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The hardest person to fire is mediocre but well-liked. There's no "smoking gun" for poor performance, and their social capital makes managers hesitant. Conversely, while a disliked high performer may be critical, management is already looking for ways to reduce dependency on them.
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When employees dislike their manager, they often engage in 'quiet quitting' by deliberately working at a fraction of their capacity—just enough to avoid being fired. This makes genuine employee engagement a direct indicator of leadership quality.
A leader's desire to be liked can lead to a lack of candor, which is ultimately cruel. Avoiding difficult feedback allows underperformance to fester and makes an eventual firing a shocking surprise. This damages trust more than direct, consistent, and tough conversations would have.
Leaders struggling with firing decisions should reframe the act as a protective measure for the entire organization. By failing to remove an underperformer or poor cultural fit, a leader is letting one person jeopardize the careers and work environment of everyone else on the team.
When a leader hesitates to remove an underperforming employee, the rest of the team sees it as a failure to make tough decisions. This inaction erodes trust and morale far more than the departure of the individual would. Your inability to act is being judged.
In collaborative fields, being a pleasant person to work with—a "good hang"—can advance your career further than exceptional talent alone. People actively avoid working with difficult personalities, regardless of their skill, which ultimately limits opportunities.
While valuable, if an employee's primary justification for being on the team is loyalty and reliability, it often masks underperformance in other critical areas. This can negatively impact team morale and overall productivity, indicating a tough personnel decision is needed.
A poor performer (3/10) is easy to identify and fire. A mediocre performer (7/10) is more dangerous because they have enough redeeming qualities to justify keeping them. Over time, these hires lower the company's overall talent bar and gravitational pull, leading to a culture of mediocrity.
High-performing CEOs don't hesitate on talent decisions. One mentor's advice was to act immediately the first time you consider firing someone, as indecision only prolongs the inevitable and harms value creation. This counteracts the common tendency for CEOs to be overly loyal or fear disruption.
Keeping an underperforming employee out of a sense of kindness is a mistake; it hurts A-players and creates entitlement. True kindness involves direct, ongoing feedback ('kind candor') and, if necessary, firing them with a generous severance package.
Leaders universally agree they should fire underperformers sooner, yet consistently delay. The root cause is a cognitive bias: founders fall in love with the idea that their hire was correct and hold on, much like an investor holding a losing stock, hoping for a turnaround against the evidence.
