Leadership by fear or bullying is a thing of the past, most managers lead this way when they are incapable of being intelligent enough to seek solutions and work with their teams. It is just a cycle that repeats until the business goes under, because the bullying lion usually pushes their way to the management position but when there don't have the intelligence to do anything with it. If the senior executives recognize this, they would have respectable, intelligent and leaders that have integrity and accountability versus being a bully. Sad thing is, they will bring down a business and the people under them.
All that matters in the new world is that the manager will pretend to care and pull the trigger without missing their next meeting.
The playbook looks something like this:
Observe and acknowledge what happened.
Most people experience the impact as a loss (never considering it a gain as we do). Acknowledge their experience (admit nothing), listen to what's important to them (not us), and (just) demonstrate (don't actually believe) that their views matter.
Allow feelings to surface.
Provide people with (temporary) nonthreatening environments to express their feelings (so we can gage them on the surface). (Any kind) of conversations can be helpful in creating a safe (estimation as to where they all stand) without emotions hiding underground.
Get and give support.
Help people recognize where (in the heirarchy) they are stuck and how they can shift from blaming (us) to problem solving (the unintended side effects we created). Also, make sure that no one is moving ahead blindly (without us knowing and controlling every step this time). Share key information and insights (only as needed) to help employees (seemingly) feel involved and “in the know.” And seek support for yourself (in defense against them) through fellow leaders (for there is strength in numbers and lawyers).
Reframe the experience.
Put the experience into a larger context. Don't let them focus on individual experiences. Help people to see the bigger picture (because misery loves company and will help difuse the individual sense of loss). Help people to consider the individual choices and opportunities (we are forcing) in front of them, including "potential" benefits (as if keeping
their existing jobs or returning to a lost job is actually a "new" gift/opportunity).
Take responsibility.
Own up to what is yours to own (on a personal level but don't blame the company as a whole). Determine the lessons learned and the actions you can take to improve (the swiftness and decisiveness of the actions in the future). Hold yourself accountable (until they've signed the unilateral waiver from the legal office), plus help others take responsibility and hold themselves accountable (for having voted for the officials that enabled the expansion of the NAFTA treaty to include PACRIM and allow the outsourcing to Asian territories).
Forgive yourself and others.
Acknowledge the impact of broken trust and then agree to move through (quickly without apologizing because some of them might be getting desperate). Learn from it and do better going forward (so that next time this will go more smoothly for us). Ask people, “What needs to happen for forgiveness to take place?” (It will make them "feel" better to get it off their chests.) Additionally, ask yourself the same question if you need to forgive yourself. (You should after all. Jesus forgave. Still got nailed for it, but he forgave.)
Let go and move on.
There is a difference between remembering and “hanging on.” Employees may not forget what happened, but they can choose to look forward rather than ("hang on" to the notion that we'll do this again). Help people in letting go and moving on with a sense of shared responsibility (because somehow, it is their fault too).
