Years ago, on a Tuesday morning, a manager I had been looking forward to working for told me he was leaving that same week.
Then I found out I would be cutting a third of the team in the next 10 days.
A team I hadn’t met yet.
It’s still one of the hardest things I’ve done as a leader. And I did it as a stranger to everyone involved.
What many of you are carrying is harder than that. You know these people. You’ve sat in their reviews. You know who just bought a house.
So here’s the question almost no one asks out loud:
Who is supporting you while you do this?
Not as a soft aside. As a real part of the plan.
The decision gets scheduled down to the hour. Talking points, sequencing, calendar invites, legal review. Your own processing gets nothing. No owner, no timeline, no place to put it.
I’ve watched clients run the entire range on this.
The ones who come through steady are the ones who decided in advance what support would look like. A walk between conversations. Two minutes of breath before the first call. One person outside the company they could be honest with before the week ended.
Take the walk. Get the breath.
This is going to be a hard week, and there’s no need to pretend that it isn’t.