episode 56

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There's a right way and a wrong way to lead after a layoff. 

When RIFs shatter company morale and rewrite the organizational chart, people can do really weird and stupid things. 

Let's talk through what it means to be a leader after layoffs affect your colleagues emotionally. 

My journey through the aftermath of downsizing has taught me invaluable lessons about strengthening a team and leading after a RIF, which I'm happy to share with you. 

Leading after a layoff means putting ambition aside, tuning into your team's emotional needs, and leading with a compassionate heart. Putting your team first will show your priorities and help others identify you as a leader people want to follow.

In this episode, you'll hear stories of people who rose the ranks and those who torpedoed their careers.

This episode explores how emotional intelligence can transform your team and your leadership. You'll learn practical ways to support your colleagues, cultivate your leadership qualities, and ultimately become an example that inspires others professionally.

Book a complimentary management coaching conversation at https://calendly.com/catherine-vanderlaan/free-60-minute-leadership-consultation

Email me at catherine@managementmaterialcoaching.com to ask a question or get in touch.

Join our Facebook group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/managementmaterialcoaching

Find out more about Management and Leadership Coaching at https://managementmaterialcoaching.com/




Catherine Van Der Laan:

That leader cares about the people around them more than they care about their own aspirational goals right, more than they care about their own job. They look around, they see the needs for the people around them and they help the people around them with their needs. Now, those needs could be emotional, they could be physical, they could be mental I mean like learning things. I mean it could be a lot of different needs. Those leaders that people want to follow feel what the people around them are feeling and help them recover when they need to recover. If you want to be seen as a leader, that's what you need to do. Welcome to Management Material. My name is Catherine Vanderlaan. I started my career at the bottom as an assistant and worked my way up to become the boss's boss in eight years. And, man, I love management. Welcome back to Management Material. I'm glad you're here.

Catherine Van Der Laan:

This is episode 56, where we talk about how to lead after your company has experienced a layoff. Oh, this is a heavy topic. Right In the last episode, we talked about what to do if you were laid off in particular. This is a different situation. This is, if your company experiences a layoff and you are not laid off, how do you lead, how do you stand out? I have seen people try to lead after a layoff and they get really, really, really terrible results, absolutely awful. And it's because they come out with a bang, they're celebrating all these different things, they're really excited about their job. I mean, they put on this persona of Mr or Miss or Miss, whatever, of Dr, professor, I don't care of this person who is very excited about their job, happy to be there, or on the flip side of things, after a layoff, some people have this terrible survivor's guilt. They go into their jobs. They don't know what to do anymore, they don't know if their job is secure, if there will be other rounds of layoffs. All of these fears come in, all the survivor guilt comes in. There's a little bit of paranoia and people react to those feelings in all different ways. People react to it by shutting down, staying quiet, huddling in corners, or they react by being loud, being loud and seen, trying to champion something after a layoff has happened and has rocked a lot of people's votes.

Catherine Van Der Laan:

I want to tell you a story about this individual that I knew in one of my jobs, who survived a layoff. Okay, and I oh, that's so dramatic when I say survived a layoff, but that really is the term that a lot of people use is survive a layoff, because there's this survivor's guilt. Anyway, he was known to be a little bit cutthroat. He had some growing to do as a person. He was a manager, like a little mini manager. He had one direct report, I think, an assistant, and he wanted to be promoted. I mean, you could just feel that after one conversation he thought that he was better than his job and he wanted to be promoted. Now, he wasn't this loud guy, he was usually pretty quiet. He was a quiet individual, kept to himself, kept his head down and worked with his team on whatever projects they were working on.

Catherine Van Der Laan:

Well, after this one round of layoffs we had it was a considerable cut Some very loved colleagues of ours were laid off. He became this totally different person. He was in everyone's face. I and I don't mean like yelling or anything, but he was championing different things. He was talking about himself. He was trying to basically fill, fill shoes and take up whatever opportunity he could and make sure that everyone knew that he was the right choice for the next opportunity.

Catherine Van Der Laan:

Well, I don't know if you know this, but that's not necessarily the right thing to do. Yes, you want to get promoted. Yes, you want a new opportunity. Let's talk through how to actually lead after your company has experienced a layoff, and I will finish that story after I tell you the better way to go about things and, believe me, you're going to want to hear the rest of the story.

Catherine Van Der Laan:

It's a little bit of a shocker, actually. If you are experiencing a layoff, you have been around, you have colleagues of yours who have been laid off and you are experiencing survivors, guilt or what have you all those emotions that I mentioned. Please take a step back and don't disappear, but don't become a different person either. Take a step back and think outside yourself and the opportunities that are presented, because after, after a layoff, there's usually some sort of reorganization. There's usually some sort of some moving pieces. Some people will take that as a sign to leave, and so there will be open opportunities.

Catherine Van Der Laan:

But take a step back and realize that a lot of people have just been affected. Just a lot of people have learned that they're losing their jobs, or they lost their job that day, depending on the type of layoff and and procedures that have been followed. People are losing their colleagues that they love to work with. People are feeling this, this shock to their system. So take a step back and realize that the situation that you're in is bigger than you. It is affecting the people around you and in order to lead and become a leader that people want to follow, you need to lead with empathy and compassion. Now, empathy is the ability to feel what other people are feeling, and compassion is taking it one step further. It is doing something about it.

Catherine Van Der Laan:

The leader that people really want to follow, somebody that people look to, whether they're in a position of authority or not, whether they demand other people's jobs or they don't have firing and firing abilities that leader cares about the people around them more than they care about their own aspirational goals, right, more than they care about their own job. They look around, they see the needs for the people around them and they help the people around them with their needs. Now, those needs could be emotional, they could be physical, they could be mental I mean like learning things. I mean it could be a lot of different needs. Those leaders that people want to follow feel what the people around them are feeling and help them recover when they need to recover If you want to be seen as a leader, that's what you need to do. You can think about your own aspirational goals. Later you can get to it. You can become the director.

Catherine Van Der Laan:

You can probably fill some great shoes if you have the skills, if you have the leadership skills. If you have the skills, if you have the leadership capabilities, if you have the communication skills. I mean there are a lot of skills that it takes to become a manager. And if you are looking to develop those skills, come join my leadership group coaching program. We do a workshop in the first 30 minutes and then in the second 30 minutes we do situational coaching. If you are looking to develop those skills and you don't want to go get an MBA and I'll tell you right now, an MBA is not going to give you those skills but if you want those skills, come join my program. I have a link down below to schedule a 30 minute phone call Well, it's a Zoom meeting with me to figure out if that is your best way forward. So it's open to a lot of people. I do screen, I mean that's why we have that 30 minute Zoom meeting. Anyway, if you are looking to leave, maybe you are a manager, maybe you're not a manager and you want to be, or maybe you just want to be a better leader.

Catherine Van Der Laan:

Then start with empathy and compassion. Don't try to fill in the gaps. Let's not be super tactical right away. Start with acknowledging other people's emotions, asking them what they need in order to cope, in order to get through the next day or two or week. Tell them to please take care of themselves and, if they need anything, to send you an email, to slap you to whatever text call. I don't know how you guys do things at your company but help them. Help them. That's the whole point here. That's it. That is the entire podcast. Start with the emotions and then you can get to the tactical adjusting to the loss of role.

Catherine Van Der Laan:

I've been through a lot of layoffs. I mean, heck, I was in the publishing industry and then I was in, like publishing needs technology. We had a ton of layoffs. The industry was changing just immensely while I was there and I knew it. I knew it was going to happen. We had acquisitions, we had divestitures. We had a attempted and failed merger. I was part of a lot of those teams. I even assessed companies for acquisitions.

Catherine Van Der Laan:

If you're in that position where somebody or a team of people, or people within a bunch of teams have been. Let go lead with compassion first, then get to the tactical. What do we do about it? Don't become loud when you're not usually loud. Don't become a look at me person. Don't become quiet and withdrawn, because that's not going to help you either. That's not a leader. Go find the needs emotional or not, and help people fill them in.

Catherine Van Der Laan:

Okay, one of the major things that I hear when I'm coaching somebody through this they need to be a little bit more empathetic. They need to be a higher emotional IQ, a higher EQ. Right that they just don't know what people need. They don't know, they don't know, and that's okay, that's all right. I mean, it is a skill to develop an EQ. Some people are born with it, like my daughter who, oh, my goodness, if she could be any less dramatic, I'd be excited. If she could be less emotional, I'd be excited. But she's also really sensitive and she understands the emotions of the people around her. Now, not 100% of the time, definitely not. She's only eight and a half, almost nine but I feel like she was born with this really sensitive EQ since birth. I don't know why my son is not like that, I don't know, anyway.

Catherine Van Der Laan:

So if you are not a natural high EQ kind of person, start observing people's facial patterns. Ask them how they're feeling. Asking goes a long way. You might not be able to sense it and get it intuitively. Asking about it is going to help a lot. So go, ask some questions in a sensitive way. Don't be like, hey, how are you feeling? You know, cindy was just like go, what are you thinking? No, no, no, no. Ask nicely. So bottom line here. Take care of the people around you. That's what leaders do. And if you want to learn how to be a better leader, develop your emotional intelligence, develop your communication skills, figure out how to be a leader that people want to follow, come join my group program. I'm very excited. You can start in the middle. Every single workshop is like a different modular thing. I have about 20 of them. There's unlimited sessions, though. Well, we meet once a week, but come once a week it's at about lunchtime for almost everybody in the United States, which is impossible, but it's around there. I almost forgot to finish my story.

Catherine Van Der Laan:

So this guy who had become this loud person, who was the first to speak up in every meeting, suddenly who saw an opportunity. That's my opinion of what happened. He saw an opportunity that he wanted to take. There was an open position. There were promotions that were potentially able to be gotten. He saw his opportunity and became this loud, obnoxious person. He ignored everyone's emotional output. He did not take care of people like we were just talking about. He was not compassionate. He did not want to talk about emotions at all, which is not a requirement in the workplace. But if you are a leader, you're going to run into a lot of people's emotions.

Catherine Van Der Laan:

He wanted that leadership role. He did, but he was unwilling to be a compassionate leader, to be empathetic in any way whatsoever. He was very, very me first and hey, I'm a D in the disc world. I am a red when it comes to motivate. I'm actually red blue when it comes to motivation, which means that I'm motivated by the success of the people around me. But I used to be a red motivated by my own success, and he was square in there, motivated by his own success, to the detriment of the people around him.

Catherine Van Der Laan:

So here's what happened. His actions were noticed. The management team understood what was happening. They actually had a default happen at the same time where somebody in management was not terribly empathetic himself and he learned about it by many people and this guy ended up getting fired, actually, at the end of it. He was going for all of these different things. He got some bad reports from the people around him. I'm just trying not to give you too many details because I don't want to be sued.

Catherine Van Der Laan:

He ended up getting in so over his head when it came to speaking up in meetings, when it came to changing his personality, basically in the workplace and not being empathetic, that many people on his team started not wanting to work with him. When you are not empathetic after a major emotional event has happened, you are seen as not a leader. You are seen as somebody who is me first and a look at me kind of person. Thank you, and the people on his team started finding projects elsewhere. They started leaving and it looked really bad for him. If the people who worked very closely to you start leaving, it reflects badly on you. So even if you're not their direct supervisor, it reflects badly on you, especially when they're saying things like this person was not sensitive. This person said this thing and it rubbed me the wrong way, especially when he's being reported. So he got reported by the people on his team just for being insensitive, and eventually, after a few months, I believe, he was put on a performance improvement plan and taught to be more of a leader.

Catherine Van Der Laan:

But he didn't want to be that leader, the leader that the organization wanted, the leader that emphasized emotional availability. He didn't want to be that, and so eventually he actually got fired and I don't mean let go, I mean fired for a lack of empathy. Now, very, very few companies are gonna fire people for a lack of empathy. Most companies fire people when they've done something really egregious or they're just not fulfilling the needs of the role. After this company had such a weird emotional guffaw happen on the executive level, they started noticing when people that they put in leadership positions had a lack of empathy and compassion for their teams and they started noticing the impact that it had on those teams.

Catherine Van Der Laan:

So at the time that he was fired, I was actually promoted into a larger leadership role and he hated me. Oh my goodness, he really didn't like me. He did a few things that showed me who he was and showed me how much he didn't like me, and so it was very obvious that he absolutely despised me. But whatever, I didn't really care. I was believe it or not helping his team, and some of them asked to be placed on my team. So maybe that was it, maybe that's why he didn't like me. But anyway, I didn't do that on purpose. I didn't do that to get him. I just did that because I saw needs that people had and I tried to help them. Anyway, that's what happened to this individual and please learn a lesson. Please learn a lesson Do not be like him.

Catherine Van Der Laan:

Be available emotionally, be empathetic, be compassionate. Put the emotional health of the person who's around you first and then get to the tactical. What do we do about this? Okay, if you take those two steps, you will be seen as a leader people want to follow. Go ahead and hit that call to action button down at the bottom. If you're in marketing, you know what I mean. Go ahead and schedule a little 30 minute session with me down below. We'll get you into whatever program that you need to become the leader people want to follow. I'm excited to help you. Until then, I'll see you in the next episode.