Discovering What Matters After Job Loss: A Leadership Perspective

No one prepares you for the feelings that comes after losing your job. There’s no amount of mermaid magic, managerial promotion, or some other third thing that helps deal with the roller coaster of emotions that come following that type of news. When it happened to me in 2024, I was taken aback. If you’re new here, I wrote about it in a previous blog post. I followed that post up with another entry that focused on taking the first steps into a new, scary journey.

But here’s the truth; none of those entries truly expressed how I was feeling. It was the “right thing” to say, but it did little to scratch the surface of how it actually affected me. When I decided that I wanted to pull back the veil and share what I’ve experienced over this past school year, I was admittedly nervous about how my words would be received. However, being vulnerable and transparent are sometimes the hallmark of good leadership, so I’m choosing to push forward anyway. This is my story…dun, dun.

The Reckoning

“Your position is being eliminated due to programmatic changes.”

It wasn’t until I heard those words that I realized how much I had tied my professional identity to my day job. I went through a long season of questioning, if I am not the EdTech Queen, who am I? There were many dark days where I honestly felt that I could not answer that question, and I think that is what bothered me the most. Sure, I technically still have educational technology under my list of responsibilities in my current role. However, the truth is that the library responsibilities take up the vast majority of my time.

Imagine spending more than 75% of your time learning, putting out fires, and making decisions about something that was never really high on your radar or high on your list of “things I’d like to do someday.” Sure, I have supported libraries and librarians for the past decade. But supporting a group of professionals, and being tasked with leading a program that is absent of the same group of professionals is very different. I felt like the rug had been pulled out from beneath me, and I was left trying to lay new carpet in a fully furnished room. I mean, can you imagine redoing the floors in your home without lifting the couches, tables or chairs? How do you accomplish this task without feeling like you’re destined to fail? Now take that feeling, bottle it up, and take a sip of it every single morning, Monday through Friday. That has been my reality for the last eleven months.

The Truth Behind the Platitudes

Saying everyone is replaceable at work and living it are too very different things. The statement sounds nice and is a reminder that you can find in memes floating on social media everyday. However, living through the aftermath of finding out you’re replaceable has the potential to be a life altering event, and in many cases it is. For me, it was definitely life-altering in ways that I never imagined possible.

We all know that business is business (one of my least favorite platitudes), and that you shouldn’t take it personal (another one that’s high on my list of things that should never be said aloud). However, losing your job is deeply personal. None of the work that I had put in day after day over the course of the previous three years was enough to make a difference in the decisions that had been made. Coming into a program, turning it around, rolling out a new LMS, increasing support, managing a facility, and the list goes on…none of that mattered in February 2024. None of the days that I worked late, came in early, or sacrificed my personal time mattered, and that was a very hard pill to swallow.

I went through a very intense grieving process, and the remnants and scars from this season of my life are still very present.

Leading a my team through this while also experiencing it changed and challenged me in many ways. We don’t talk enough about how to properly process through the emotions that inevitably arise in situations like these. Don’t worry; I’ll share more about that in an upcoming post.

What Matters Most in this Season?

My experiences during the spring of 2024 changed how I show up in the world professionally and personally. While I have always tried to model and promote healthy boundaries at work, I was suddenly thrust into the realization that what I was doing wasn’t enough. Protecting my time was not the end-all-be-all. As it turns out, protecting my sanity, my peace, and my mental health was actually far more important.

This past school year, I have been guided by a simple question: What matters most in this season? It’s written on my desk, posted on my wall, and often comes up in conversations with my team. In order to properly prioritize, I have to be able to focus on what matters most. In Jill Siler‘s book, Thrive Through the Five, she talks about the concept of work/life balance for educational leaders through the lens of seasons. That concept has been the bedrock of the past four (4) years of my career. Combining these two concepts has allowed me to make decisions, choose battles, and complete my work in a way that preserves my sanity and my humanity. Rather than to focus on strict time schedules, I’m instead focused on the bigger picture.

For example, my oldest child just graduated from high school. That is what has mattered most to me in the most recent season. So that means that some days I work late to get things done so that I can free up time to be able to take a half-day to take care of senior season activities. What has mattered most to me is ensuring that my team has the skills and experience they will need in the future, in case we have to walk through another round of layoffs. So that means that there are some projects and decisions that I delegate to my leadership team to help them grow their skills and prepare them for whatever may come next. What has mattered most to me is protecting my team from burnout due to our increased workload and decreased staff. So that means that sometimes, there are things that we have to say no to, simply because we don’t have the bandwidth to take on anything else.

There are times when I ask my team what matters most right now. And there are times when I’m stressing about something, and they repeat that very question back to me. Because together, we can get through anything as long as we remain focused on what matters most.