Redundancy in Pharma: Why the Next Role Is Where Senior Leaders Trip Up

I got the unexpected meeting request on the first Monday morning after the Christmas break. I thought it was a skip-level check in to plan the year. After the pleasantries, my GM said, “it sucks to have to do this, but I have an HR colleague on the call with me”. Twenty years in pharma, and it took eleven minutes to deliver the news.

If you work in pharma or life sciences at VP level or above, you probably know someone this has happened to. Maybe it has happened to you. Mergers, pipeline reprioritisation, a commercial model redesigned by some consultants that you never got to meet. The org chart is never quite final, and sooner or later it catches up with capable people.

The first 30 days after redundancy

Most advice about redundancy covers the practical side, and it's worth doing: read the paperwork carefully, take proper legal advice on the package, tell your family before you tell LinkedIn, and give yourself a few weeks before you make any big decisions.

But there's a another risk that gets almost no attention. It shows up in the next role.

Senior leaders who have been made redundant often land really well. They're experienced, networked and respected. And then, within a year, a surprising number of them stumble. Not because they lack innate ability, but because of what redundancy does to the way show up.

You walk in with something to prove

Redundancy bruises everyone who has navigated it, even when it had nothing to do with your performance. Underneath the composure, a lot of leaders carry the same baggage: I need to show them they were right to hire me.

That thought drives three habits I see again and again.

1. Telling instead of listening

When you're keen to demonstrate value, you naturally want to arrive with answers. You've seen this before, you know what works, and you say so in week one. Low-hanging fruit. Justify why you were hired.

The trouble is that most leaders listen to reply, not to understand. They hear enough of a problem to recognise it, then stop listening and start solving. The team notices immediately and begins to disengage.

Listening to understand means asking one more question than feels necessary. It means finding out what the team is attached to, what they've already tried, and what the last leader did that they still miss. Often, that team may still be in some kind of mourning for the old boss who might have been made redundant just like you.

2. Recruiting in your own image

Once you have headcount, the pull is powerful. Now you hire people who think like you, talk like you and have walked the same path. It feels like chemistry, but it’s actually comfort.

After a redundancy, that instinct gets stronger, because you want people around you who'll make you feel secure. The result is a team with the same blind spots as its leader, and a leader who cannot see the gap because nobody has the different perspectives to point it out.

The better question isn't "who would I enjoy working with?" It's “who will be able to challenge my thinking?”

3. Building gravitas until it derails you

Senior roles come with an unspoken expectation to sound senior. So leaders cultivate an authoritative style: measured, certain, a little professional distance. Gravitas, in other words.

The intent is good. The effect is often the opposite. Authority that is performed rather than earned makes people more guarded, not more confident. Questions stop coming. Bad news travels slower and then it stops finding you at all. By the time you find out what's really going on, it's a problem rather than a conversation.

The leaders with real gravitas don’t work work at it. They're steady, they're curious, and they're comfortable saying "I don't know yet."

What helps in the first 30 days of the new role

None of this is new. A few simple disciplines go a long way:

• Listen for a month before you reshape anything. Make it explicit to the team that this is what you're doing.
• Take time to make personal contracts with every key individual. These have more weight than the formal one on the HR system and build trust because they’re two-way.
• Ask what they'd protect and what they'd change. Their answers tell you more than any handover pack.
• Hold your first hires to a different test. Write down what you'd normally look for, then deliberately seek someone who differs.
• Notice when you're performing. If you're choosing words to sound senior rather than to be understood, pause.
• Find one person who'll tell you the truth. Someone outside your reporting line.

Why a coach who knows pharma helps

At VP level in pharma, your team needs your steadiness, your boss needs your pipeline, and your peers may be, in ways the org chart doesn't mention, your competition.

I spent 25 years in and around the industry before I became an executive coach, and I've worked with more than 200 senior leaders through transitions, restructures and new roles. When you've been through redundancy, a good thinking partner can help you separate what happened to you from what you're about to bring into the next role. 

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💬 If you've been made redundant, or you're about to start a new senior role in pharma or life sciences, I'm happy to have a conversation. My details are on this site.