Among the principles that Bob Chapman includes in a management philosophy he calls Truly Human Leadership is the idea that when times are tough, CEOs figure out how to share sacrifices across the company. That’s what employees of the St. Louis-based diversified company he leads, Barry-Wehmiller, did during the Great Recession.
“One of the things that people don’t ever know how to calculate is when you decide you’re going to let 100 people go, you know exactly what you’re going to save in compensation and benefits – but you can’t calculate the impact on 100 people who stay,” Chapman, who codified his leadership approach in the book Everybody Matters: The Extraordinary Power of Caring for Your People Like Family, told Chief Executive. “They feel the same thing could happen to them. The feeling of safety at a company is incalculable.
“And when we made our decision not to let people go, it was an unbelievable statement of our culture.”
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