Welcome back to Top Perspectives.
Every week, three things happened in the world of work that matter at your level. Here is what they were, and here is the read the headlines will not give you.
THIS WEEK · 01
The 2026 cuts crossed 200,000, and AI is named out loud
More than 201,000 tech workers were cut this year, and for the first time companies are saying the quiet part in the press release: the roles went to AI, per TechCrunch and InformationWeek. Oracle alone is on track for tens of thousands.
| |
MADDY'S READ
Hard worker is no longer a safe position. The tasks that used to make you indispensable are the exact tasks being automated. Your protection is not output. It is visibility. The room keeps the leader it can see, not the one buried in the work.
|
THIS WEEK · 02
Gartner: one in five companies will flatten half their middle management this year
Gartner projects that one in five organizations will cut more than half of middle management, with spans of control stretching from seven reports to fifteen. A Forbes piece this month found 46 percent of managers are in denial about it.
| |
MADDY'S READ
The Director-to-VP layer is the layer under the knife. The calendar work, the reporting and coordinating and translating, is precisely what AI does best. The ones moving up are not managing more. They are being read as judgment and as people-developers, at a higher altitude than their title. You get recruited before you get rescued.
|
THIS WEEK · 03
The broken rung held: 87 women promoted for every 100 men
The latest data shows women still lose ground at the first manager step, and it compounds at every level above. Women hold 26 percent of VP seats, and 18 percent of technical VP roles.
| |
MADDY'S READ
In a flattening org, the broken rung gets sharper, not softer. When there are fewer seats, they go to the known quantity. The fix is not working harder against the gap. It is making sure the decision-makers already know your name before the seat opens. You do not need fixing. You need to be found.
|
|
TOOL OF THE WEEK · THE READINESS SCORE
Before the room decides, read what it already sees.
The Readiness Score is a free two-minute read of your public signal, the same signal a talent review sees before you ever speak. Paste your LinkedIn profile, get your score, and see exactly where the room's version of you and the real you diverge.
|
ONE SMALL NOTE
The Room Where You're Decided arrives on Amazon this Friday. The book behind everything you just read: twenty years of what I watched happen inside those rooms, the ones where your name comes up when you are not there. More when it is live.
See you next Monday.
Maddy
P.S. Forward this to one leader who is better than their signal. They will know why you sent it.
|
CRAFT YOUR