When Leaders Fail: Living with the Consequences of Missed Coaching Opportunities
Abstract
I ve been fired. The words struck like thunder since the person on the other end of my email was a colleague whom I had grown to admire, even though I had never seen the quality of her work. Still, the person whom I had gotten to know appreciated continuous learning, was approachable, smiled easily, and had a natural curiosity about management and organizations. I m not bitter I m kind of relieved, she continued. I knew my boss believed that I wasn t worth training. Individual Worth Wasn t worth training? I thought. How can that be? Unfortunately, this is not an uncommon event in most organizations. The root-causes of termination may be many. It may be due to a poor hiring decision based on the hiring supervisor s lack of clarity on the competencies required by the job. Perhaps the competency requirements are clear, but the candidate misrepresented their abilities. Perhaps employee dishonesty played a part. Maybe a simple personality conflict emerged. Frequently, however, a candidate is hired with limited competencies with the clear understanding that training and a suitable learning curve will backfill the candidate s knowledge gaps. And sometimes that development, along with some critical coaching, never takes place. Nonetheless, firing someone for nonperformance without the proper level of support for the learning that would have enabled the employee to succeed is as glaring an indictment of the manager as it is the employee. Both failed to perform.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Feb 01, 2002
- Accession Number
- ADA596003
Entities
People
- Robert Rue