“You’re Fired” is a phrase nobody ever wants to hear when it comes to their own employment. However, it has become increasingly common to view it as a sign of a decisive leader when they summarily dismiss a subordinate with these strong words. It is as though we think leaders willing to fire people are somehow great managers, or maybe we respect it as a macho power thing that demonstrates who is in charge. Our current president made it a signature line of his television career, and every day he continues to wield the power to fire like a sword.
On the contrary, in my career, I considered the need to fire someone as a personal failure of my management, and nothing to be proud of. It was bad enough if it was a person I inherited from some other hiring manager, but it was awful if I was firing someone I had hired. I saw it as proof that I did something wrong in the vetting and hiring process. It made me retrace my steps and search for where I went wrong, or what I missed and how I could have seen it in advance.
Of course there were situations where an individual did something egregious that just could not be tolerated, but even then, I wanted to reflect on how I missed the signs that might have led me to anticipate the aberrant behavior. Even when the reason for termination was a result of incompetence or lack of performance, I still viewed it as a reflection of my bad judgement in putting the individual in a position to have failed.
Hiring is a skill and an art form. Great managers take their time to get it right, and getting it right goes beyond selecting the best candidate. It also includes creating a business environment where the candidate can succeed over the long term. As a CEO and corporate leader, the worst offense was when I found the company in a situation where we had to terminate employees in a layoff that was a result of over hiring and missed corporate performance. Employees caught up in a reduction in force (RIF) often let management off the hook too easily. Ever-optimistic CEOs and boards can drive companies to adopt unattainable goals, and then spend capital to attempt to achieve the targets. Too many businesses go through recurring cycles of hiring and firing as a result of building up expenses to achieve unrealistic goals, and then cutting back when the business fails to meet expectations. One of my favorite quotes is “too much money makes you stupid.” The availability of capital makes it too easy to staff up, even when the business is not really ready. Everything seems rosy until the investment capital dries up and the reality of dwindling funds forces the company to retrench.
As a leader, when you face the reality that the company is over-staffed for its level of business achievement, and you have reached the point where a RIF is necessary, it is vital not to compound the problem by failing to truly face reality. Too often, leaders hang on to their unbridled optimism and only make superficial cuts, expecting a miraculous turnaround. The trap of not cutting deep enough, is that the burn continues and inevitably leads to a second or third demoralizing RIF down the road. A RIF should be a ‘rip the bandaid off’ moment. Cut as deep as possible, and then go a little further, and do it all at once. As a leader, you owe it to the business, the investors, and the remaining employees to act decisively and give the business its best chance to succeed. It is bad enough that you have to say “you’re fired” once. It is truly a failure if you have to say it multiple times with successive RIFs because you were unwilling to accept reality the first time.
The bottom line for all of the ways in which a leader has to deliver the words “you’re fired,” is to realize that it is not a badge of strength or evidence of a good manager or leader. Quite the opposite, it is a reflection of a failure of management and leadership. Nonetheless, when it becomes the right thing to do, strong leaders do it decisively. They take their time to hire, but when they recognize a failure, they fire quickly.
Forgive me for a moment of related political commentary that actually spurred me to write this post. In our current political environment, there have been targeted firings of retribution, mass firings for ‘efficiency’, and firings for expressing independent thought. In no way should this be viewed in a positive light or confused with strong leadership. Hiring an individual with high praise and fanfare, and firing them months later, attacking them as stupid or incompetent, says more about the leader’s bad judgement than it does about the individual. Mass firing departments and teams as a show of strength, and then discovering that they actually made a vital contribution so they have to be re-hired, is a sign of incompetent leadership. Firing qualified individuals for expressing an opinion or voicing a disagreement with a leader is a sign of insecurity, not strength. “You’re Fired” may play well on TV, but it is no way to lead.