my boss was suddenly fired and my employees are freaking out — Ask a manager

A reader writes:

I work at a small company and my team is even smaller: there is just me, two people who report to me, my boss (until yesterday), and the much more senior person who leads the team. My boss has always been incredibly competent, has done a great job (according to me and my big boss), and has been a great manager/teacher/mentor to me and my direct reports.

Yesterday my boss suddenly announced that my boss was fired, which was completely unexpected for me and, judging by the panic of my direct reports, for them too. My boss obviously didn't see this coming – the morning of his dismissal he spoke to me about logistical things (think: “I'm busy on a phone call for Project X at 11am, can you take over ABC and we'll discuss it afterwards?”).

My boss and the boss of my company shared the news with us and said explicitly that it had nothing to do with performance or quality of work (they reiterated that both were exceptional), but actually just that it wasn't a great fit and they just didn't see a future for him here. They immediately started talking excitedly about my boss's successor, to whom they had apparently already made an offer (allegedly the successor verbally accepted the offer the night before my boss was fired).

My direct reports are understandably incredibly anxious about what this means for them and the organization, and the vague “his performance was great but we didn't see a future for him here” only increases their fear that they could just be arbitrarily fired without knowing why. The announcement about the replacement also felt heartless and unnecessary to me, and clearly resented my team.

My boss later approached me and told me not to worry about my job and asked me if I thought he should speak to the two younger people on the team. I thought that was obviously the right thing to do but he handled the announcement so poorly that maybe it wouldn't be like that after all!

I already have regular conversations with my employees to discuss their performance, and am very clear about their expectations (what is required for their current role and for career advancement within the company), areas for improvement, etc. They're both doing a great job. I also invited them in individually after we learned the news so they could vent and/or ask me questions. But since 1) this was explicitly not performance-related, and 2) I was visibly blindsided by the news myself (I blurted out “What? Why?” before I could stop myself, and had previously made it very clear how highly I think of my boss), I can't imagine either of them feeling comforted by any reassurances from me.

Your employees are rightly worried, and so are you!

If your company fires someone who it describes as having performed “exceptionally,” it’s logical that everyone else will fear that he, too, could be fired out of the blue.

Well, maybe that's not really true. Maybe his boss talked to him about other reasons why the job wasn't a good fit for him. Who knows, maybe your boss was determined to pursue strategy X when his managers wanted strategy Y, and he was just concerned about a difference in vision or tactics — although in that case you'd think they would have just said so, since it's much easier to explain. Or maybe he questioned them too often, or maybe he did a great job on the day-to-day but struggled to develop a broader vision, or he was good at X but they wanted the role to be more Y, or he didn't have good chemistry with the people in front of him. It's also possible that your company uncovered something egregious (like, I don't know, hiring sex workers at company expense) and, in trying to protect his privacy, screwed up the way they communicated it.

Or maybe none of that is the case and they are making arbitrary decisions based on very poor information. Or maybe they wanted to hire a senior manager's brother-in-law and unceremoniously fired your boss so they could do it.

We don't know because their messages on this were so bad.

You cannot credibly or ethically guarantee your employees' job security unless you better understand what happened.

Can you speak to your boss and explain that people are alarmed when they are told that someone was fired for reasons that had nothing to do with their performance, and that while you recognize the need for discretion in personnel decisions, some additional information, people will assume that they too could be fired without warning and without reason … and so if it Is a reason it would be helpful to share more information with people?

If you're expected to calm people down and put an end to a panicked job search, you need to give them the tools they need to do that.