Two weeks before the announcement, a chief communications officer learned she’d be leading through layoffs.

Within days, she was drafting the CEO’s message to every employee.

Two names on the list reported to her.

In an earlier post, I wrote about leading through consolidation: mergers, restructuring, and teams that suddenly report to someone new. This piece is narrower. It’s about the layoff itself, seen from the communications leader’s seat.

Why Is a Layoff a Different Kind of Crisis?

External crises test your reputation. Internal crises test your trust.

The numbers show how much is at stake. In a 2025 global survey by Workplace Intelligence for INTOO, 62% of employees said they lost trust in their employer after layoffs.

Seventy-one percent said they’d start job hunting right away after a layoff, even if they kept their jobs. And 80% said companies underestimate how much layoffs affect the people who stay.

The people who remain are your audience, too. Right now, they’re deciding whether to stay with you.

Your Two Jobs

When you’re leading through layoffs as a communications leader, you hold two jobs at once.

The first is the company’s message. You shape what the CEO says, how it’s said, and in what order people hear it.

The second is your own team. Some of your people may be on the list. The rest will be anxious, grieving colleagues, and wondering who’s next.

Most comms leaders put the first job first. It’s the one with the deadline.

But your team is watching how you handle the second. How you lead them through it is the message they’ll remember.

Counsel the CEO Before You Write a Word

Your most valuable contribution comes before the first draft. It’s counsel.

You may be the one person in the room whose job is to think about how every employee will hear this news. Use that seat.

• Tell the truth early. Rumors fill every silence. The sooner people hear the facts, the fewer stories they write for themselves.
• Sequence it with care. People who are affected should hear it first, from their own manager, in person or on a call. Everyone else hears it next, the same day.
• Explain the why. People can accept hard decisions when they understand the reasons behind them.
• Show respect for the people leaving. The people who stay judge the company by how it treats the people who go.

Then hold the line on those principles when the pressure builds. That takes courage. It’s also why your CEO hired you.

Equip the Managers Who Deliver the News

In most layoffs, managers deliver the hardest news. Many have never done it before.

Give them what they need to do it well: a short script, answers to the questions people will ask, and a clear place to send the questions they can’t answer.

A good script covers four things: what’s happening, why it’s happening, what it means for the person in front of them, and what happens next.

Prepare managers for the questions people ask first. When is my last day? What about severance and benefits? Will I get a reference? Who can I talk with about next steps?

Partner with HR on this. HR owns the policy details; you own the clarity and tone. Briefing managers together keeps the facts and the message aligned.

Managers don’t need every answer. They need to know where each answer lives, and to say so with confidence.

Walk them through the conversation before it happens. A manager who has rehearsed is calmer, kinder, and clearer.

Then check in with them afterward. Delivering this news takes a toll, and managers are leaders who need support, too.

Lead Your Team Through the Unknown

Once the news is out, your team needs you to lead, even when you don’t have every answer.

When David Grossman, founder and CEO of The Grossman Group, led his own firm through the 2009 market crash and the pandemic, he did what he’d counsel any client to do in a crisis. As he told me on Taking the Lead, he gathered his team and worked through four questions:

• What do we know?
• What don’t we know?
• What are we working on finding out?
• How do we need to stay connected?

Then his team huddled as often as every other day to share updates.

It’s a framework you already use for clients. Use it for your own team.

It also gives you honest language for the hardest moments. “Here’s what I know, here’s what I don’t, and here’s when I’ll know more” builds more trust than a confident guess.

In that same conversation, I shared something I believe: the best antidote for worry is action.

So give your team something to do. A clear priority for the next few weeks. A role in supporting colleagues who are leaving. A voice in how the work gets redistributed.

Action gives people back a sense of control. That’s what anxious teams need most.

Speak to the People Who Stay

The people who remain need their own message, and it’s rarely the one the company sends first.

Acknowledge the loss. Colleagues are gone, and pretending otherwise erodes trust faster than anything you say.

Then answer the questions they’re asking privately. What changes for me? Who owns the work now? What are our priorities?

Clear answers to those questions give people a reason to stay, and to believe in where the organization is heading.

Gather your own team within a day of the announcement. Don’t wait for the perfect moment or message.

Open by naming what happened and who’s gone. Share what you know, and be honest about what you don’t. Then stop talking and invite questions.

Some people will want to talk. Others will need time. Offer one-on-one conversations for anyone who wants them.

Expect the questions to keep coming for weeks, not hours. Grief, guilt, and worry about workload surface on their own schedule.

Close by setting the next check-in. Knowing when they’ll hear from you again steadies people more than any single answer.

Take Care of the Messenger

There’s one more person leading through layoffs who needs attention: you.

You learned the news early. You carried it alone for days. You may have helped write the message that ended a colleague’s job.

Many communications leaders also carry a quieter burden: knowing details they can’t share with the colleagues closest to them.

That weight is real. Leaders who name it, and find support for it, lead better through what comes next.

Support in practice looks like this:

• One outside confidant. A peer, a mentor, or a coach you can talk with openly about what you can’t say inside.
• Time on your calendar. Block an hour in the days after the announcement to decompress and think, before the next round of requests arrives.
• Permission to feel it. Delivering hard news well and feeling its weight go together. The leaders who acknowledge both stay steady longer.

That confidential space is part of what I offer communications leaders in executive coaching: room to think clearly about what you can’t share inside, without judgment.

Ask Yourself

If you’re leading through layoffs, or preparing to, start here:

• Who on my team will hear this news from me, and when?
• What does my CEO need to hear from me that no one else will say?
• What does my team know, not know, and need to learn?
• What action can I give my people this week?
• Who outside my organization can I talk with openly about this?

The Moment Your Team Remembers

A layoff tests every skill a communications leader has: judgment, candor, empathy, and courage.

Handled with truth and care, it can also become the moment your team trusts you most.

If you’d like a thinking partner while leading through layoffs, I offer a complimentary consultation. You can schedule it here.

And if you’re not sure coaching is right for you, email me at ken@jacobscomm.com or send me a DM on LinkedIn. Sometimes it helps to just talk it through.