I once lead a team through a massive layoff during the pandemic, fought with leadership to save their jobs (and succeeded), and focused on making sure their wor

I once lead a team through a massive layoff during the pandemic, fought with leadership to save their jobs (and succeeded), and focused on making sure their work was balanced enough to keep them distracted from what was going on but not a source of stress. My top priority was to ensure that they did not suffer undue stress during the incredibly difficult period of early pandemic coupled with layoffs, focused on making their work as meaningful as possible for them. We still posted some record revenue months. I was fired for this, ultimately because I was not aggressive enough with the team. You get toxic managers like this in toxic companies because it is the only way to not only get promoted but to survive. I recognized early in the pandemic that I could either be the person I wanted to be, the leader I wanted to be, or have a job in 6 months. I chose the former, but don't blame people who are forced to choose the latter. edit: I should clarify that I do mean forced to choose the latter in that last sentence. There is a difference between a 30k/year worker being moved to a 45k/year manager role and needing to keep that job to survive and a 200k/year software engineer choosing to behave this way for a 250k/year job.