December 7, 2022 | By David M. Wagner

If your role includes managerial responsibilities, you probably remember the first time you had to let someone go. I know I do.

The person I had to let go had been passed around the organization by managers who decided that was easier than confronting a pattern of poor performance. That was hardly fair to the staff member, who thought they were meeting expectations, or to the teams they worked on.

Teams are understandably frustrated when leaders fail to address performance or behavior issues with other staff members. Conversely, there’s often a big emotional and performance boost when the wrong people finally get “off the bus.”

But choosing to fire someone is (almost) never easy. Terminating their relationship with your organization – likely the source of their livelihood – is a big decision. How do you know when it’s time to let them go?

There’s no simple answer. There are also legal and procedural requirements to consider. But if you’re considering cutting ties with someone, here’s are some questions to help with the decision.

• What’s really the problem here? Staff can struggle for any number of reasons. Trouble at home. Difficulty adapting to a new role. Personality conflicts with others on the team. If you can confidently say that the issue stems from their performance or behaviors, then it’s time to ask...

• Will they resolve the issues? Consider past trends with the individual in question. Are the issues new and unexpected, relative to their past performance and behaviors? Have they responded successfully to direction or coaching when the issues were explained to them? If the answer to either question is “no,” then consider…

• What’s best for your team? Assuming the issue won’t be resolved, is the team better off with or without this person? Small issues might be contained with proper guardrails. But for real problems, even if someone seems irreplaceable, keeping them is usually not worth the negative impact on team morale and performance, and possibly even on your clients or constituents. Assuming the answer is “without…”

• Would you hire them now? Put another way, is there still a way for them to succeed in the organization? Would they thrive in a different role, or with more training, or with a reasonable change in their responsibilities? If not…

• What does your gut tell you? You probably started this series of questions because your gut was already telling you that it was time for someone to go. Consider this a friendly reminder to trust your instincts. If you adhere to the “trust but verify” school of thought, hopefully the earlier questions validated those instincts. Still feeling unsure? Maybe it’s time to get more information on what’s behind the issues.

Moving forward with the termination process is its own challenge. But I hope that, if you’ve decided to let someone go after working through the questions above, you can do so with confidence that it’s the right call for your team and for them.