As layoffs rise and AI reshapes workplaces, more employees are asking their leaders directly: Am I next?
Layoffs are dominating headlines, AI is reshaping job descriptions, and employees across industries are asking the same question: do I still have a place here? According to leadership expert and author David Grossman, how a leader responds to that question matters more than most organizations realize.
Grossman, founder and CEO of The Grossman Group and author of The Heart Work of Modern Leadership, has spent decades helping executives communicate during periods of uncertainty. After working with Fortune 500 executives through layoffs, restructurings, and organizational upheaval, he has seen the same mistake play out repeatedly.
"The damaging move that leaders often make is they manufacture some kind of reassurance. They'll say, 'don't worry, you're fine,' which lands as a lie the moment the next round of cuts starts to happen. And that trust is super hard to rebuild," he said.
What employees are really asking
When an employee asks about their future, whether they bring it to their manager or straight to HR, the question is rarely as simple as it sounds. Beneath the surface, Grossman says, there are actually four questions at play. Employees are really trying to understand whether they're seen as a whole person rather than a line item, whether it's safe to be honest about their concerns, why their career path looks the way it does, and whether there's a place for them in whatever the leader is building. He calls it the four-question conversation.
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"Most leaders only answer the surface question," he said. "Of course you have a future, we love your work. Which is not a great answer because it misses the deeper questions. The employee walks away from that conversation still not being sure that the leader sees them as a person, that they're heard, that they feel safe, that they understand how they fit in."
Great leaders don't walk into this conversation with a script. They walk in with the right mindset. Instead of rushing to reassure, great leaders slow down and open the conversation up. Grossman suggests starting with something along these lines: "I hear you asking about your future here. I take that question seriously. It's important to me. Talk to me about what's on your mind. What do you need from me to feel like the answer is yes?"
It's a response that doesn't promise what a leader can't deliver. Instead, it signals to the employee that they're being seen, that the question is taken seriously, and that there's room to have an honest conversation about what comes next.
When honesty has limits
A harder scenario is when a leader already knows an employee is at risk but has been instructed not to disclose it yet. But deflecting or lying, Grossman says, isn't the answer.
"Sometimes leaders tell what they think is a white lie. They'll say, you know, you're not on the list. Or they give false reassurance, or they deflect by saying it's above my pay grade. None of those are good moves," he said.
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The right approach, according to Grossman, is to be honest about the constraint without breaching it.
"You can tell someone, I have information I can't share with you right now, without sharing the information. That's honest, that's respectful. You're treating them as an adult who can handle being told that there's a constraint versus being told something untrue."
More broadly, his experience points to a consistent principle.
"It's most helpful to be as truthful as you can be with employees, even when the truth is hard, to communicate in ways that they can hear it and that are as respectful as they can be, and share what you know, when you know it," he said.
The 'I want song' every employee has
For Grossman, the deeper work of leadership lies in understanding what each employee is actually trying to build with their career, and then connecting that to where the organization is headed. He uses a musical analogy to make the point.
"In every great musical, early on, there's something called an 'I want song.' There's a moment where the hero steps forward and basically tells you everything you need to know about them. Their hopes, their dreams, their aspirations. Every employee has their own version of that. And there's something that everyone wants that's well beyond the paycheck," he said.
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Leaders who know each person's version of that song, he argues, are far better positioned to make the strategy conversation feel personal and meaningful. His research with The Harris Poll backs that up: exceptional leaders are 2.2 times more likely to connect strategy to employee growth than good leaders. The difference comes down to how they deliver the message. Good leaders broadcast strategy at a town hall or through a slide deck. Exceptional leaders have it one person at a time.
"They have one-on-one conversations with every employee focused on the future. Where do you want to grow? Let's talk about how what we're building together connects to that," he said.
What HR can do
The research also found that less than 20% of employees working for good leaders feel heard. Grossman is careful to reframe what that statistic means in practice.
"When leaders hear that stat, they think it's a listening problem, but it's not. It's a psychological safety problem," he said.
Creating an environment where employees feel safe enough to ask hard questions requires intentional effort. And yet, he says, it's a conversation most managers have never been trained to have.
If there is one thing HR should prioritize, he says, it is training managers to handle the four-question conversation.
"Most managers have never been trained on this kind of conversation. They've been trained on delivering bad news, on performance management, on feedback. But this four-question conversation, the one where an employee comes in and asks, do I have a future here, and the manager has to handle it without flinching, it's not really trained anywhere. That's a gap HR can close," he said.
The stakes, Grossman says, are higher than most organizations realize. In a labor market where employees can compare job opportunities in minutes and AI is reshaping entire roles overnight, the question "do I still have a place here?" is one leaders can expect to hear more, not less, as uncertainty continues to define the modern workplace. How they answer it, Grossman says, will determine whether their best people stay or start looking elsewhere.
