There’s something called the reorg ocean, and you may be in the middle of it right now. Where it just feels like wave after wave of change. It reminds me of when I was a kid and we would go down the shore. I’m from New Jersey, so that is what we call going to the beach. And you would stand right where the waves crest and, boom, one would come along and would completely knock your feet out from under you.

And in the last two years, 18 months, that’s a little like what it is, being a mid or senior level person in an organization. You finally get your footing in a role or you’re getting into a groove with your team. And then boom, another wave comes crashing to shore. New leadership, new structure, new priorities, new uncertainty about where you fit and what your future looks like.

We have had clients who have gone through nearly half a dozen bosses because the org chart keeps shifting. We have had others who have tripled, five X their team overnight, others who have started a role, and then within three months or less, the C-suite had entirely turned over. This is only happening more and more, and I pulled some stats to ground that. Layoff data shows that restructuring was the number one cited reason for job cuts in late 2025.

Gallup has found that the average number of direct reports per manager has gone from about 11 in 2024 to over 12 in 2025. That may not sound like a huge difference, but to put it in perspective, those numbers are a nearly 50% increase from when Gallup first started measuring in 2013. C-level to manager ratio has nearly doubled since 2019.

Gartner has also predicted through 2026, 20% of organizations will be using AI to flatten their org structure, eliminating more than half of current middle management roles. And SHRM, the major HR organization here in the us, they summarized Gallup findings that found that 84% of US employees are matrixed to some extent.

And I mean, it is just dizzying reading that the fatigue of all of this upheaval can really start to weigh on you is exhausting. It is disorienting, and you may just feel like you’re jerked around. You’re just being thrown in those waves, waiting for the other shoe to drop. Like no matter what you do, there are forces outside of your control that are going to keep reshuffling the deck before you’re prepared.

And I get it. I really do. And so today I want to offer you a different perspective. A point of view to give you more agency in your next reorg, because there will be one sooner rather than later, or whether you are in the middle of one right now. And here is what I want you to take on board. The restructure is the opportunity.

And I know that may sound counterintuitive or maybe even a bit Pollyanna when you were just trying to survive day to day, but please just, just hear me out. This is, this is for your own sake. Because when things are stable, when the org chart is set, when the leadership team has been in place for a while, everything is more locked in. The rules are more rigid. The assumptions about who does what, that the, they have already calcified. And that makes it really hard to break through or to advocate for any sort of change.

But during a reorg, all of that gets disrupted, right? The waves throw everything into the air. And when everything is in flux, when the pieces are being rearranged, this is often when the biggest opportunities are up for grabs.

Because the old org chart, it’s getting erased and it is being completely redrawn. Roles are being redefined. Scope is being redistributed. New leaders are coming in who don’t have old assumptions about who you are and what you are capable of. The people who were blocking your path, they may be gone. The roles that didn’t exist before are now suddenly being created, and so there is fluidity that simply doesn’t exist during more stable times.

And here’s what else happens during a reorg, decision makers are actively looking around. They are scanning, and they are asking themselves, who is it that I can count on? Who should I bet on? Who is stepping up right now? So they are reevaluating, they’re open to new information more so than they may be at other times. They are forming new impressions.

So my question to you is, what are you going to do while that window of opportunity is open? There’s a graduate of my advisory program, Lead from Within. I’m gonna call her Brittany, and she is a perfect example of what’s possible when you rethink reorgs. Now for context, she works at one of the world’s largest software companies and they went through a restructure. It was their second of that year. And this one stripped her of her direct reports, and put her under a manager she couldn’t stand to put it lightly, and someone she just really did not respect. It was not a good situation. She was not happy. And of course, on paper it looked like a step back. It looked like a loss for her.

But Brittany was not content. She didn’t just wanna sit back and wait for things to settle. She knew that while things were still in flux, it meant there was room to move. There was room to specifically build a relationship with her skip level VP, who was previously someone that to her was out of reach.

So she did that with our support inside of Lead from Within. And fast forward a few months that VP grew to trust Brittany so much that she named her the co-head of a brand new center of excellence in the organization, and Brittany got the budget to hire her own team and escape that awful boss.

So I want you to ask yourself when the next reshuffle is inevitably announced, what if instead of fear, your first reaction was possibility?

That this could be your chance to reshape your role in the way you’ve been wanting to. In order to do that, though, there are a few big mistakes you need to avoid. So I wanna talk about what tends to get overlooked or honestly fumbled when we have these periods, if upheaval happen, so you can come out of the next wave in a stronger position.

Alright. Mistake number one is retreating. Yeah, maybe you pull back, you stop raising your hand. You tell yourself, I’m just gonna ride it out. I’ll keep my head down, stay out of the fray. I just wanna wait for the dust to settle.

And it makes sense. Everything feels uncertain. You don’t want to say the wrong thing to the wrong person. You don’t want to seem like you’re angling for something when people are losing their jobs. So you retreat into the safety of your work.

But when you go quiet, you seed control of the narrative. You assume that your track record will speak for itself, that the right people already know your value, that staying out of the way is the respectful or the smart thing to do.

But during a reorg, the manager who championed you, the team structure where you did have opportunities to showcase your work, the priorities that aligned with your strengths, all of that might be gone. Or at the very least, it is evolving.

And the people who are now making decisions may not have the full picture. They are working with incomplete information. They are forming judgements quickly, and they are relying on whoever is in front of them or being recommended to them. So if that is not you, you are not going to be part of their calculus.

Visibility during a reorg is about making it easy for decision makers to see where you can fit into this new structure.

And giving them relevant information about your capabilities, your interests, your track record so they can make better decisions. You are not lobbying for yourself. You are helping them solve a puzzle that they are actively trying to figure out and they need to do quickly. So the goal is to plug yourself in as a solution to their problems or the gaps that have emerged.

And that leads me to mistake number two, waiting to be told what your role is. You hang back, you wait for clarity to come down about your new scope, who you report to, who reports to you, what the expectations are. And I get that instinct because you may think I just need to be patient. I also can’t make a move because I don’t have all the answers. So I’m just in this holding pattern. And once the new structure is figured out, then I’ll know who my manager is. I’ll know what the priorities are, I’ll know how to act. During a reorg, there’s a period. Sometimes it is weak, sometimes it is months where things are very malleable and moldable. Roles are being discussed.

The scope is being debated. Reporting lines are being decided. And so this is one major place where mid to senior level professionals really underestimate their own agency. You assume that the reorg is happening to you, that you are just a passive recipient of whatever gets passed down and decided. But in many cases, decision makers are actively trying to figure out how to deploy talent and divvy out responsibilities.

They are asking themselves, where should this person sit? What should their scope be? Who can handle more?

So if you are not having conversations to inform those questions, to guide someone’s thinking, their assumptions will fill that gap, and they may be outdated, incomplete, or simply wrong. So the people who come out of reorgs in stronger positions are the ones who are engaging early.

They are a thought partner in the process saying, Hey, this is what I can offer. They are sharing their perspective on where they or their team can add value. They have a point of view.

Mistake number three, making your boss your single point of failure. This third mistake, it is a subtle one, and it’s easy to fall into because it feels like you’re doing the right thing. Which is continuing to invest in the relationship that has always mattered, which is the one with your direct manager.

But I wanna caution you to not put all of your eggs in one basket. Your manager might be as uncertain as you are. They are probably fighting for their own role. They might be really distracted during this time period, and the truth is they may not even be your manager six weeks from now. During a reorg, new leadership is coming in often. Existing stakeholders who used to have a lot of influence, they may be losing it. People who were on the sidelines who were peripheral to your work, suddenly they are now central to it. So if you are still operating with the same mental model of who matters, the one that you were operating with six months ago, you are really putting yourself at risk of being blindsided.

Or worse. You’re just going to feel like you’re floating. You don’t know where you stand. You don’t know who is making decisions. You’re just reacting to changes instead of anticipating them. So you have to make sure you are actively reassessing your landscape, not just once, but continuously throughout the reorg.

Mistake number four, getting hijacked by your emotions. Listen, I’m not going to lie. Reorgs are very grueling. There’s tons of anxiety. There’s grief when colleagues you’ve worked with for years are let go. There’s anger when you look around and you feel like the wrong people are being rewarded or protected.

Fear about what this means for your future, and all of that is very valid. It’s very human. But you have to be careful not to let your emotions consume you and force you into behaviors that end up sabotaging you. Like when you vent to a colleague and you think it’s safe, but that gets back to someone it shouldn’t.

Or you let your frustration slip in a meeting with your tone, with your language, and now that’s going to affect how you’re perceived. You send an email when you’re really amped up about something that you shouldn’t have sent, if you just waited a day. And all of this, you can become known as someone who is quote unquote, struggling with the changes or who is not handling it well, and you don’t want that. Because once that perception takes hold, it is really hard to shake.

Especially with new leadership who doesn’t have positive history with you from before, to counterbalance a few unideal moments where you weren’t at your best. And trust me, I understand if you are listening to this, you are someone who cares a lot about your team, the work, the organization. The emotion comes from a sense of investment, but the people making decisions can’t see your intentions.

They can only see your behavior. So you have to create separation between what you feel and what you show. That’s the essence of emotion regulation. The people who come out ahead in restructures, they have learned to regulate, to be diplomatic, measured, and show up as someone who can handle the pressure without unraveling.

Let me bring this all together today by saying that the waves, they are going to keep coming. The new structures, different personalities, new priorities, yet you have a choice in how you respond. You can treat each of those waves as something that is happening to you, as something to survive to white knuckle your way through until things settle down, only to have the next wave hit before you have even caught your breath.

Or you can start treating these moments as the windows of opportunities to reshape your role that they can be. And this is exactly the type of challenge that Lead from Within was designed for. This is my six month advisory program for mid to senior level professionals who are navigating exactly these kinds of really difficult inflection points.

We have helped senior managers, directors, VPs, and above come out of these periods of upheaval with expanded scope, better titles, better comp, and the influence to actually succeed in those new roles, even when there is downsizing, hiring freezes, people are resistant, or the C-suite is really skeptical if they can step up to the challenge.

Applications for Lead from Within are open right now only through March 20th. And because of the high touch nature of my personal involvement in this program, spots are extremely limited and I may not be opening the doors again publicly until 2027. So now is your chance. The application only takes about five minutes.

You can head to melodywilding.com/lfw. There is no cost. No obligation to apply. If it looks like a fit, we’ll have a chance to get on a call together to talk through your situation before you make any decisions. So that link again is melodywilding.com/lfw. It is also in the show notes. I can’t wait to hear from you, and I will catch you in the next episode.