The problem with taking such a hardline position is that there is a significant switching cost borne by the employee when they leave, and so at the margin you'll have employees that don't buy in to the mission statement, don't like your new/restated position, but need the job/dislike job-hunting even more.
So now you've created/agitated a population of disgruntled employees; this will tend to cause problems. Paying a generous severance is enough to lift most of these employees over the "activation threshold" and is (in my opinion) the correct good-faith way of managing the situation; it's saying "no hard feelings if you don't agree with this direction, and we respect/value your contributions thus far."
Regardless of whether you agree with the object-level mission statement, I think that, having made the decision, this is a good example of strong leadership; it's important that everybody is bought in to the company mission, and you need to proactively filter out folks that aren't. But at the same time, you need to do so with respect; it's not necessarily a black mark for someone to no longer be a fit for the company or role, as both company and individual can change over time.
This is the same sort of idea as when you part ways with an exec after a strategy shift (e.g. pivot from B2C to B2B; replace your consumer-facing head of sales with a B2B veteran). It's not necessarily the case that they aren't doing a job, just that they aren't a fit for the role as it now stands.
There could already be a majority agitated, disgruntled employees--those agitated and disgruntled by the political discord at the company caused by the activism.
So now you've created/agitated a population of disgruntled employees; this will tend to cause problems. Paying a generous severance is enough to lift most of these employees over the "activation threshold" and is (in my opinion) the correct good-faith way of managing the situation; it's saying "no hard feelings if you don't agree with this direction, and we respect/value your contributions thus far."
Regardless of whether you agree with the object-level mission statement, I think that, having made the decision, this is a good example of strong leadership; it's important that everybody is bought in to the company mission, and you need to proactively filter out folks that aren't. But at the same time, you need to do so with respect; it's not necessarily a black mark for someone to no longer be a fit for the company or role, as both company and individual can change over time.
This is the same sort of idea as when you part ways with an exec after a strategy shift (e.g. pivot from B2C to B2B; replace your consumer-facing head of sales with a B2B veteran). It's not necessarily the case that they aren't doing a job, just that they aren't a fit for the role as it now stands.