When to Fire Someone

Asking a team member to leave should be one of the most difficult decisions that a leader has to make.    Firing someone should bear more weight on the leader than the leader's own personal career;   when firing someone the leader is not only impacting another person's career and compensation, but is also making a decision that is reflective of the leader and the team.

It is something that should rarely be done.

For the sake of the entire team, the team member in question and the leader's own integrity - the leader must do serious soul searching before taking the action of eliminating someone.    Has the leader done everything possible to coach this team member?   Can the leader honestly  say that everything in their power has been done to support this specific individual?   If the answer is "yes" the leader's conscience should be clear.

When, then, should the leader make the decision to fire someone?

If the team member simply does not have the skill set.    It is a leader's responsibility to assure that all team members have the training and mentoring they need to be successful.   That being said, there are times when serious mis-matches occur.   Ideally, one can find a better match within the enterprise so that the team member can be successful.  If that cannot be done - the team member needs to be released.

If the team member does not align himself/herself with the goals of the team;  if the team member is insubordinate.   I'm a huge fan of diversity among teams;  at the end of the day, however, the team needs to pull together and head in a common direction.    If there is a team member who cannot do this - they need to go.

If the team member is dragging the rest of the team down.  It should be taken for granted that some team members will always be better than others.    There are however, team members who can drag the rest of the team down due to lack of skill, lack of alignment or complacency - for the sake of the remainder of the team, the issues presented by the deficient team member must be addressed.

If the team member is negatively impacting the reputation of the team.  I have witnessed the reputation of large teams be negatively impacted by one individual;   this is usually due to lack of cooperation, lack of work ethic or skill.   Leader's need to be aware of this and make judgments accordingly.

The team member is taking way more resources than they are are contributing.  Time and money are valuable resources;    we should be comfortable that for certain periods of time some team members take disproportionate time, money and energy to get them up to speed.  Over a prolonged period, however, if a team member is not returning the investment on the resources, they need to be released so that those resources can be spent on an individual who will reap a stronger return for the enterprise.

Attitude is everything.    This is trickier to deal with because it cannot be substantiated as easy as the above points.  I have found however that a poor attitude often has symbiotic symptoms that will  work as substantiation to remove the team member.

It is the leader's responsibility to do everything  to "save" a  team member that isn't making the grade.    If it can't be done, however, a difficult decision has to be made.  Fortunately, that difficult decision is offset by the knowledge that one has done the right thing for the remainder of the team.

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Brent Frerichs is the author of "Courageous Questions, Confident Leaders" available on Amazon Kindle for e-readers, tablets, PCs and Apple products.   If you are a member of Amazon prime, you can now borrow this book for free!