You Could Lose Your Job: Leaders Who Are Truly Prepared Don’t Fear Change.

If you look up things like ‘what to do if you lose your job’ or ‘how to handle being made redundant’, you will quickly find they are filled with post-job loss advice. Makes total sense: who wants to look up those kinds of topics unless you actually need them? It is, for most of us, a devastating scenario. Most conversations focus on the financial impact first, and rightly so. But future earnings are only one aspect of what makes a job change so difficult. The emotional impact of being laid off is felt by even top leaders who arguably, are usually more financially secure.

The real reason why leaders struggle with job loss: it’s not the money.

Leaders who face an unexpected job change go through an emotional reaction that can be incredibly challenging. For those who have reached the very top roles in their careers there is a realistic—if fragile—comfort that they will continue to succeed. After all, if past is prologue: the more successful you are in the past, the more confident you become about your future. But the reality is that the career trajectory for all workers has changed. A steady climb to the top rung, especially if the last ten or more years are within the same organisation, used to suggest a certain amount of job security. That’s simply not true anymore.

Work has changed in two important ways, especially over the career span of Gen X employees, who are now a major demographic in the C-suite profile. (In the UK, the average age of a FTSE 100 CEO in 2024 is 55 .) For one, few people stay at one organisation for their whole career. The traditional social contract of employers with pensions and career-long relationships with their employees has all but disappeared. The other reality is that the needs of companies are in constant flux due to globalisation and politicisation. Thirty years ago, executives at multinational companies like Coca-Cola and Nike mostly pushed out a strategy and mindset based on Western capitalist norms and perspectives. While they had operations around the world, these companies exported not only their products but their values, processes and strategies.

Today, local markets have the access to information, and most importantly, choices they didn’t have before. They are connected to markets around the world and can garner attention and empathy. If a company engages in labour practices, hiring strategies or production techniques that don’t align with local communities, the information spreads and influences the brand’s identity everywhere.

Digitalisation fueled rapid globalisation, which shifted who companies are—and what kinds of leaders they need.

What does that mean for top leaders? Constant change, ever evolving needs, and with that, different leaders for different moments. The conversation I’ve had with clients who were laid off is the biggest threat to their careers are unavoidable, sometimes existential change. In the past, a leader who came through the sales side of the organisation and had years of experience meeting and exceeding goals might think they are untouchable. But imagine if the company’s sales goals were now more aligned with markets outside of the U.S. Could a leader steeped in American strategies easily pivot for markets with totally different expectations? What if the cultural norms were different? What if that meant men and women needed separate working spaces? What if that leader needed a female sales team to sell to female customers? And what if the sales team itself would be better served by a woman leader?

In other words, companies now must reflect the communities they operate in, not throw a cloak of Western ideals over an existing, established culture. Leaders who have thrived in the environment they were asked to leader shouldn’t blame themselves—or anyone else—if the needs now are completely different.

When a leader loses their job, they are more likely to feel irrelevant, or worse, an underperformer. But today’s economy, constant change means roles are redefined again and again. There is no here versus there: everyone is everywhere and it is all happening at once. Ukraine, Gaza, a pandemic, inflation, remote work–all of it happened in the last five years. Leaders who find themselves being pushed aside must do the difficult work of reframing what is happening, and why they might no longer be the right person for the new job. Not because they became irrelevant, but because circumstances are changing faster than any one person can. The right defence is to simply realise that as much as you became incorrect for one place, you may now be exactly the right person for another. The most important skill is adaptability. Constant, calm responsiveness to new information again and again.

Articles about job termination are usually reserved for those who are already unemployed. That’s a mistake.

Today’s leaders can do several things differently to avoid the emotional fallout of job loss. First, recognise that being laid off is not necessarily a referendum on relevancy or performance. It is often a reflection of an organization trying to remain nimble and competitive amongst constant change. Second, lean into what you can control, which is prepare and plan emotionally and tactically for the possibility of a job change. The clients that handle this change best are those who have been able to detach emotionally from their job. That is not easy. They recognise that they can do a phenomenal job in an organisation for as long as the needs of the company and their own talents align. If they lose a particular role—as devastating and personal as it might feel—it means the company changed, not their performance. Not their relevance.

This article first appeared on The Robert Kovach Blog.

Dr. Robert Kovach has spent his entire career working as a trusted advisor to senior leaders wanting to improve the effectiveness of themselves, their teams and their companies. Prior to starting his own consulting firm, Robert led the global executive assessment and development team for Cisco . Earlier in his career Robert held leadership roles with RHR International , PepsiCo , Ashridge Executive Education, Hult International Business School and the Central European University, Budapest, Hungary .