[jpmattia]

That would be about the worst form of leadership possible.

By relying on attrition, you can pretty much guarantee that the people with the best offers waiting on the outside are going to leave, and that's pretty highly correlated with the people that you actually want to keep.

If layoffs are required, there is no other way than to take the bull by the horns and make hard decisions about who has to go and who has to stay. Sometimes that involves making decisions about what programs are going to go/stay, which consequently leads to letting good people go when you shut down some of those programs.

I'd also guess that shareholders have learned the lesson many years ago, which is why active layoffs often increase share price. Layoffs tend to increase near-term profitiability; whether long-term profitability is increased depends on whether you get the layoffs & refocusing done right.

[gaius]

That would be about the worst form of leadership possible.

Not quite. The worst would be to do that, then have a office suite converted into a nursery for just your own kids.