When everything began to unravel for Pete, I knew I was going to have fire him.  I took it personally.  Like most leaders, I rarely lose sleep over the technical issues of my job.  It is the people who give me insomnia.  In this case it was Pete.

I hired Pete.  He had all the promise in the world.  But, he turned out to be a bad hire.  He lied to me.  He didn’t work hard and he pulled the wool over my eyes for longer than I wanted to admit.

My Un-Resume

A Wife’s Wisdom

One night during my Pete induced insomnia, my wife woke up and said something that changed my perspective.  It was simple yet profound:

“Why are you more worried about Pete’s job than he is?”

That simple statement snapped me out of my funk.  I smiled and told her she was right.  Sleep came quickly after that.  I have rarely lost sleep over a personnel issue since then.

I Took His Failure Personally

I tend to want the best for others.  I believe most good leaders feel this way – down deep.  In this case, I had taken that desire too far.

I hired the wrong person.  It had happened before, and it will happen again.  My responsibility as the leader is to learn from my hiring mistakes and continue to get better.  As time went on, I did get better at hiring.  That was what I was responsible for.

Pete’s failure once he was in the job, was HIS failure not mine.  I can look back now and see that I gave him every opportunity to succeed.  I provided him with clear expectations. I coached him.  I gave him resources, and I gave him my trust.  As his leader that was my responsibility.

After I fulfilled my responsibilities to Pete, he needed to fulfill his responsibilities to me, his teammates and to the company that was paying him.  He made the choice not to live up to his end of the deal.

I was owning his failures, and he was not.

A Leader’s Role

My job description was clear to me.  I made it clear to my people on their first day with me as well:

Dave’s Job Description:

I will do everything in my power to make you as successful as you want to be.

I put them through a lengthy interview process and evaluation prior to hiring them to be sure they had the potential to be wildly successful.  I told them that on Day 1 as well.  The key to their success was their desire not mine.

I developed a second statement after I finished my saga with Pete.  This statement followed my job description.

“And I will continue to do everything in my power to make you as successful as you want to be, right up until the time I realize I am working harder at it then you are.”

After that, my relationship with that person became purely business.  Our relationship became about documentation, performance reviews and finding a way to create a necessary ending.

Necessary Endings is a great book by Henry Cloud that I recommend to everyone.  There are times when we all must end relationships with certain people.  Henry Cloud does a great job spelling out when it is right.

For me at work, that time begins when I care more about a person’s job then they do.

The Bottom Line:

Good leaders care about their people.  The good ones invest too much time into developing others to not care.  However, sometimes our biggest strengths can also be our biggest weaknesses.

I let the situation with Pete go too far.  It affected my work with others and my home life as well.  Finding the right time to shift gears from being the caring coach to being the bottom line business leader took time.

I love leading others.  Leading is one of the most fulfilling jobs there is for me – right up until the time I realize the person does not want it for themselves as badly as I want it for them.

At that point I learned, as we all must learn, to not take it personally and begin the process of moving on.  If I have done everything in my power to make that person successful, I can sleep at night.

Why am I losing sleep?  They should care about their job more than I do.

Question:

Why do you think leaders hang on to underperforming people for too long?