Reflections on Leadership

The Question Is Good. The Rule Is Not.

Leadership Drift This Week

The Question Is Good. The Rule Is Not.

CEOs of a certain size seem compelled to share their elegantly simple methods for leading and making decisions about people. You have probably heard some version of this one: list every employee; ask, “Would you hire this person again?” (yes or no); then rate everyone A+, A, B, or C. The Cs must leave. You will help them, of course, but they gotta go.

Simple.

Simple is often very good, but executives have a remarkable ability to take something useful, strip it of all judgment, turn it into a rule, and then congratulate themselves for being decisive. Let's take this chestnut that's been passed around for a while and see what might actually be useful.

“Would you hire this person again?” is an excellent question. If I had the choice today, knowing what I know now, would I hire this person again? That question forces a leader into the present. It strips away tenure, history, sunk costs, familiarity, personality, loyalty, and excuses. It asks the leader to look at the person, the role, and what the organization now knows to make a fresh judgment. Would I make this employment decision again? That's worth knowing.

But then we get to the grades; A+, A, B, or C and the rule that follows: the Cs must leave.

Insert an audible sigh.

Management has a long, unfortunate history of treating people as if they can be ranked and removed by a sufficiently clever formula. Some versions of this thinking became famous in the 1980s and 1990s. The language has changed over the years, but the attraction remains. It feels decisive, objective, and fair because everyone gets measured by the same ruler. It also feels wonderfully simple.

Unfortunately, people aren't.

Someone performing at a C level may indeed be a poor fit for the organization. But a C may also be in the wrong role. The expectations may be unclear, or the person may not have received the training or support the role requires. The manager may be contributing to the problem, or the system surrounding the person may make good performance unnecessarily difficult. Or, the person may simply be unable to meet the requirements of the job.

Leadership's responsibility is to determine which one it is.

I would instead explore three questions.

Are they performing at the level this role requires?

If they aren't, do I believe they can get there?

Am I willing to do what leadership reasonably should do to find out?

Now we have something more humane and useful than a grading exercise. First, make the judgment. Then, establish the performance gap. Next, determine whether improvement is realistic and what responsibility leadership has for giving the person a fair opportunity to meet the standard.

The result might still be that the person needs to leave. In some cases, it should be. But that is fundamentally different from deciding that every C must leave simply because the rating says C.

A person is not a grade.

A performance rating is information for a leadership decision; not a substitute for one. It also reflects on the leader.

Leaders can fail in opposite directions here. One leader moves someone out too quickly, satisfied that the rating has made the decision for them. Another recognizes that someone is not meeting expectations but keeps postponing the difficult conversation, granting more time, more chances, more explanations, and more help.

Months pass, other employees compensate, expectations blur, and the organization quietly absorbs the cost.

Both leaders have avoided something: the first has avoided judgment, and the second has avoided action. Neither is particularly responsible or effective.

This is why I prefer a slightly different principle:

Cs cannot stay indefinitely.

Give the person a fair opportunity. Clarify the standard, provide the support leadership reasonably should provide, remove obstacles leadership itself has created, and establish a reasonable timeframe. Then make the decision.

The important word is decision, because "we're helping them" can become one of the most socially acceptable forms of leadership avoidance.

Another question makes the exercise more revealing:

If this person stays exactly as they are for the next twelve months, am I willing to accept the consequences?

That takes the exercise out of the personnel file and puts it squarely in the leader's hands.

Maybe the answer is yes; then keep the person and accept the consequences honestly.

If the answer is no, something will need to change. Perhaps the person needs coaching, the role needs to shift, the expectations need clarification, the manager needs to adjust their approach, or the person needs to be reassigned. Perhaps, eventually, the person needs to leave.

But somebody has to decide.

If a leader has known for months that someone is not performing at the required level, has concluded that the situation is unlikely to improve, and continues to employ that person without changing the circumstances, the organization has more than an employee problem; it has a leadership problem. The leader is now responsible for what happens next.

That realization often gets missed.

We tend to think of leadership responsibility as what we actively do: the decisions we make, the direction we provide, and the standards we establish.

Leadership responsibility also includes what we knowingly allow to continue: unresolved performance problems, tolerated behavior, unclear expectations, or difficult conversations that keep getting postponed.

None of these situations become less consequential because the leader is uncomfortable addressing them; in fact, the longer they continue, the more people and systems they affect.

So keep the question:

“Would you hire this person again?”

Ask it of all employees, but resist the temptation to let the answer decide for you.

The question is a valuable tool precisely because it tells you something you need to know.

What you do with that knowledge is where your leadership is visible.

Effective leadership is deciding what you are willing to allow to continue.

Manage Better. Lead Well.

Drift Pattern of the Week:

Weak Accountability

Weak accountability rarely looks like an outright refusal to hold someone accountable. More often, leaders discuss expectations, acknowledge concerns, and repeatedly defer consequences. Leaders explain, accommodate, coach, revisit, and wait.

They often overlook the pattern because each individual delay seems reasonable.

Left unaddressed, however, the organization learns something unintended: performance standards are negotiable, difficult conversations can be postponed, and someone else will eventually absorb the consequences.

Leadership Practice

Before your next performance conversation, write down the required standard, the current gap, the support you owe, and the date by which a decision must be made. Then share all four with the employee.

Diagnostic Question

If this person’s performance remains exactly as it is for the next twelve months, would you honestly be willing to accept the consequences for the team and organization?

From My Desk

Leaders seldom struggle because they cannot recognize a performance problem; they struggle with what recognition requires.

Once a leader sees the problem clearly, the comfortable ambiguity begins to disappear. Someone has to clarify the standard, change something, or make a decision.

There is another cost, too. When a leader repeatedly carries an unresolved performance problem, everyone around it begins adapting. Good performers compensate. Managers work around it. Expectations quietly change.

Eventually, the organization may forget that the situation was ever supposed to be temporary.

Recommended Resource

Leadership Drift Diagnostic

Persistent performance problems can be difficult to evaluate because the employee, manager, role, expectations, and surrounding system may all be contributing to what is happening.

The Leadership Drift Diagnostic helps separate the visible performance problem from the leadership conditions surrounding it. Rather than producing another rating, the work examines what is actually happening, why it is happening, and what leadership needs to do next.

A leader comes away with a clearer understanding of the problem, the decisions that cannot be postponed, and the leadership action required to address it.