[zo1]

It's the grey goo of manager-speak. It rides both sides, but never truly picks one.

The other two options: blame employees(someone not you), or take some form of punishment as an individual.

I too do it sometimes, and I feel bad each time. I at least tell people what it is and that it's just the reality of the situation. I'm not gonna commit career suicide and jeopardize my family's livelihood but I also won't blame them. So I follow the meaningless middle road where the status quo mostly stays and we all at least learn from it.

[fwip]

Ah, you're only going to endanger the livelihood of your employees' families, most of whom have substantially less wealth than you. I bet the rest of your employees don't really care that you "feel bad."

At least they learned not to trust you, though.

[zo1]

I'm not responding in the context of layoffs nor have I fired people because of my mistakes luckily. That's a different story, and I was trying to explain to OP my take on it.

[fwip]

I'm glad to hear that, I apologize for misunderstanding.