Can it actually be considered a betrayal if it means you get to keep your job?
The whole betrayal angle reeks of 'woe is me woe is me'. You don't want your hirees losing confidence in you? Don't be a **** up.
If it's a betrayal, or a weaseling, or fair game and smart is probably relative depending on if you're talking to Linden or Weisbrod / Benning. If Aquilini is on their side, I'd think he'd argue "fair game", himself... but I'm not convinced that Benning / Weisbrod aren't on the chopping block, themselves... with Aquilini putting things in motion quietly beneath the surface, to put a new regime on the Throne. The important thing, IMO, is the alleged disconnect between Linden and Benning / Weisbrod. Doesn't sound like a healthy work environment or a winning culture that yields success, to me. It sounds like a mess... not to be used as a model for productive collaboration.
I don't have a problem with the Linden firing. Linden
deserved to be fired, IMO. Benning and Weisbrod deserve to be fired, too. They're all butchers. Maybe Linden had an epiphany (sledgehammer in hand, staring at the poor, disfigured little pig with wings that can't fly), but too late. He's been swinging the sledgehammer on the heads of poor little pigs with wings, as a religious sacrifice, for years. Aquilini hired butchers to do the work of surgeons. Aquilini should also fire himself for this. Given he won't, he should admit his error through the
action of cleaning house, and starting again. Aquilini is clearly the Man Behind the Curtain... He has the power to pick up and place the team on the right path.
But if Aquilini doesn't replace the Wizard of Oz, that's okay, too. The universe will betray (or fairly judge, depending on perspective) Aquilini by delivering shitty results and dwindling revenue. Eventually, Aquilini either adapts... or sells. It can't stay as it's been, indefinitely. Eventually, the curtain becomes thread.
It'll all work out in the end. The goal is
progress. When the results aren't there, the Canucks will eventually fold, relocate... or adapt, until progress is made and success is reached. In this regard, Linden was right... patience is needed. Time is needed for those devilish progress bandits to be systematically crushed... some diplomatically, and some with sledgehammers.