The executive is responsible for finding, training, and managing talent. Ultimately, everything we do as executives depends on the quality of the work of those we manage. In a perfect world, we’d find talented team members and then sit back, relax, and watch them go.
But that’s not reality. You need to understand the capabilities and limitations of your team. They’re humans, and you must give them direction and then follow up to ensure this direction has been followed. In the initial stages of your relationship, you’ll need to follow up often, as your reports will fail to carry out your directions because they :
- Make errors;
- Can’t follow your guidance; or
- Won’t follow your guidance.
All three of these issues can result in your directions not being followed. Your job is to follow up often to catch your guidance not being followed, which is bound to happen, and then identify the root cause. You’ll then take action with the team member based on the reason for guidance not being followed.
Errors are due to human nature. They are perfectly understandable and should even be encouraged when (a) made applying common sense in good faith and (b) the result of the team member being proactive. These qualities are desirable, and thus errors due to these qualities are worth it. When you discover an error made in good faith, encourage the team member for their proactivity, but also correct the mistake. The team member should quickly improve under this framework.
If errors are repeated after correction, you need to identify the reason. Sometimes, team members need repeated monitoring because they’ve hit the ceiling of their abilities and are still adjusting to the learning curve. This is fine, and keep encouraging and correcting, but also realize that such a team member has hit a ceiling and should probably not be advanced further in the organization. Often these team members will catch up after a while, and when the time comes for the next promotion, we tend to forget how long it took them to become competent in their current role. Overpromotion is often is the reason for team members can’t do their job, which I’ll discuss next.
A team member who can’t take your guidance must be removed from the role and demoted to a role that suits their skill set. If they won’t accept a demotion, they’ll need to move on from your organization. This is a shame, especially if they were effective at a lower role.
This demotion or termination should follow appropriate correction, guidance, and documentation to be fair to the team member and give them a chance to course correct. Sometimes people just need to hear they’re underperforming to turn things around. If that doesn’t work, removing these poor performers is critical in order to prevent poor performance in the operation of the business.
You should also revisit why you or the company put this team member in the role in the first place. There are two reasons this position didn’t work out: (a) the team member’s lack of personal development to fill the position’s needs and (b) the company placing the team member in a position to fail. Try to identify what role each had in the team member’s inability to handle the position.
Someone who won’t follow instructions should be terminated immediately. Insubordination is unacceptable and will kill your effectiveness if left unchecked. When reviewing cases of insubordination, you should always self-reflect to understand if the insubordination is due to a misunderstanding or your own shortcomings. Sometimes people are insubordinate under certain leaders because that leader is a poor leader, either ethically or performatively. Assuming this is not the case, terminate the insubordinate team member and move on immediately. If you fail to do this, you’ll devastate your effectiveness as a leader and will harm your company.
One of the challenges in removing those who can’t or won’t perform is the lack of an alternative. That’s why effective recruiting is so critical. You must always have a pipeline of prospective team members, even when your staff is full. Always have alternatives, and when you spot a poor performer, make sure you’re immediately strategizing about a replacement in the event you can’t get them to course correct through
Errors made in good faith are perfectly fine and should be corrected and followed up with encouragement. Someone who can’t do the job should be removed and placed in a role where they can succeed. Someone who won’t do the job should be terminated immediately.