Coming Up
What workplace survivor syndrome is – and why leaders aren’t immune to it
Why everyone on your team is adjusting to the new normal on a different clock
What people with different personality traits need from you to find their footing again
Welcome to Day 2 of our Leading Well After Layoffs Challenge!
Yesterday, we worked on the first conversation – what to say, what you can’t promise, and how to keep the trust you still have. Today is about what happens after that first meeting ends.
The people still on your team are waking up to a workplace that suddenly looks different – fewer faces, shifted roles, a quieter office. Everyone adjusts to that new normal differently, and personality theory is a useful lens for us to draw on here. It gives you a way to see those differences coming and meet each person where they are.
Before we jump in today, here’s a quick reminder of what you can expect throughout this challenge:
Day 2: Help Your Team Process What Happened (You Are Here)
Day 3: Rebuild Trust Without Making Promises You Can’t Keep
Day 4: Reset the Work Before Redistributing It
Day 5: Reengage the Team Without Forcing Positivity
What Is Workplace Survivor Syndrome?
There’s a name for what your team may be carrying right now: workplace survivor syndrome. It’s the mix of guilt, anxiety, anger, and withdrawal that often follows a layoff – not among the people who left, but among those who stayed.
Think about what your remaining team members might be holding:
Relief that it wasn’t them – and guilt about feeling that relief.
Fear that the next round has their name on it.
Anger about how it was handled, or sadness that it happened.
Grief for friends who are suddenly gone from their Monday mornings.
All while being expected to carry on, usually with more work than they had before.
And as their leader, you may be feeling some of this too. In a survey of 501 U.S. tech leaders, 77% said layoffs had negatively affected their own health, and 38% reported increased anxiety or depression afterward.
Feeling this way doesn’t make you less fit to lead your team’s recovery. If anything, it gives you a more honest starting point (as long as you’re tending to your own recovery too).
Knowing your team well can pay dividends in difficult moments like layoffs. Our Team Assessments give you an overview of your whole team’s mix of personality types – a useful head start on understanding how each person may be carrying this.
Let Grievers Grieve – Without Sinking the Ship
Everyone is unique, and we all recover from things like layoffs – and surviving layoffs – on our own personal timeline.
A few weeks in, some people on your team may be ready to get back to normal. Others may still be angry, sad, distracted, or just not there yet. That’s where friction can start. The person who’s still hurting thinks, How can you move on so quickly? The person who’s ready to move forward thinks, Are we going to keep talking about this forever?
You don’t need everyone to be in the same place – but you do need to stop people from judging each other for where they are. Here are some tips to help you do that:
Name the difference. You probably only need to say it once: “Some of us are still processing what happened, and some of us are ready to look ahead. Both are okay.” Naming the tension usually takes some of the heat out of it.
Move the processing into one-on-ones. If every team meeting turns into another conversation about the layoffs, people will start to dread them. At the same time, shutting the subject down completely doesn’t make the feelings disappear. One-on-ones are usually a better place to give someone room to talk through what they’re carrying.
Don’t let either side take cheap shots. “It’s time to move on” isn’t helpful. Neither is “I guess you didn’t care that much.” People process loss differently, and the speed of someone’s recovery tells you very little about how much they cared about the people who left.
Pay attention when someone seems stuck. There’s no deadline for getting over a layoff. But if sadness has turned into ongoing anger, cynicism, or disengagement, don’t just hope it passes. Check in. A conversation can tell you whether they need more support – or whether something else is going on.
What Each Personality Type Needs to Find Their Footing
The feelings that come with survivor syndrome – the guilt, the fear, the anger, the grief – don’t land evenly across a team. Personality shapes which ones are most likely to surface in each person, and what actually helps them move through it.
Survivor guilt tends to hit Turbulent team members hardest. In our “Doubts” survey, 79% of people with the Turbulent trait said they think a lot about their regrets, compared to 42% of those with the Assertive trait. After a layoff, there’s no shortage of material for that kind of second-guessing: Why them and not me? Could I have done something? Am I next? Don’t assume Turbulent team members will tell you they’re spiraling. Check in first. Sometimes a quiet one-on-one, a little reassurance that survivor guilt is normal, and some clarity about what comes next are enough to stop those thoughts from running away with them.
For Feeling types, the loudest feeling is often grief. They tend to be invested in the people they work with, so losing colleagues can hurt the way losing friends does – and because they’re usually the ones comforting everyone else, their own grief goes unattended. Check on these team members, and let them hear that the people who left were treated with care.
Thinking types are more likely to land on frustration, even anger, than open sadness. They process a layoff as a logic problem, and if the official explanation doesn’t hold together, their trust erodes fast. Don’t force a feelings conversation they didn’t ask for. Give them the most honest reasoning you’re able to share – for them, that is the processing.
And whatever the feeling, Extraverted team members tend to work through it out loud, while Introverted ones do it privately. Give the first group room to talk, and circle back to the second a few days later with a low-key “no agenda, just checking in.”
These are tendencies, not hard and fast rules. Pair them with what you’re observing day to day, and you’ll usually find your starting point with each person.
And keep the goal realistic: you’re not trying to get everyone back to the way things were before the layoff. That version of the team is gone. You’re helping each person find a way to feel grounded in the team that exists now.
If your team members don’t already know their personality types, sharing our free personality test can give people an easier way to talk about why they’re reacting differently to the same event.
Your Action Item
Take ten minutes with your team roster. For each person, make your best guess at a few of their personality traits: Thinking or Feeling? Extraverted or Introverted? Assertive or Turbulent? You don’t have to be right – a working hunch is enough.
Then look back at the section above and ask one question per person: have I offered this person what they most likely need right now?
The honest reasoning for a Thinking type. The direct check-in for a Feeling type. Room to talk for an Extravert, a follow-up in a few days for an Introvert, clear next steps for someone who leans Turbulent.
Wherever the answer is “not yet,” you’ve found your to-do list for the week.
Coming Up Next: Understanding what your people are carrying is step one. Step two is harder: helping them trust you – and the company – again. Tomorrow we dig into rebuilding trust without making promises you can’t keep.