It’s a brutal reality that keeps rolling across America like an avalanche: many major retailers are in trouble. Estimates suggest around 15,000 stores will close in 2025.
Retail failures often result from a pattern of strategic mistakes. The most successful retailers today tend to have leaders who are visionary, customer-centric, financially savvy, and agile in responding to rapid change. Let’s take a look at why some leaders can’t right the ship, and what they can do to help save the company while some of the stores are sinking.
Leadership Missteps That Precede Retail Failure
Leadership mistakes are often the biggest reason for the decline and eventual failure of many retail businesses. These are some of the most common errors and oversights:
Failure to Adapt to Market Changes
Retail leaders who don’t see the warning signs or ignore them fail to rethink their strategy and pivot. Those who cling to outdated business models and don’t adapt to shifting consumer behaviors risk becoming irrelevant.
A lack of vision and innovation spells trouble. Retail thrives on relevance and customer experience. Leaders who rely too heavily on past success often fail to be innovative with product offerings or store formats, or they do not invest in digital transformation and risk falling behind more agile competitors. Also, ignoring generational shifts, such as failing to appeal to millennials and Gen Z consumers, can cause brand disconnect.
Another flaw that leaves companies behind is not using data to drive decisions. When “I think,” “I feel,” and “I believe” phrases are used to make decisions, it’s a bad sign. This is where you need to look at whether your organization is making decisions based on facts or on feelings and assumptions. Leaders must create a data-driven culture to justify decisions and track progress.
Avoiding Difficult People Decisions
Failing to take early action on toxic team members can sabotage companies. Keeping underperformers who resist change can demoralize the rest. Leaders must act decisively to remove blockers to progress.
When a toxic employee leaves, it lifts up the others who are eager to perform well and adapt to change but have been held back by a limiting culture. They will be grateful for your early action and consistency, and inspired to help accelerate the new direction. It opens the door to bringing in exceptional new talent and gives momentum to building a flywheel effect.
Trying to Change Without the Right Conditions
What drives the need for change in an organization? Usually, it’s because the company is not performing according to its vision or strategic goals. The business often faces competitive threats, industry disruptions, or other organizational challenges. When a company needs change or perhaps transformation, the organization’s leadership looks for people who can come in and alter the trajectory of the current state. But are they compatible with the work culture?
Transformation is easy to talk about, but it is difficult to do. Talk is cheap when you’re being asked to take big risks that others may not be willing to take themselves. To be successful, leaders must evaluate their current work environment. They also must evaluate their own and the management team’s willingness and capability to support change. A critical error is accepting a change or transformation mandate without ensuring that key conditions—like executive support, autonomy, or a compelling vision—are in place. Lacking those elements can set up your company to fail.
How Executives Should Lead During Mass Store Closures
Leading a business during mass store closures is one of the most sensitive and complex challenges retail executives can face. It requires a combination of strategic clarity, human-centered leadership, and consistent communication. Here’s a breakdown of how executives should approach this crisis.
Lead with Transparency and Empathy for Those Let Go
Executives must be visible, responsible, and value-led. They have to recognize that store closures affect not only the company’s bottom line but also the lives of employees, their families, and communities. Leaders should hold live, direct communications with store employees and not rely just on memos or announcements from HR. They should explain why the closures are necessary and who the reductions will affect. They should express genuine empathy and appreciation for the contributions of those affected. Avoid “surprise” closings or security-led removals unless absolutely necessary.
From a human impact standpoint, the closure checklist should include: offering support and dignity to affected employees; providing generous severance, job placement assistance, and retraining opportunities; establishing transition teams to help employees navigate next steps; and considering job relocation programs within the company when possible.
Rebuild Trust with Remaining Employees and Customers
Remember, the workers who aren’t being let go will watch to see how management treats those who were. And those who remain will want as clear a view of the future as possible and an idea about whether they’re valued. Leaders must keep them engaged, and to do so, they must focus on retaining or rebuilding trust from the workers who will continue with them. That requires human connection more than just metrics. It means conducting one-on-one as well as group conversations.
Questions executives must answer include: What does the future look like for the company? How will the closures support long-term viability? Additionally, department heads at all management levels need to acknowledge the emotional toll on remaining employees and reinforce their value and role in the company’s future.
The importance of leaders listening to employees during a closures crisis can’t be overstated. A listen-and-learn approach engenders trust, helping employees feel their management team really cares about them. Leaders should invite frontline employees to participate in shaping new strategies and recognize and reward their resilience and commitment. As decision makers begin interacting with their team, they will be creating an environment where people will come to know them as active listeners who want to learn from them in a genuine way. As leaders do this, they will begin to understand the organization and the team culture more deeply.
Rebuilding trust with customers also starts with communication—through social media, the company website, and advertising—to inform and reassure them of the company’s commitment to high quality and service. It requires listening to them to understand their needs and concerns better. It demands consistently delivering on promises. That means leaders doing what they say they will do, meeting or exceeding expectations, upgrading processes, including technology, and using data to demonstrate progress.
Start Nurturing Change by Getting to Know Your People
Change is hard in any context. Mass store closures can feel like an emotional earthquake to all involved. That’s hard enough. But moving forward while making the adjustments necessary for company survival can be nearly as difficult. It’s on leadership to nurture change in ways that address the company’s efficiency and the employees’ environment so that it’s conducive to high engagement and performance.
Leaders need to consistently find ways to invigorate their change efforts and inspire their teams to continue the journey. How do you create a culture where people want to come to work every day for the camaraderie and the teamwork? Start by treating employees as the people they are—from different cultures, backgrounds, religions, values, etc. No one wants to be treated like a number. They want to be treated as valued individuals. It’s only when leaders do this that all can move forward together as a team and accomplish great things together.
That’s why this part of leading major change is about getting to know people in a genuine, caring way. This can’t be contrived. You can’t be phony. Most leaders spend little time doing what it takes to develop and nurture people, but doing this creates a long lasting, healthy culture. Nurturing individuals and teams, as you do your family, is the most powerful thing you can do—and it costs you virtually nothing.
When management and the C-suite understand what motivates people to show up for work every day, they begin to figure out how to get the best version of them involved in what they are all building together. Leaders should want the best work environment for all, and they can often do that by supporting employees in small ways that mean so much. When people know they are valued and recognized for the work they do, it makes a big difference in how they approach their work. This is essentially the heart of what nurturing change is all about.
To navigate the challenges of mass store closures, leaders must combine transparent communication with strategic foresight—supporting affected employees, preserving customer trust, and realigning the company’s vision toward long-term resilience and innovation. By leading with clarity, empathy, and bold action, they can turn adversity into a springboard for reinvention and sustainable growth.
Mamie F. Jones
