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Comment by citizenpaul | Hacker News Reader

I actually wrote several responses and realized I was rambling on because of just how difficult it is to explain the reality of being in a decision making role. Rumors and politics are far far more prevalent than any acutal problems that will affect your people.

It is not your job to be responsible for other peoples personal lives, you are not the messiah. All you can do is fight to get them the pay they deserve. What they do with the money you have no control over anyway.

Layoffs at non Fortune 500 companies generally have less warning than anything can be done about anyway. Sure if its budgeted at Pfizer 6mo in advance your an ahole for not telling people. However its usually more like 2-4 weeks that the people in charge even know beforehand. ALso remenber we are talking about CTO. Its the CFO that knows the truth about the finances and may be hiding it from you as the CTO.

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There seems to be quite a lot wrong in this post in my humble opinion... In brief, this reads as:

  * Allowing rumor/politics to become malignant through deceit rather than healing through truth
  * Dismissing responsibility for other people's livelihood because "hey its not my fault they didn't save money in case I throw them in the guillotine"
  * Using lack of information as a reason to lie, rather than just telling your workers that you don't know the answers.

These are definitely the antithesis of "good" leadership. "Good" from an empathetic, humane perspective, and "good" for business and profit. It's true we have to make unpopular, hard, sad decisions. Yet it is absolutely imperative that we remain mindful and diligent to our team as individual humans.

You are ignoring a hard reality. Other people probably want your job. If you look weak/uncertain/outofloop it will encourage them to come after you and give them ammo against you. Making your job at best more difficult or at worst a full blown power struggle.

Sorry but the reality of human nature is tough.

That is certainly one way to operate in the world! It is just not how my world works though.

If someone is actually better suited for a role than I am, then let them have it. I'll find another role and keep growing. Where is the problem?

If some team makes the mistake of confusing trust and openness with weakness, then good riddance, I'm better off with a different team.

If you truly think that a person can't be honest and trustworthy, while simultaneously being strong and confident, then I really don't know what to tell you. Disclosing hard truths doesn't mean being "weak and uncertain".

I know workplaces aren't democracies, but there's no question that I'd vote for the straight shooter (even if their own position in the company is weakened by that trait) over someone who plays the political game well but lies to their reports.

Hell, I would vote, with my feet, if I had to.

> All you can do is fight to get them the pay they deserve

You can also be honest with them so that they can make informed decisions for themselves. The best CTOs I've worked for have been honest people who give you the bad and the good news together.

> However its usually more like 2-4 weeks that the people in charge even know beforehand

I'm guessing you're not referring to public companies with significant revenue. There's almost always warnings well before the 2 week mark.

>I'm guessing you're not referring to public companies with significant revenue

>Layoffs at non Fortune 500

Yeah Literally what I said in my comment.

"Non Fortune 500" != "non-public companies"

There are many public companies not in the F500, and I agree with the grandparent that every executive will either know, or have a really good idea that a layoff is coming, well before 2-4 weeks prior, even if the internal finance/HR process hasn't quietly, officially started yet.

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