Firing the wrong people

Learning From Mistakes: A Leader's Reflection on Termination and the Importance of Leadership Fundamentals 

I have had to terminate several employees in my career – more than 50 overall. I am not proud of this, but I do think these terminations were necessary and justified in all cases except for one, which is the topic of this blog. 

I did turnaround work for many years. This unfortunately required a certain number of personnel changes to ensure that culture and organizational change took hold. It also required me to make some of these decisions under the fire of significant financial pressure.  

It is essential that as a leader you inspire people to change and perform. It is just as essential to understand when the accommodation of, or protection of, a consistent non-performer is unredeemable and destructive to the ability of the organization to move forward. 

In one instance of non-performance, I thought I had an obvious choice to make. There was an employee in the organization who simply did not seem supportive of the strategic direction we had set. He seemed uninterested and only willing to do the minimum amount necessary to earn his paycheck.  

I insisted on having him terminated, but within several months I realized I made the wrong call. The problem was really his boss, and I had not done enough homework to understand the ways in which this terminated employee had been expected to perform well in a poorly led environment.  

Leaders must understand the experience their employees have every day at work. Are they being treated with respect? Are they clear on their responsibilities? Do they receive adequate training and coaching? Is their voice heard?  

If these leadership fundamentals are not in place, then people will not perform. And you, by not understanding the big picture of the structure and culture that is in place around them, may terminate good people who never had a chance. Or you may lose talented people who never got the leadership they deserved.