What the Uber Layoffs Reveal About the Corporate Ladder

Every organizational chart contains an argument about value.

It shows who makes decisions, who organizes the work and who carries that work out. When a company redraws the chart, it is also reconsidering which kinds of work it values most.

That is what makes Uber’s decision to eliminate approximately 3,300 jobs—about 10% of its workforce—more than another layoff announcement.

Uber also plans to reduce its management ranks by approximately 20%, consolidate teams and eliminate layers that it believes have slowed decision-making and fragmented ownership.

For professionals who have spent years pursuing management positions, that raises an uncomfortable question:

What happens when the rung you worked so hard to reach becomes the rung companies begin to compress?

We are usually taught to think of the corporate ladder as a sequence of titles. I believe it is better understood as four different ways people create value:

Implementation. Organization. Communication. Imagination.

Implementation brings another person’s vision to life. Organization coordinates the people and resources doing that work. Communication moves ideas and meaning at scale. Imagination creates possibilities that do not yet exist.

But even those four rungs do not fully explain success.

A ladder cannot stand by itself. It must lean against something.

I call the complete framework The Ladder of True Success™. The ladder must be supported by a Wall of Faith: belief in the vision entrusted to you. And fear occupies the open space between each rung.

Fear of responsibility.
Fear of visibility.
Fear of judgment.
Fear of pursuing something that has no guarantee.

That may be the hidden career risk inside the Uber story. Some professionals remain on the Organization rung because it has rewarded them well. Their titles, salaries and identities have all been built there. Moving toward Communication or Imagination may require entering unfamiliar territory without the protection of institutional authority.

The danger is larger than having your position eliminated.

It is allowing fear to keep you on a rung after you know your climb must continue.

I explore the Uber restructuring, all four rungs, the Wall of Faith and the fears between them in my new LinkedIn article.

Read Uber Layoffs on LinkedIn →

Before you ask how high you can climb, ask what your ladder is leaning against.