It is said of Donald Trump that even he – blusterous, ostensibly manly braggard that he is – hated telling people face to face they were being laid off. Fired. Canned. Sacked. Dismissed. Why? For several good and obvious reasons: delivering bad news is unpleasant; delivering bad news is unpredictable; delivering bad news is time consuming; and sometimes, ofttimes, delivering bad news reflects badly not particularly on the receiver but on the deliverer.
Easy enough then to understand why in recent months countless employers told countless employees – employees in the hundreds of thousands – that their services were no longer necessary not in person but by email. So much easier for a superior to deliver such rotten news to a subordinate not face-to-face but online. So much less messy!
But imagine that you’ve worked at a company, for a company, for twenty years – or for that matter twenty months – and you discover from one moment to the next, electronically as opposed to personally, that your life as you knew it was over. That your means of support and your professional identity had just been summarily terminated. Who do you talk to and when? Who do you question and when? Who do you rail against and when? Who do you cry in front of and when? The question of “who” is urgent now because so many people now work remotely. So when they get bad news by e mail it’s not just they don’t have their managers to talk to, they don’t have anyone to talk to, at least not face to face. For likely as not when they found out they were sacked they were alone.
By now it’s well known that in recent months many companies, especially but not exclusively in the tech industry, told large numbers of people they were being laid off by e mailing them. How efficient. How deficient. The word “inhumane” comes to mind – which might seem hyperbolic but you get my point. My point is that telling someone that by the time they finished reading their emails they already are out of a job is other than humane, which makes it inhumane.
In my book, Bad Leadership, I described a certain type of bad leader as callous. Callous leaders are “uncaring or unkind.” They ignore or discount “the needs, wants, and wishes” particularly of their subordinates. Leaders who fire by e mail fall into this category – they are callous. Not only are they dismissing someone, presumably permanently, they are doing so out of hand, easily and efficiently as opposed to carefully and considerately.
What recourse do followers (employees) have for leaders (employers) who are callous? Acting alone is not the answer. Acting in tandem is.
Unions anyone?