Firing A Few Can Be The Best Thing For Everybody

This blog is not about politics. This is about leadership. What I am about to say applies to anyone in a position of leadership even a mayor. I have some leadership responsibilities at my job now. I have supervised more people when I was younger. You want to be loyal to your employees and you hope that they are loyal to you. Loyalty is important but it can be a cancer if there isn't competence to go along with it. When you are too loyal to people who are not doing their jobs the way they should it brings the reputation of the entire organization down and makes you look like an ineffective leader. If it goes on too long then people think everyone who works for you is that way because you haven’t done anything to change the perception. That’s why you can’t be afraid to fire people who deserve it.

If there is one employee that is bringing an entire organization down with them the best thing to do is give that person a pink slip and move on without them. You owe it to the rest of the people under your leadership to remove every obstacle possible that keeps them from being successful. If that’s one of their fellow employees that can’t get things right then so be it. You have to set the tone that poor performance and lack of accountability won’t be tolerated. Look at the big picture, think about the number of people and their families depending on things going the way they are supposed to and remove the ones who are slowing down progress. Sometimes you have to do it even if you like the person. That’s just one of the costs of being the boss. It doesn't make you look bad if you fire someone but you look really bad if you have someone who is obviously not doing the right things and you defend them.