So Your Boss Was Fired ... Now What?

March 18, 2010 — -- When Lisa's employer underwent a corporate buyout in 2008, the last thing she expected was to learn that her manager had vanished overnight.

"I sent her an e-mail and it bounced back," said Lisa, who's now a social media consultant in New York.

"One day I was asking her for advice, and the next day she was no longer with the company," she said. "I was stunned. No one was told this was going happen. We found out after the fact."

Besides being appalled by losing her boss of three years ("We had a very close relationship," Lisa said), she worried about her own job.

"My next thought was, 'Am I next?'" Lisa said.

In this era of corporate shakeups and work-related breakdowns, having a boss disappear in the night like some dissenter in George Orwell's "1984" has become increasingly common. But that doesn't make it any less upsetting or baffling. Nor does it make navigating the resulting political minefield any less tricky.

Wondering what to do if your boss becomes one of the disappeared? Here's some advice from workplace experts and employees who've been in the trenches.

You will undoubtedly be curious about what happened. You also may be worried about your own livelihood. And if you liked your boss and think the company handled her departure badly, you'll probably be pretty ticked off to boot.

But the last thing you want to do is reveal any of this to the powers that be, said workplace consultant Cynthia Shapiro, author of "Corporate Confidential: 50 Secrets Your Company Doesn't Want You to Know -- And What to Do About Them."

"You can be concerned, but you don't want to show it," Shapiro said. "What you want to show is positivity and open support for the company, even if it's fake. This is job security. Even if the company knows that you're playing the game, they will still appreciate it."

In other words, demanding answers from HR is not the way to go. Nor is glaring at the higher-ups in the lunchroom or stirring the gossip pot within earshot of your boss's boss. If you need to vent, do it outside the office with friends and colleagues you trust.

Whether your boss left of his own accord or was summarily dismissed, "it's a crisis for the company," Shapiro said. "This is when they need a cheerleader, not a pessimist. People have no idea how powerful being positive is in a company."