Re-Broadcast: 3 Things Great Leaders Do When They Get Laid Off

In this rebroadcast from 2023, we revisit a conversation that feels just as relevant today: What do you do when you get laid off?

Losing a job—or experiencing an unexpected work transition—can be disorienting, painful, and deeply personal. In this episode, Nathan and Linda explore how leaders can navigate these moments with greater intention.

We discuss:

• Four organizational dynamics that can signal change is coming
• Why self-compassion matters after losing a job
• The importance of caring for yourself physically and emotionally
• Why reaching out to your people is about more than networking
• How unexpected transitions can become opportunities for growth and transformation

If you're navigating a career transition—or walking alongside someone who is—this conversation offers a practical reminder: give yourself permission to acknowledge what's hard, care for yourself, and stay connected to the people who know you best.

Three practices for navigating a layoff:

1. Practice self-compassion
2. Prioritize self-care
3. Reach out to your people

Transcript

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What to do when you get Laid off - pt 1

SPEAKER_01 0:04

Welcome back to the Leadership Vision Podcast, our show helping leaders discover the certainties within us to navigate in the uncertainties around us. My name is Nathan Freeberg, and we are still on just a little bit of a summer break from new episodes of the podcast, but we wanted to bring you some of our favorite episodes from this one's actually from 2023 about what the best leaders do when they get laid off or lose their job or have some sort of break in work. And Linda and I thought this would be a good one to rebroadcast because, well, things are still tough, people are still losing jobs, the economy and the environment and all kinds of stuff are just uncertain. There's a lot of ups and downs. And so we thought that if this applies to you or someone that you know, we thought that it would be a good reminder of what to do when things are maybe not going the way that you thought they would be going for you in your professional life. There's kind of three big things. Listen to it, give us some feedback. Maybe you already listened to it when it first came out, but we would love uh to get some feedback and just to kind of hear where you're at with these things. So, again, this episode is a rebroadcast from 2023 about what the best laiders do when they get laid off and how to get through it. Enjoy. Linda, have you ever been laid off? Yes. Have you? I uh I I have not. Um I have kind of been blessed with having only a couple different jobs for a very long time since college. What is that like to get laid off?

SPEAKER_00 1:37

It's the worst.

SPEAKER_01 1:38

Um is that why we're talking about this today, Linda?

SPEAKER_00 1:40

Well, in part that's why we're talking about this, but we're also talking about laying off, being being laid off, work separation, because we have walked with so many leaders that have experienced this kind of crisis, uh, this kind of point of transition in their lives. And we really we want to speak to to what we've learned, but also what I've learned. Um, and when I say I've learned lessons, I think I would say I've not always learned how to do things well or right uh the first time. So I think like good lessons, I'll know what to do next time, that kind of thing.

SPEAKER_01 2:21

Yeah, it's it's funny how you know you have to do things not so well a few times before you kind of figure it out and be like, okay, now so when Linda gets laid off the next time, it's gonna she's gonna just handle it with so much so much grace. In the intro, I talked about how there's there's so many companies laying people off right now. And it's it's odd to me because there's also so many companies who just can't find enough workers. And I realize there's maybe different types of workers for the work available. So, Linda, let's talk a little bit now, kind of at a high level, about this process of being laid off. You've been on both sides of this, you've been laid off a few times, you've laid people off a few times. What are some maybe big picture, high-level things that that we should be thinking about before we get into um our our three specific points here?

SPEAKER_00 3:10

Okay. Well, to be technical, I've been a part of a reduction in force twice. Oh, a riff. Okay. Okay. So you when people hear RIF, it's an acronym that stands for reduction in force. So when you hear someone that was riffed, usually it was maybe not even something that they did wrong or something that that went went sideways. So actually with that person. So it's a reduction of force, reduction in that role changes.

SPEAKER_01 3:38

Which is an interesting point of clarification, I think, because sometimes you can get laid off because you're terrible at your job. Sometimes you can get laid off because your company is terrible at business, or sometimes for like reasons completely outside of anyone's control, maybe you know, consumer buying patterns change or whatever it is. So I think we're talking just kind of generally about this, right? So, regardless of the reason why, here's some things to keep in mind.

SPEAKER_00 4:02

Correct. So I think one of the reasons I am passionate about this topic is it's happened to me, and I know that I'm in people's story where I had to let someone go, and both sides are really, really difficult. I also know that there is um the extremes of euphoria of being released and the trauma of what am I gonna do now? I thought this was my trajectory, what what's gonna happen. And I like uh Susan Kane's work when she she's writing in Bittersweet, and one of the things she's she's talking about is the two key points of transcendence in people's lives. Her research says that that it usually happens when you're in a transitional period of life or you're being close to death. So it's not, you know, when you lose your job, you're not gonna die necessarily. It may feel like that sometimes, but this I want to zero in on how do we hold the tensions and how do we care for ourselves, and how do we navigate navigate transition well and and learn from these opportunities where it wasn't maybe the the path that you chose.

SPEAKER_01 5:21

So, Linda, before we get into kind of the three best practices for people for leaders that you know, things that they do that kind of help them get through some sort of layoff or you know, break in employment, um, I want you to share these four, I don't want to call them tips, but from this book that you read before you were laid off for the first time, these four maybe reasons why someone would get laid off or four, um I'm gonna let you talk about it after I stumble through this introduction, but it's I think because I think helpful the dangers, yeah. I think it could be helpful as as folks are processing um, you know, some of these things, and as they think about their work and their employment status, and perhaps like you, for someone who's not, you know, laid off today, they may be in the near future, and this could really be helpful to them

Book - The 4 Dangers

SPEAKER_01 6:11

in that way.

SPEAKER_00 6:11

Yes, because when you are laid off, you need a framework and you are looking for words that are naming your experience. Maybe that's why even you're listening to this podcast today. When I was, I think I was even auditing a course, I can't even remember. I was taking a graduate course for fun because I was out of university. And uh the assigned reading was a book called Leadership on the Line: Staying Alive and the Dangers of Leadership. It was written in 2002. This was now maybe 2005 or six-ish. And it was written by Ronald Heifitz and Marty Linsky, and I loved it. I loved it because it was giving me some language to understand some of the organizational dynamics that were happening uh around me. And I was able to look at leaders in some different ways. It helped me understand the ways that I wanted to lead or didn't want to lead, how I wanted to build a team, how I wanted to respect people and treat them as human a little bit differently. And then there was this section about the actual dangers, and that's what we want to talk about right now because I think setting up setting this up and having a framework really, really helped me realize, yep, all of these things happened to me, and I was in the midst of all of these, these four dangers, and and I'll tell you about how I stayed alive.

1. Being Marginalized

SPEAKER_00 7:39

So the first danger is being marginalized. So have you ever been marginalized where it's like, oh, well, we don't need you to worry about all that anymore. We're just gonna have you focus on this. You're so good at this. Just do this. All of a sudden, some things are being resigned assigned to other people. So that margin marginalized meaning you maybe your scope of work or influence or even the actual time it takes you to do things, like it's just small, it's become small. And you feel you feel marginalized, you feel maybe smaller.

2. Being Diverted

SPEAKER_00 8:13

The second one is being diverted. And diverted is a little bit different than being marginalized because diverted means someone's like turning your whole direction and saying, Oh, we actually want you to go this way. You've been so great over here, we're gonna have you work on this and do that. And that diversion takes you away of maybe what you're really best at, or or you should just pay attention to why someone is so interested in taking you into a different direction that may not be a strengths fit, may not be a culture fit. Um, and so you just kind of do it because you want you want the job. That's a danger.

3. Being Attacked

SPEAKER_00 8:53

The third danger is being attacked, being attacked. And this isn't like so that your boss comes at you and wrestles you down. Um and or you you don't have to be, you're not being wounded or anything like that, but attacked. It could be attacked by character or attacked by how you are talked about or attacked by things that that people say, whether they're true or not, but it becomes then a narrative of what's happening. I have examples of that

4. Being Seduced

SPEAKER_00 9:22

one. Um, and then the fourth danger, the fourth danger is being seduced. Seduced. And um being seduced really is isn't isn't what you you think it is. Um being seduced, because you're like, oh, like someone is just wooing you into be in this job, when instead maybe you have the golden handcuffs, and you've heard that that phrase where it's like I'm it like I'm here for the money, and um people will keep throwing money at me and um you know it'll make me happy, or or it could be of power, like someday this will all be yours, and so uh it's maybe inadvertent, but these four dangers I was able to check every box right up until the point that I was part of the riff. And uh fortunately I had this mentor walking walking life through me, and I was going back to this study from Heifetz and Linsky, and I was thinking, yeah, these dang this is it. And I was actually listing some of the dangers. Oh, the scope of work changed here, and oh, this person stepped in and started doing that, and oh, you know, this new boss now wanted to, you know, take some other pieces away and was uh questioning, questioning me in some some ways. And so that that was a mix of being marginalized and diverted. And for me, I was also attacked. There were things that were said about me where even people would shake their face like, that's that's not you. Characterologically, that's not you. I've walked with you for years. That's not that is not you. And so for me, it was like, oh, that's okay. People are speaking bad about me. It's the people that I don't necessarily even I don't value their their opinion. I I know who I am and I know how I'm acting and interacting, but it still hurts. And then the last part is being being seduced, and and for me, two months prior to um me getting the news that my position did not exist anymore, um, I got a significant raise. Right? And so it helped me like, okay, this is just for this is just for now. I've been wanting this for a while, and the scope of the work has changed. I'm really glad about that. And so for me, all of those dangers were present, but but how I stayed alive, Nathan, was that I really was released. Staying alive didn't mean I have to had to stay in it. There was a lot of hard things that happened even after I was gone, and I didn't have to deal with it, and I didn't have to be there. And there was a part for me where I was given a new life. And when I did the grieving and when I, you know, tried to take care of myself and when I was surrounded with the right people, I re I I I became a different person. I I got married, I um doubled down on my doctoral work. There were a lot of uh wonderful transitions that were happening because of of what had happened. So when I say staying alive, it's not so so you can learn all these things and use it as a framework. If I just memorize the dangers, then I could know how to avoid it. Um for me, I had to make peace with this is what happened. And and I wanna be I wanna be someone that that rises from from the ashes, so to speak. And I will say, or I want to say one more thing because the head of the organization, uh, the new head of the organization, 10 years later, I just met him briefly, and he apologized on the behalf of the whole organization for what how I was treated. That's cool. And so for me, there was very often no, it doesn't happen very often. I was humbled, I was honored, and and for me, I just said I don't carry any ill will, I don't carry any hate, and I kind of got a I got a better deal from it. And I love what I'm I love what I am doing right now.

SPEAKER_01 13:34

Well, and I I love that idea of staying alive because that's what we're gonna talk about here in the rest of the episode. There's really three kind of tips that we have found that that leaders such as yourself, when they've been laid off, that they do these things, three things really well. And I'm gonna read them and then we're gonna unpack them. So, number one is self-compassion, number two is self-care, and number three is reaching out to your people. And you hinted at all three of those things in um sharing of your story, so let's go and uh unpack these a little bit.

Three Ways to Succeed when You're Laid Off

SPEAKER_01 14:09

So,

1. Self Compassion

SPEAKER_01 14:10

Linda, the first one is this idea of self-compassion. And I I love this. I think this is this idea of self-compassion. Kristen Neff's work is something that we should all be doing in a variety of aspects of life. Um, you know, just a sort of side note, but it's interesting to me how many books that I've read this year not about self-compassion, about other things kind of related to the business world and other things that cite self-compassion as a key component for leadership. And they all kind of point back to this idea. So, how does self-compassion help us in situations of being laid off or being rifted or whatever it is?

SPEAKER_00 14:50

Yeah. So self-compassion it involves understanding a common humanity and practicing mindfulness and then kindness to yourself. When I think of those three, I think of

Common Humanity

SPEAKER_00 15:03

the common humanity and and being able to say, I'm I'm not just a statistic, other people have experienced this. It's looked a little bit different. There were maybe different things at stake. Maybe when you're young in your career and you you don't have other mouths to feed and you're all on your own, like that's a little bit different than how am I gonna provide for my family or where are we gonna live or how are we gonna make that transition? Right. So common humanity says this is this this happened that other people know and have walked in the shoes that that I have.

Mindfullness

SPEAKER_00 15:37

When we talk about mindfulness, we're we're talking about being aware of how you're feeling and what's happening. When the waves of grief come, and maybe you feel really sad or you're wondering why your coworkers are doing. Uh maybe there's a sense of um, yeah, you kind of feel like, whoa, I can do whatever I want this morning. I don't have to be ruled by this, this, and this. Um, and checking in with yourself and being mindful for how you're reacting, how you're interacting, and and then it which leads

Kindness

SPEAKER_00 16:10

to the last one, which is kindness, and that is expressing like kind sentiments, like you you can get through this, you can do hard things, it's okay to go back to bed if you want to. Um, what would be the sentiments that you would tell a dear friend? We have found that practicing self-compassion and being able to feel whatever you need to feel, but then being kind to yourself and mindful of what's happening really allows people to make the transition from a very traumatic perhaps event. Or maybe they don't d they don't understand how they feel, or or maybe they just feel numb for a little bit, and that's okay as well. But when we when we've seen leaders succeed and come out the other side, some of them have done things like detoxed for a couple months. People that have been in really tough, tough roles, um, and they were released not by their choice, all of a sudden they they they're about to experience a new kind of freedom, and a lot of people need need permission to uh to be kind to themselves in that space.

SPEAKER_01 17:21

I think that's the hardest part of self-compassion is that self-kindness versus self-judgment. Yeah. How do you how do you do that, Linda? Is there a like uh something that you found from from these leaders? I know for myself, it's sometimes it's repeating something like over and over again, like this is hard, this is difficult, uh, this sucks, this isn't what I would have wanted. Um But I mean, what have what have you found people or even yourself that does it that kind of is helpful?

SPEAKER_00 17:50

Uh sometimes it's saying, You got this. What are what are the phrases you could say to yourself that remind you of who you are, which eventually we'll talk about in in one of the other points. But this definitely is a journey. It involves a softening um and and almost like zooming out from your own person and saying, How do I be kind to that person who just was a part of a reduction in force, or the company doesn't exist anymore, or yeah, that my whole, you know, the whole arm of the company is not there anymore.

SPEAKER_01 18:26

So what would you say to someone that is the primary breadwinner from their f for their family? They get laid off and they're like, uh, you want me to be kind to myself? I got mouths to feed, I don't have time for this. Yeah. Like, what would you say to that person?

SPEAKER_00 18:39

Well, the the self-compassion research says that it that it actually changes your brain and allows you to move from this reactive state to more responsive. And so it's getting into um being more comfortable with yourself so that you can respond better, show up a little bit different when you have to, you know, do the networking session and you know, get dressed up again. Or and then maybe sometimes it's give yourself permission to be like, this is hard.

SPEAKER_01 19:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 19:10

And to say to yourself, I feel bad that that I'm in this in this situation.

SPEAKER_01 19:17

Yeah, well, and I think that's maybe the distinction here of um you know, this this idea of self-kindness versus self-judgment is that I think people either they just like get really mad, they start beating themselves up or beating other people up mentally, not hopefully physically. And it like that doesn't do any good, right? That's not gonna help. That's not gonna help you find another job. Um, or they completely ignore it and be like, nope, this is fine, I can do this, this is fine, this is fine, this is fine, when really they need to just like acknowledge what you're saying of like this is hard. Yeah, this is a difficult thing that happened. Um, and that's kind of getting in more of the the common humanity piece of it versus isolation.

SPEAKER_00 19:55

Correct. And I think in some ways the anger's okay when it's directed at a person or when it's you know vengeful, that's a little bit different. But to acknowledge, I'm angry, I'm mad that this happened. Um for me, the first rift that I was a part of in 2007, I was like, what? Yeah, I just had pulled the whole team together. What and I there and I felt a sense of injustice of like, what? Like, and then why at the beg you know, in in October towards the beginning of a school year when I'm working in academia? So it was a it was an interest interesting journey that way, but I needed to recognize that the anger and find ways to harness it for good.

SPEAKER_01 20:40

We could talk about this forever, Linda. I think you and I are are passionate about self-compassion as we have really kind of discovered this in the last year or two. Um I'm gonna include some links for our listeners if they want to go deeper into this into this

2. Self-Care

SPEAKER_01 20:52

idea. The the second thing that the best leaders do is this idea of self-care. Talk about that, because that is a word that is pretty popular right now. How does that apply to this situation here of being separated from work?

SPEAKER_00 21:08

Yeah. This the self-care comes with all right, this is an opportunity in this point of transition, how do I really care for myself? Uh, what are practices that I can cut put in place to start exercising more, eat better, sleep more? What would be this transition time um and how do I make how do I make the most of it? And some people just um they forget it. Right. And and for me, it's it was similar to when I was diagnosed with cancer and people were saying, take care of yourself, keep moving, keep walking. Even one of my surgeons, his advice was don't get chunky. I was like, That's hilarious. Awesome. Thanks for watching. I'm like no problem. I mean, chemotherapy makes you a little toothpick. Um Could could and it would have that happened to me. Anyway, all that to say, same thing, in this point of transition, in this point of bittersweetness, maybe how do you practice self-care? How do you all right, just lace up your shoes and go for a walk in the morning? For me, I found I found that I had a lot of time. And I was like, well, usually at 10 o'clock in the day, I'm doing this. Or usually by noon, I'm meeting with someone and we're making decisions about the future or whatever else. Uh but there are practices that you can do that are free. Yeah. Um which is good because oftentimes when and this has happened in my life, when I when I have money, I don't have the time, and when I have the time, I don't have the money. And and sometimes that I mean, that was the the point of transition for for me. And so the things that I learned, I mean, I I started eating better. I started taking care of myself. I found that I was sleeping better at night because I wasn't carrying the weight of the world on my on my shoulders, and I had to make peace with that was okay. And fortunately, I had people that were affirming that nope, just walk that path. You keep running. I was in California, so I was running, uh, running on the beach every day.

SPEAKER_01 23:19

So well, and I feel like this is such a good reminder for all of us, and maybe all three of these are just, you know, leaders should be doing this stuff all the time. We're we're applying it to specifically to kind of this one life situation. But someone once told me that, you know, your habits and your discipline and the things that you can do on a regular basis, then when you do run into some sort of like crisis or big life-changing situation, you're not scrambling to be like, oh my gosh, my health is suffering. Now I need to, you know, in addition to finding a new job, I need to get get healthy and work on my mental health, you know, my physical health, my mental health, like do all this other stuff. So really implementing this, you know, hopefully, you know, you're not going through some sort of a job shift right now, and you can kind of do some of this stuff before that, before it gets to

3. Reaching out to your people

SPEAKER_01 24:07

that. So, Linda, the third point here, what the best of the best leaders do in some sort of job transition is that they reach out to their people.

SPEAKER_00 24:16

In points of transition, especially if it involves job loss, find the people that know you, find the people that know the best parts of you, the ones that can be can help you be kind to yourself. And they they will say things to you like, I see you on the other side of this. Oh, this is great, or I'm so excited for you. Now, sometimes you want to flick those people in the head, like, well, then why did this happen to me? But uh what I what I would say is sometimes sometimes we get so focused on like get out there and network and be all slick and you know, you can just go through your list of contacts because who can't help me get a job and da-da-da-da. Sometimes you just need the people to walk alongside you. Now, fortunately, there were a couple things that happened to me. And the first is uh I I had a mentor walk, walk through it with me. And in some ways, I I saw the writing on the wall, I felt it coming, I was noticing the dynamics of what was happening in the organization. And this woman, she was so present to me. She would just show up at the right time when a meeting was about to happen and we didn't know what was gonna happen next, and she would affirm that some of these, you know, that this process was about to happen. So so so even um she was a person that I reached out to after, but she was a person that was with me before. Um, and those people that, you know, Nathan, you were one of those people um to me that you were so full of life and wonder and like a little child. Earlier, yeah, you were early in in your marriage and um all these exciting things happening, and just to even talk to you and hear about your life for me that helped get out of the the poor me sort of mentality. Now I don't stay, I don't stay in that role of a victim, but I gave myself a little permission to be like this this is this sucks, this is hard. Being around people like you, meeting others that were so full of life, it just reminded me that's where that's where I want to be. And so as I was reaching out to people, it wasn't just to network because they would lead me to the next role, opportunity, career, but it was how do you listen in a different way, right? So when you're in that point of transition, you just need people to walk alongside you. And it isn't the ones that like feel sorry for you. For me, what's helpful for other leaders, what I've seen helpful is go where the light is. It could be people in a completely different industry. Some people have even volunteered at hospitals or animal shelters or or something that just gives them a little bit of meaning and purpose before their their next opportunity.

SPEAKER_01 27:11

Yeah, I what I've you know, I've had friends who have gotten laid off and whatever over the years, and it's the one thing that I think the ones that have transitioned well, they've they've not they've given themselves some time to sort of grieve, but then they've not just kind of stayed at home and watched movies, they've they've done other things, like you said, they maybe didn't have didn't have time for. Um I remember someone reached out to me. They're like, I just want to learn more about you, what you do. Uh, not because he's looking for a job, but just like, you know, maybe there's some connections, or just I'm, you know, I want to open my perspective up to something else that's out there. And I feel like the people who are able to do that have a better time coming out on the other side of of the sort of sort of transition. That's right.

Linda's Usable Book Discussion

SPEAKER_01 27:56

Linda, any final thoughts before we wrap this

It's going to be ok!

SPEAKER_01 27:58

up here?

SPEAKER_00 27:59

The first thought is it's okay and it's gonna be okay, and it's hard. But I I want to just bring us back to the bittersweet study from from Susan Kane, where we're sometimes the point of transcendence in our lives come in points of transition. And even if it doesn't feel good, it's it's okay. It's gonna be

Practice Compassion!

SPEAKER_00 28:24

okay. And the second thought I have is maybe you're listening to this podcast because you have a loved one that has been laid off and you don't know what to do, then you're not recognizing that person right now. And I would encourage you to practice compassion. That you, as a loved one experiencing someone in the household that's been laid off, be kind and know that we need to be there for each other and we need to remind each other of who we are.

SPEAKER_01 28:58

Thank you for listening to the Leadership Vision Podcast, sharing our expertise in the discovery, practice, and implementation of a strengths-based approach to people, teams, and culture. More resources about developing your strengths, the strengths of your team, or the strengths of your entire organization, click the link in the show notes or visit us on the web at Leadership Vision Consulting.com. And if you found value from this episode or any of our other online resources, we would appreciate it if you would share it with someone that you think might benefit from going deeper in understanding their strengths, the strengths of their team, or the strengths of their organization. We'd also love it if you could review us on iTunes. It really helps, believe it or not. And for any more information or questions, or if something in this episode really grabbed you or stuck out to you, you can email us, connect at leadershipvisionconsulting.com. Linda actually checks that email box all the time, and so she will respond back to you. I'm Nathan Freeberg.

SPEAKER_00 29:55

I'm Linda Schubring.

SPEAKER_01 29:56

And on behalf of our entire team, thanks for listening.