# Leanne's redundancy story — and the managers you never fear

- **Episode:** [224](https://agents.truthliesandwork.com/episodes/224.md) (2025-08-19)
- **Type:** other
- **Tags:** redundancy, career, managers
- **Time:** 35:04–39:38 (start 2104s)
- **Listen:** [https://truthliesandwork.com/224?t=2104](https://truthliesandwork.com/224?t=2104)

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[35:04] Al Elliott: Yeah
[35:05] Leanne Elliott: And I think it's managers like that that you're never gonna be afraid to get a phone call from, because even if it is the worst, they've done everything they can to protect you in, in the lead up to that moment
[35:15] Al Elliott: And also just a real quick one with that, and, and I dunno whether it's something you wanna go into, but with that phone call, you didn't go, yeah, good, good. You know, do you have some time on Friday? I want, you know, we just wanna do a little bit of a chat. I might bring HR in. It was a, no, there's bad news. This is the bad news. And because the relationship was there, I'm guessing. Then the bad news was devastating, but at the same time you're like, well, I know you've done— I mean, I don't know. I wasn't there
[35:39] Leanne Elliott: Yeah, exactly. It was devastating, but it was, he will now help me figure out how I move on from this in the immediate future where I have to lay off my entire team before I'm also laid off myself and what work potentially looks like in the near future. So, I think 2 sides to the coin based on everything we talked about. Absolutely. Yes. You want to have a great relationship with your manager so that you don't immediately think those things. But I think that each person has their own level of trauma and PTSD that they're suffering from based on the environment, regardless of whether you have a great manager or not, that they probably have to fight. Those are the two kind of sides of the scale, I think
[36:22] Al Elliott: Obviously, if you have both, well, then you're really going to have the I think this might be one of those cultural shifts because 30 years ago, telephone is exactly how people communicated. So getting a phone call was not like really a traumatic thing. Whereas today, you know, even if my family members phone me instead of text me, I get the spike in adrenaline and cortisol, like, oh no, what's happened? So Maybe for a manager who's trying to establish that rhythm, maybe there could be some kind of intermediate step where they text or message ahead of time, you know, even if it's just a few minutes saying, hey, um, notice you had this spot in your schedule open. Do you have time for an informal chat? I'm just trying to meet up and, uh, check in on how things are going. So it's just that preparation and then paving the way. And then once that's the established rhythm of, oh yes, this manager checks in with me for 5 minutes by phone, then doing it out of the blue becomes less of a trauma, you know, potential like triggering event
[37:34] Leanne Elliott: Definitely, definitely. And I think absolute clarity is key. So even saying, just wanna, wondering if you've got half an hour for a quick informal, still is a bit of ambiguity there. I think if it's as simple as going, everything's good, nothing's wrong. Just going to give you a call at this time to check in. Or what I did hear another manager do during the early stages of COVID which I thought was really, really positive and proactive, would basically say, I'm going to, I'm going to call you at 2 o'clock every Tuesday, just to check in. No agenda, nothing, you know, on the cards, just to, just to see how you're doing and to check in. Another really nice organic way of doing it is when you have team meetings anyway, over Zoom, is allow the first 5, 10 minutes, just be like, hey, how's it going? How's your sister? How did they get on with this? Or how's that project going? And oh, that client's been a right pain, haven't they? And just having an actual conversation, allowing that time, that 5 to 10 minutes at the beginning of a meeting, it just establishes that this is part of our team culture. This is part of our way of working, our way of operating, having these more informal conversations. So then, as you say, John, during that transition period, um, it feels more comfortable, a lot less scary, and will just, yeah, very quickly become More natural
[38:45] Al Elliott: And then why, why shouldn't you be the manager who just does things differently? Why shouldn't you just be the person who goes, well, you go and work on Derek's team over there. You know, he's going to call you just so you know, guys, he's going to call you just out of the blue. Don't worry. It's just him checking in on you. Why shouldn't you be that manager? Because let's be honest, you're going to be, there's going to be stories about you in the organization. You're going to be known as the phone call manager, as the boomer manager, perhaps as your nickname, because you pick up the phone and you talk to someone
[39:11] Leanne Elliott: Yeah
[39:12] Al Elliott: You know, I think you're right. As long as you're aware that you are potentially triggering someone if they have been through that, I'm sorry, bad news phone call. But at the same time, it, like Leanne said, it only takes 2 or 3 phone calls and it all to be good news. And you're going, okay, right, nothing's wrong. Just wanna check in on you
[39:28] Leanne Elliott: Yeah. And, and it can't be performative. It has to be with some intention. It's not enough to just ring somebody and go, everything all right? Because we go, yeah, fine. Well, at least, at least Brits do. Yeah, fine
[39:38] Al Elliott: Yeah, fine
[39:38] Leanne Elliott: You need a bit, a bit more of an intentional question, a bit more of even a coaching question. So I, like, I noticed this email come in from Bob and it seemed, it seemed a little bit direct. Is, what's going on? Is everything all right? You okay? How did you take that? It's almost digging in a little bit more and finding a specific thing to talk about, which every good manager does anyway, in terms of giving any type of feedback. It'll be very specific and rooted in context. It's the same for these casual phone calls. If you've got something rooted in context, it's going to help that conversation flow. It's going to start to breed