The director of a company posted a selfie on LinkedIn in which she was crying afterwards After firing many of the firm’s workers, the photo went viral and received a lot of criticism. Braden Wallake, CEO of HyperSocial, a marketing startup, says he wanted to be honest about how difficult being a CEO can be in certain circumstances.
Wallake had just laid off employees for the first time, as he said in an interview with The Washington Post and he also cut his salary and made other adjustments commercial.
After firing a couple of people, “this will be the most vulnerable thing I’ll ever share,” he began in a lengthy post along with a photo of himself in tears. Wallake wanted to own up to his mistakes, he said, and reach out to other business owners who might be “feeling the pain” behind his tough decisions.
Not all CEOs are callous, says Wallake
The man says that his goal was to show other CEOs this suffering that comes with having to throw people out on the street because “I wanted them to feel less alone.”
“I just want people to see,” he wrote, “that not all CEOs are callous and don’t care when they have to fire people.” But it had the opposite effect on many people as the post quickly went viral on LinkedIn with many accusing Wallake of being insensitive and “embarrassing.”
With more than 68,000 tech workers laid off so far in 2022, many interpreted Wallake’s post as privileged the pain of the CEO over that of the employees fired. You can read things like:
Maybe you could have made the post about the people your decisions have impacted, instead of about yourself.
Another person tells him that they feel like he’s insulting all the CEOs on LinkedIn: “We’re all human and that means we can all fail. But you’re not better than all the other CEOs just because you showed us you can cry. Instead, If this is just a marketing trip, I’m sorry, but you will be remembered as “the cryCEO” and not “the goodCEO” because this post is only for you and not your mistakes or your ex-employees.”
Just yesterday, the renowned CEO of Better.com (famous for firing 900 people in a Zoom call in seconds and then anonymously criticizing the fired employees on forums as being lazy) said he had taken leadership classes and thank you From this he learned that it is necessary to be kind to his workers.
Image | Photo by Tom Pumford on Unsplash
In Genbeta | This CEO of a large company does not believe that the balance between personal and work life is a priority. Presumes to be always online