It is not your job to be responsible for other peoples personal lives, you are not the messiah. All you can do is fight to get them the pay they deserve. What they do with the money you have no control over anyway.
Layoffs at non Fortune 500 companies generally have less warning than anything can be done about anyway. Sure if its budgeted at Pfizer 6mo in advance your an ahole for not telling people. However its usually more like 2-4 weeks that the people in charge even know beforehand. ALso remenber we are talking about CTO. Its the CFO that knows the truth about the finances and may be hiding it from you as the CTO.
* Allowing rumor/politics to become malignant through deceit rather than healing through truth
* Dismissing responsibility for other people's livelihood because "hey its not my fault they didn't save money in case I throw them in the guillotine"
* Using lack of information as a reason to lie, rather than just telling your workers that you don't know the answers.
Sorry but the reality of human nature is tough.
I know workplaces aren't democracies, but there's no question that I'd vote for the straight shooter (even if their own position in the company is weakened by that trait) over someone who plays the political game well but lies to their reports.
Hell, I would vote, with my feet, if I had to.
If someone is actually better suited for a role than I am, then let them have it. I'll find another role and keep growing. Where is the problem?
If some team makes the mistake of confusing trust and openness with weakness, then good riddance, I'm better off with a different team.
You can also be honest with them so that they can make informed decisions for themselves. The best CTOs I've worked for have been honest people who give you the bad and the good news together.
> However its usually more like 2-4 weeks that the people in charge even know beforehand
I'm guessing you're not referring to public companies with significant revenue. There's almost always warnings well before the 2 week mark.
>Layoffs at non Fortune 500
Yeah Literally what I said in my comment.
There are many public companies not in the F500, and I agree with the grandparent that every executive will either know, or have a really good idea that a layoff is coming, well before 2-4 weeks prior, even if the internal finance/HR process hasn't quietly, officially started yet.
Sometimes your employees can tell things aren't going well, and you bald face lying to them like this will make them leave even faster.
This is also a great strategy to fuck people over, where if they believe in the stability of the company right until the day layoffs are announced they might have just bought a house or something else that will make the next few months for them excruciating, if not disastrous.
So please don't take this advice to the extreme imo. I'm not saying you shouldn't be positive, or give every detail. But you should be realistic. Save the rose tint for the investors and just make sure people have what they need to do their best work, within your power.