When transparency wasn't enough: lessons from communicating through liquidation

When her organisation entered compulsory liquidation, Tetiana Levchenko found there was little practical advice for in-house communicators facing the same situation. Reflecting on nearly a year navigating uncertainty, she shares the lessons she learned about trust, transparency and leading internal communications through crisis.

By Tetiana Levchenko

Almost a year ago, the company I work for was placed into compulsory liquidation.

In the weeks before it happened, I had set up a Google Alert for "liquidation” and “insolvency" — partly looking for guidance, partly hoping the news would never apply to us.

It did.

At least I didn't find out from the news. My manager called me a few minutes after the court announced its court. It was well past the end of the working day, but by 9.03pm on 21 August we had sent a message to every employee explaining what had happened, what it meant and what they could expect next. Most of my colleagues heard the news from us, not from a headline.

Nearly a year later, I still haven't switched that Google alert off. Every day, it brings news of another business entering liquidation. In 2025, there were 23,938 registered company insolvencies in England and Wales, including 3,730 compulsory liquidations — the highest annual number total since 2012.

Most involve smaller businesses closing voluntarily. A compulsory liquidation affecting thousands of employees is far rarer, and from a communications perspective far less documented. When I searched for guidance on leading communication through one, I found almost nothing written by in-house practitioners. There were plenty from consultants specialising in insolvency and mergers and acquisitions, but the practical detail stayed behind a fee.

So here is what I learned as a solo communicator, relying on experience, instinct and trial and error.

The transparency paradox

I used to believe that being honest and transparent were enough to sustain trust during a crisis.

They aren’t.

In periods of uncertainty, people are looking for more than information. They are seeking meaning. Facts answer the question, what is happening? They rarely answer the deeper questions: what does this mean for us, is there still a future here, and where do I fit within it?"

When messages feel formulaic or detached from what people are living through, more updates can increase scepticism rather than ease it. Local leaders who met trade unions and colleagues face to face, shared what they knew and were honest about what they didn’t. They didn’t try to eliminate uncertainty, they acknowledged it. Polished corporate messaging had the opposite effect. The more controlled it appeared, the more questions it seemed to create.

And when people cannot make sense of events, they create their own explanations. If leaders don’t provide a credible narrative, rumours quickly fill the gap.

People need a thread to follow

This is why narrative matters. Not corporate storytelling as a branding exercise, but a believable thread that helps people understand where the organisation has come from, what is happening now and what may still be possible.

For us, the turning point came when communication stopped being a series of isolated updates and instead drew on the organisation's history and identity. Long-serving colleagues reminded others how the business had overcome difficult periods before. Their voices often carried more weight than any leadership statement.

Our history stopped being heritage content and became a source of continuity when very little else felt certain.

People can cope with difficult realities more than leaders sometimes assume. What they struggle with is incoherence. Narrative did not promise everything would be fine. It simply gave people something credible to hold onto while the future remained uncertain.

Listening changes everything

Narrative alone was not enough. The bigger shift in trust came less from what leaders said, but from how well they listened.

I have seen the same pattern throughout my career, in very different organisations. In one instance, we invited colleagues to submit questions for senior leaders and received hundreds of responses. At first it looked like strong engagement. People felt recognised and were willing to share what they genuinely wanted to know. But when the replies addressed only a fraction of those concerns, trust declined instead of growing.

That experience taught me something my view has not shifted on since: listening is not about collecting feedback. It is about demonstrating that feedback influences decisions.

Over time, people could see that their feedback had been acknowledged and it began shaping decisions on training, communication recruitment and rehiring. Listening gave people evidence their experience still mattered.

The tension between legal caution and trust

When the company entered liquidation, I spoke to external advisers about how to handle communication. Understandably, they encouraged caution.

Their priority was to minimise legal risk: rely on legal advice, say as little as possible and avoid creating expectations that might not be met. I understand that approach.

But from inside, I could see another risk. Every unanswered question created more space for speculation. Every heavily managed statement widened the gap between official messaging and employees' lived reality.

Saying less may reduce legal exposure, but it does not necessarily protect trust. The answer is not careless openness. It is disciplined, honest communication that clearly distinguishes between what is known, what is not yet known, what is still being decided, and what people can expect next.

Lessons from a team of one

Leading communications through this experience taught me something else: there is no ready-made playbook. You make decisions in real time, often alone, while the situation continues to evolve. Judgement calls that once felt familiar — what to say, when to say it and how much context to provide — become harder when the ground keeps moving beneath you.

Here is what I would do again.

Accept that you are not in control. You cannot communicate uncertainty honestly while pretending to have all the answers. Once you acknowledge the limits of your control, you can focus on what communications can still provide: clarity, consistency and connection.
Verify everything. Circumstances can change daily, and one inaccurate message, however well intentioned, can create uncertainty that takes weeks to undo.
Work as one team. Build a united front with your closest allies — HR, legal, operations, marketing and senior leaders. Crises exposes organisational silos quickly. Put individual ownership aside and align around helping people navigate what comes next.
Finally, don't abandon the small things. Recognition, wellbeing initiatives and everyday routines may insignificant during a crisis, but they provide continuity and help people keep functioning while processing difficult news.

What I would take forward

Looking back, I don't think transparency failed us. It simply was not enough.

Information kept people informed. Narrative helped them make sense of events. Listening demonstrated that their experiences still mattered.

Together, those three elements sustained trust through the hardest period our organisation had ever faced.

Everything else, you learn in real time.

Tetiana Levchenko has over 15 years of experience leading corporate communications for major steel businesses in Ukraine and the UK. She specialises in internal communication, employee engagement and organisational change.