Been Downsized? Fired? Need to Find a Job?
Even before the global economic crisis occurred in late 2008, anxiety about employment was high; at the beginning of that year, the U.S. Department of Labor released a report stating that there had been a net loss of sixty-three thousand jobs, which was the biggest monthly decline in five years.
Whether or not your own job is in jeopardy in the near future, at some point in your career, you may become a victim of downsizing (if you haven’t already). What would an ethically intelligent response be?
Being Laid Off: The Stress of Job Loss
Being laid off is one of the most traumatic events we can experience. On the Holmes-Rahe stress scale, getting fired is the eighth most stressful life experience, behind the death of a spouse (which is number 1) or going to jail (number 4), but ahead of foreclosure on a mortgage or loan (number 21). Rightly or wrongly, many of us define ourselves by our jobs, which is why one of the first questions we ask someone we meet is, “What do you do?”
If you’ve ever been downsized, I’ll bet your first response was, “That’s not fair!” Even if your company had — or believes it had — good reasons to eliminate your position, from your point of view, it feels as though an injustice has occurred.
Six Rules for Limiting Stress of Job Loss
I propose the following guidelines for you to consider, should you find yourself suddenly out of a job.
1. Get angry — later. It’s easy to react with hostility when you’re told that your position is being eliminated. Don’t. It’s only human to be terribly upset or even filled with rage, but acting on those feelings may violate the Do No Harm principle. You won’t regret holding back, but you will regret losing your cool.
2. Don’t take it personally. We’d like to be able to control our lives and shape our destiny through the sheer force of will, but sometimes things happen to us that have absolutely nothing to do with what we’ve done or who we are. This is one of those times.
3. Get a recommendation. One of the best ways for a potential employer to find out how valuable you are is to hear from your current boss. Get a recommendation in writing as soon as possible. Volunteer to write it yourself. If a letter is out of the question or doesn’t arrive in a timely fashion, ask your boss to send you a short email; even a one- or two-line testimonial will do. Get your boss’s permission to put his or her direct phone number on your résumé and give it out at job interviews. (Incidentally, failure to follow guideline 1 could make this an impossibility. Burning bridges in the heat of anger is the worst thing you can do to yourself.)
4. Be a self-promoter. We’re raised to believe that it’s wrong to toot our own horn, but if ever there was a time to put that belief aside, it’s now. One of our greatest challenges is striking the right balance between self-absorption and devotion to others. Still, there is not only no harm in standing up for yourself; it is unethical not to do so. Consider this as well: How can others benefit from your expertise if you don’t get the word out?
5. Allow yourself to grieve. Grief is a natural and healthy response to losing something or someone of value in your life, and taking your grief seriously is another important way to treat yourself with kindness. It is a sign of strength, not weakness, to seek counseling in the wake of being downsized. If you sustained an injury to your back, you would have no qualms about getting physical therapy. Why shouldn’t you seek the appropriate remedy when your world is turned upside down? Many of us still attach a stigma to psychotherapy — wrongly so.
6. Accentuate the positive. Is it possible that one of the worst things that could happen to you might turn out to be the best? Take a look at Harvey Mackay’s We Got Fired!... And It’s the Best Thing That Ever Happened to Us. Michael Bloomberg, Muhammad Ali, Billie Jean King, Home Depot founder Bernie Marcus, Lee Iacocca, and Robert Redford are just a few of the wildly successful people who explain how losing a job led to something much better. Yes, it’s dispiriting to get laid off, but Mackay’s book reminds us of the riches that may lie just beyond the horizon, which would have been unavailable had we stayed where we were.
Lose Your Job? Here's How to Reduce the Stress
Bottom line: Taking the high road is challenging enough when all is going well. The real test of your character is how you respond when things are at their worst. Following the guidelines above will help you show the world — and yourself — that nothing, not even the loss of your job, can hold you back from success.
Being downsized presents a supreme test of your ethical intelligence. By allowing yourself to grieve, being prudent in how and when you express your anger, shoring up recommendations, and above all, having continued faith in your abilities, you can turn a tragedy into a professional and personal triumph.
Copyright © 2011 by Bruce Weinstein. All rights reserved.
Reprinted with permission from New World Library.
www.NewWorldLibrary.com.
This article was excerpted with permission from the book:
Ethical Intelligence
by Bruce Weinstein, PhD.
Being ethically intelligent doesn't just mean knowing what is right; it also means having the courage to do what is right. Ethical intelligence may be the most practical form of intelligence there is — and the most valuable. Through numerous real-life examples, Dr. Weinstein applies the principles of ethical intelligence to some of the toughest problems we face and shows how to increase your ethics IQ in every area of your life.
Click here for more info and/or to order this book on Amazon.
About the Author
Bruce Weinstein, PhD, is the host of “Ask the Ethics Guy!” on Bloomberg Businessweek Online’s management channel, where he also writes an ethics column. He regularly gives keynote addresses to businesses, schools, and nonprofit organizations across the country. Dr. Weinstein is the author or editor of five books on ethics. More information at www.TheEthicsGuy.com
