There's nothing that sends shivers and anxiety through an organization faster than watching someone get fired. It's a bit like being on a colonial-era ship and watching someone walk the plank; you don't want to be that person, but it's also such a slow-moving train-wreck, you can't help but watch. Given the fact that the tech companies are all over the headlines this week way layoffs announced by the thousands, nobody is inclined to be that standout sore thumb anytime soon either. No surprise, top managers love terminations; they get everyone else in line really quick, or at least that's how the assumption goes.
The reality in most organizations is that most people just go quiet, watch their "Ps" and "Qs" and then wait for the first opportunity to get the hell out of the place. A termination in most cases is a failure to lead. That might seem one-sided, and a default blame on the supervisor, but there's more to the statement than just that, especially when a termination involves a high level position. I say it's a failure because or organizational team involved failed to work together to solve their difference and move the organization as a whole. Instead, it turned into a battle of egos, and usually the one at the lower level loses unless the higher level can be emasculated visually with some kind of complaint about their behavior. One supervisor told me early one, terminating an employee is a race; you're working as fast as you can to get rid of the problem, and the employee is working as fast as they can to get a complaint filed against you that sticks. Whoever gets to the finish line first gets the other one fired.
To me, both are screw ups.
If both parties involved, and they are both high level managers in their own right, couldn't resolve differences, they failed at the fundamental part of their job on both sides. Unfortunately, the battle of the egos is all too common. In fact, being the "bad-ass" manager who gets their way is still celebrated. All that training talk about servant leadership is bullshit in practice. No one applies it. What is really celebrated is that manager-leader who is enough of an ass and savvy enough as a politician to make it to the top and stay there. Notice, nowhere in any of the paragraph was the word "team" or 'teamwork."
The irony, however, is that every major advice source or online recommendation about good leadership focuses on at least one key element, teamwork. And to make a team work, they have to work with each other, not against each other. I've been on a lot of teams lately. I'm working with a lot of people who, personally, I don't like. In fact, if it was up to me, I would have nothing to do with them at all. I know their quirks, their habits, and their behavior trends. I don't trust them, and they repeatedly prove my assumptions right. However, I'm still expected to support the organization's goals. So, that means I work with them regardless. Sure, I don't expose myself more than necessary, but I do make the effort hold up my part of achieving the organization's goals because that is greater role I'm expected to support. And it has produced job security for me for at least the last 18 years, which is no small achievement these days.
Watching someone get fired still surprises me, even three decades in. It's never who I expect it will be if not for an obvious reason. Clearly, people who steal, are violent in the office or workplace, or lie blatantly should and do get fired. I've done more than a few myself as a manager. But to watch someone get fired for not agreeing with the party line is still a surprise these days. It's never who I expect. There are characters who I know are on the out, yet they stick around, survive, and keep going. Then, the one that does get fired, seems to be the star player, but they got too close to the sun and burned their wings. Flap, flap, drop. Down they go in a horrible display to watch.
I would like to hope it will never happen to me, that I will make it through the end of my first career and retire without being fired. But who knows, I might be next tomorrow. It's the sentiment that sets in on the rest of the ship when you watch someone walk the plank.
