Leadership in Action: A Question of Leadership: How Can leaders Best Deal with the Stress Produced by the 'Dark Side' of Management?

How can leaders best deal with the stress produced by the “dark side” of management—imposing layoffs, budget cuts, and other downsizing measures?

MICHAEL WAKEFIELD

Wakefield, a former senior program associate at CCl, is a principal in leadership development for Amazon.com. He holds an M.A. degree from Lone Mountain College.

The first thing that occurs to me is that leaders in these circumstances need to be honest and genuine.

Leaders often wonder what they are supposed to tell their people when difficult actions need to be taken—layoffs, downsizings, mergers, anything that shakes up the environment to the point that people feel their job security is threatened. One of the few generalizations that can be made is that leaders should tell their ...