So, the recruitment process is over. You have your team. Best of the best! Still, as in life, in business as well you will find few rotten eggs, and those are the ones you might need to fire TODAY!
Your job is easy if you are dealing with transparently incompetent, low performing, and bad employee. But what if in your cross functional team you have “professionals” that don’t belong there and you couldn’t recognize them at first sight? Their behavior for you as a leader and a manager might have been even considered as very positive, funny, and warm. But remember, your employees will always be connected with someone who is funny but is ready for some action at the same time.
But no matter how sweet and relaxing they may appear, these people can have a really bad influence on the rest of your team, on your results and most of all on your own reputation. You need to detect them and get rid of them today!
And they are of 5 types that you will need to consider firing:
1. Sweet Pretenders
Those who are pretending to be your friends. And since you are their manager, leader and their boss, you will need to keep this line clear and firm. Sweet pretender is a person whose company feels comfortable even if you don’t know him/her that good. Why? Because s/he is a Pretender! They usually don’t know exactly what they need from their careers. Their only goal is to makeThe Boss Happy whatever it takes, but you don’t need this type in your team!! You need someone capable of making their own decisions with coherent argument. If you are not sure if are you dealing with a Pretender or not, just count how many times s/he says Yes to whatever you say!
2. Original Copy
If there is anything worse than the Sweet pretender, it’s the one called Original copy. This person is developing his/her career based on someone else’s ideas and words. All he does is paraphrasing something that was said before. Very clever members of this group will paraphrase words only from CEO or Board Members trying to impress you with. But do not fall for that. You need a Doer, not a Talker!
3. Toxic Image Builder
You have an average employee. He has an average results. He might even be a potential candidate for further development. BUT – he has very low performance when it comes to dealing with customers and even worse, in work environment. Meaning – if your employee has a bad attitude as well, he is then a Toxic for your image and for the Company’s image as well.
4. Self-promotion Experts
The easiest way of recognizing this one is through his/her own bragging. Let results talk about him, not his big mouth! If he would collect all this energy and direct it to one solid project – you would have the BEST employee ever! This person should actually work in marketing. He is a soul example of how a bad product could be good with a great marketing!
5. Ball-hogs
“Ball-hogging” is generally considered an unacceptable playing behavior at all levels of basketball competition. In business, this is a person that is definitely not a Team Player. He will do everything by himself, no matter where he set his footprints and what are the consequences! Before taking the decision of firing him/her, check if this can be fixed. Because this is a worthy person – if he learns how to share a toy!
Part of being a great leader is knowing when enough is enough! Sometimes you need to take painful decisions, but no matter what – trust your gut!