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Master Class

Before Thanksgiving is the time of year when bad news is delivered in all-hands calls. This story reminded me of a time when I was part of a very similar call. The CEO in question came on a Zoom call looking very somber. We had been promised it would be a short call. The layoff was announced in the first few minutes followed by him saying whoever had been impacted could expect to hear from their manager in the next few hours. 

My manager at the time called me immediately after the CEO call ended to let me know I had not been impacted. I was grateful to hear the news and also for his promptness in informing me of it. P was one of the best people managers I have come across in my career - he is extremely smart, self-aware, efficient and unassuming. 

More importantly he understood how to help people maximize each other's strengths when they worked together. P had been at the company for over a decade at the time and held a variety of successful, high-profile roles. If there was a Most Popular Manager vote, he would have won it hands-down. 

That morning, many of us felt that the CEO was not quite the leader that P was. If P had been the one to announce the layoff he would have done it different. He did have to let go a few of his own team and no surprise he delivered a class act. He wrote strong recommendations, made introductions and they knew he was serious when he told them that they will be his top picks when the time was right to hire again. Watching P in action in that incredibly difficult time was a masterclass in how to be a good leader. 

It was good to see that bad leadership was punished in short order. 

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