This should be one of the ten work commandments.
There is nothing to be gained by communicating bad news by email. Emails have a tendency to be misunderstood and bad news probably will be. It doesn’t matter what the piece of bad news is – a project may have gone completely off track, a crisis management effort may have failed or you may have decided to quit.
Have the conversation face to face. If that isn’t possible, video conference and phone are the next best alternatives. Communicating bad news via email is like breaking up via text – once you are out of your teens, you realize that’s just not done.
The conversation may not be pleasant but it will be much better than the alternative…
A Learning a Day 