The Measure of Leadership in Uncertain Times

Care Doesn't End with Employment

As 2025 closes, global labour markets send mixed signals. Growth and contraction coexist – but for people, uncertainty is personal: livelihoods, dignity, and stability are at stake.

Until the early 1980s, large-scale layoffs were viewed as organisational distress. That changed when workforce reduction became a financial strategy. Markets rewarded it. Share prices often rose. And over time, redundancies became a symbol of managerial decisiveness – even in profitable firms.

What markets did not measure was the erosion of trust, engagement, institutional memory, and the quiet cost carried by families and communities.

This shift marked a deeper change – from stewardship of people to management of numbers.

The Current Moment

US unemployment has reached a four-year high of 4.6%. Job growth remains modest. Government employment is falling. Economists remain divided.

At the same time, corporate updates tell a similar story:

• Amazon cutting about 14,000 jobs – or 4% of its workforce – with its CEO anticipating further reductions.
• United Parcels Service recently disclosed about 48,000 job cuts – more than UPS forecast earlier in 2025.
• Nestlé cutting 16,000 jobs globally over the next 2 years as part of a wider cost reduction exercise aimed at reviving its financial performance.
• Lufthansa Group shedding 4,000 jobs by 2030 – even as the company reported strong demand and predicted stronger profits.
• The Danish pharmaceutical company Novo Nordisk announced that it will cut 9,000 jobs – about 11% of its workforce – as part of a wider restructuring.
• Oil giant ConocoPhillips plans to layoff up to 25% of its worldwide workforce as part of broader efforts to cut costs.
• Intel announced it was shedding thousands of jobs through layoffs and attrition in an attempt to revive its business in the face of increasing competition.
• Microsoft began laying off about 6,000 employees in Q2 2025 – with a further 9,000 job losses subsequently announced.
• Proctor & Gamble said it would cut up to 7,000 jobs over the next 2 years – about 6% of the company’s global workforce.

Many of these companies remain profitable. Demand remains strong. Shareholders remain protected.

But people absorb the risk.

Numbers move markets. Redundancy reshapes lives. And stewardship is tested.

Redundancy Is a Human Event

Behind every statistic is a household recalculating its future – income, healthcare, confidence, identity.

For those leaving and those remaining, redundancy represents maximum vulnerability.

And in those moments, leadership is revealed – not through financial performance, but through human responsibility.

Bob Chapman, CEO of Barry-Wehmiller, asks the question that transcends industries and geographies:

“How do we measure success? By the way we touch the lives of people.”

Even where redundancies are unavoidable, his principle still holds:

Care does not end with employment.

A Practical Act of Leadership

There is one simple, powerful step organisations can take:

Continue employer-funded death and medical cover for a defined transition period after redundancy.

Not as charity.

Not as branding.

But as recognition.

This decision:

• Preserves dignity
• Protects families from catastrophic risk
• Demonstrates leadership in action
• Signals values are real
• Builds trust with those who remain
• Leaves a lasting cultural imprint
• And costs far less than most leaders assume

Maya Angelou – the late civil rights activist, poet, and essayist – captured the truth:

“People will never forget how you made them feel.”

Warren Buffett warned:

“It takes 20 years to build a reputation and five minutes to ruin it.”

In Uncertain Times, Care Becomes the Measure of Leadership

When pressure rises, values are revealed.

Extending care beyond the last working day communicates leadership more powerfully than any earnings call, restructuring memo, or press release.

It shows that leadership understands its role is not only as manager of performance – but as a guardian of lives and futures.

Everyone belongs – even when the employment contract ends.

That is not sentimental leadership.

It is strategic and values based.

It is cultural integrity.

It is enduring.

And in uncertain times – it is the measure of leadership.