How to Let Go of the Leadership Guilt When You Fire Someone
Has the thought of firing an employee ever left you sleepless at night? You’re wracked with guilt and thinking about the family they have to feed or the bills they have to pay. So you hem and haw and agonize over it, wanting to put it off or avoid it completely.
But you also know that not letting go of the employee will continue to be a burden on your business. You gotta learn how to let go of the guilt and do what needs to be done for your company, yourself, and your team.
Hearing Jesseca Dupart (Da Brat’s wife) recently describe firing someone from her company got me thinking about this, because I’ve had to fire people and deal with the emotions that came up. In this episode of the Pleasurable Profits podcast, you’ll learn about how to mitigate the emotional side of firing someone as a small business owner. I share stories from my experience in the corporate and entrepreneurial world to help you let go of the guilt of letting an employee go.
2:25 - Dupart’s story and why you have to make business decisions based off of your integrity and values
5:11 - An example of what can happen when you’re nice to people who don’t deserve it from you
9:23 - The very first time I was faced with firing someone and the reframe I had to adopt to go through with it
12:03 - Severance pay for small businesses when you need to let people go and it’s not their fault
14:54 - Another mindset reframe for firing people you can use to help you let go of the guilt
16:26 Why firing an underperforming employee is good for them too (and the rest of your team)
21:22 - Why some employees feel like they can hold you hostage
23:24 - Some things to reflect on the next time you have to fire someone
Find me on Instagram or LinkedIn or email me at hello@lesliedlyons.com.
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Transcript for How to Let Go of the Leadership Guilt When You Fire Someone
Hey boss, I am Leslie Lyons, your embodied leadership and sales coach, and this is Pleasurable Profits. This podcast is ideal for owners and leaders of tattoo shops, permanent makeup studios, cannabis businesses, movement studios, sex toy shops, and other industries that are too often left out of the leadership conversation. If you’re looking for a woo meets strategy approach to defining your strengths and values, designing a business that supports you, and creating a soul-driven, and of course, pleasurable plan for profitability, then let’s get started.
Hey, y'all. Today I want to talk about the emotional side of firing someone as a small business owner. Welcome. My name is Leslie. I am your embodied sales and leadership coach. I'm actually recording this for my podcast. Your girl is multitasking. As you come in, as you go out, all of those sorts of things, because this is going to be a long one, because really all I'm going to do is rip the audio from this and put it on my podcast, I really want to just talk a little bit about the guilt that can be felt, the feelings of inadequacy that you may feel when you have to fire someone.
It’s interesting because this morning, I was listening to another podcast, and it had Judy, I can't think of her last name but it's Judy. She's married to Da Brat and she does hair products. she was on this new podcast that's called Ghetto CEO. It was a great episode.
It sparked my thinking because I've had to fire people. I've also been fired but truthfully, I've had to fire people, and the emotions that come up around firing people. Her story is this, if you don't know who Judy is, Judy makes hair drops. She makes like for your edges to grow back, they call it Miracle Drops or something like that.
I think she quoted on the podcast that she did about $14 million last year, something like that. she's a big deal as an entrepreneur, especially in the haircare product space. One of the things that she talked about was that whenever she fired someone because they didn't do their job, we're going to talk about reasons you might let someone go, but this is because people aren't doing a competent job in their role, she would give them severance pay.
Now the first thing that clicked with me as a former HR professional is that yes, you should give people some type of severance pay if your budget allows it, and if it wasn't gross misconduct. she did not go into why she fired these people so I don't know the situation but I did get a feeling though based off of what she said that she felt guilty. That's the thing that I want to address a little bit.
She made mention too the fact that she didn't want word getting around that she couldn't keep employees, that people were always leaving, that she was always firing people, that it was a revolving door to her company. she was like, “I always took really good care of them. I would give people severance pay, minimally two weeks, sometimes as much as six months. I really look at their situation.”
I'm listening to her with my business owner ear. I'm listening to her with my over 10 years of human resources ear. I'm listening to her as over 25 years of being a leader myself. I'm like, “Oh, she's doing this because she wants to be liked. She doesn't want people to think that she's not a good leader. She's doing this because she's feeling guilty.”
Do you know what? You have to make decisions based off of your integrity. You have to make decisions based off of your values. Because if you get pulled into worrying about what other people are going to think about you when they did you dirty, that's just another way of playing nice. That's just another way of keeping sweet when you really need to do what you need to get done and not feel bad about it.
Here's what you get when you're trying to be nice to people who really don't deserve you being nice to them. Now, let's be clear, everyone deserves respect, that's without a doubt, everyone deserves respect. You as a leader, you need to honor people's humanity. But when you do things off of what you think somebody else wants, you're going to get burnt.
Let me cut to the chase and tell you what she said. she said she gave this one girl who was I think pregnant, that's what it was. The girl was pregnant so when you're working around chemicals and stuff like that, when you're pregnant, you can adjust that sort of stuff. Judy was like, “I'm going to let her go for her own health, her baby's safety, all of those things, and I'm going to give her a severance pay.”
Now don't quote me on the amount because I don't remember. Charge it to menopause, y’all, but I want to say it was like $14,000 she was going to give her and you know what happened? She's trying to be nice, hear me, y'all, she's trying to be nice and gave the woman based on her situation a $14,000 severance pay.
The woman told her, “That ain't enough. I want double.” I almost threw my phone out the window. But you know what, that's what happens. Because people are selfish, people think about them, and they will take your kindness for weakness. Today, I just really want to normalize the fact that you're going to have to fire someone. As sure as you hire someone, you're going to have to fire them.
When she's letting you go for your own safety and health of your child, you won't double that. This is the world that we live in. I just want to normalize the fact that as sure as you hire people, you're going to have to fire them. Truthfully, this comes along with being a leader, you're going to have to make tough decisions without compromising your values.
I know for me, one of the challenges, because nobody wants a bad reputation, I empathize with her about not wanting a word on the street to be that you're a terrible boss. I get that. I empathize with that. But there's empathy and then there's a business need too. I am of the belief that we can be empathetic, that we can respect people, but we also need to prioritize our business needs.
If you are not working out as an employee, I need to let you go. What I'm not going to do is give you hush money. The only time I give someone severance pay when I'm letting them go is when it's for a business reason. There are different reasons for letting people go and we know this. We're firing people for lack of performance, we're firing someone because they can't respect the environment, they're not in alignment with our values, or whatever the case. There's wrongdoing on the employee's part.
If there's wrongdoing on your part, goodbye. Don't let the door hit you or the good Lord split you. I am not rewarding failure. Turn to your neighbor and say, “We don't reward failure. That ain't what we're doing. I'm releasing you to destiny. Because technically, I didn't fire you, you fired yourself.”
If you hung around with me, you know I say this all the time, what are the mindset shifts that I made when I was in corporate around letting people go. Because can we talk about the guilt of it for a minute? I remember the very first time I had to fire someone, and this is when I was in a corporate HR position, I started thinking about all the bills she had to pay.
This particular employee, I knew she was dealing with a lot in her home life. I knew all of that. It was playing in my heart. It was tugging at my heartstrings. I'm like, “Man, you're taking income away from her and you know her husband is sick.” Literally, this is a true story. “You know her husband is sick, he can't work, and you're taking income away from her.” Literally, it took me two weeks to gear up to let her go because I was so consumed with me taking from her family.
It was my mentor who told me, “Leslie, let me tell you something. You're not firing her. She is firing herself.” I was like, “What do you mean she's firing herself? She's not quitting. We’re going to let her go.” He was like, “Did you give her clear instructions?” Those of you who are taking notes, write it down. “Did you give them clear instructions?” “Yes, I did.” “Did you offer them support?” “Yes, I did.” “Did you give them feedback?” “Yes, I did.” All of the things, really what he was asking me was like, “Did you fulfill your responsibility as the leader?”
I was able to confidently say yes to all of those things. He was like, “So are you firing her or is she firing herself because she did not live up to the requirements of the job?” She decided not to come to work for almost half a month without FMLA. she didn't want to go through the process. He's like, “So did you fire her or did she fire herself?” Mind blown.
It shifted my energy. It shifted my mindset. I offer that gift to you as a small business owner today. You're not firing these people so you're not taking food off their table. You're not taking clothes off their baby's back. They made choices and now they need to live with them.
But what about when there's something that's changed in the business and you need to let someone go? What types of things change in the business where you need to let people go? You ain't making enough revenue. You forecasted and stuff didn't happen. It just didn't come through. We all live through 2020. None of us planned for a global pandemic. None of us lived through a global pandemic. None of us had a blueprint on how to do that.
Unfortunately, there were many small businesses that closed during that time. If they didn't close, they had to reduce staff, because the business just wasn't there. That isn't the fault of the employees. It ain't really even a fault of the business if it's a pandemic but let's just say you miss your numbers. That's not the employee's fault. severances do.
What's another business situation where you would need to let someone go that's not performance base? It could be that you are reorging the department. You are looking to cut expenses. Can I just be candid? You're looking at jobs and you're saying, “Why do I have three people doing the job when I could just have one person doing this job?”
Again, that's no fault to the employee because you're reorging your business. That's when you give people severance. You know what my rule of thumb is on severance? To be candid with you as a small business owner, because we are not $14 million dollar companies, we are not Fortune 1000, Fortune 500 companies, we are small business owners, and most of the small business owners I work with, top revenue was about two million dollars, that is still a small business, we can just be throwing money around, whatever, I give people two weeks.
I give people what I would like an employee to give me in terms of notice, two weeks, and move on. Because you just don't have money just to be given out, especially when you’re reorging, take care of people if you can. If it's a management-level employee, maybe you give a month. But I'm not giving you six months of severance. Who can do that? Where do they do that at? Oh, I know where they do that at, at Fortune 100 companies, which we ain’t.
I wrote myself an outline, y'all, so I can stay on point. When you see me looking down, I'm looking at my notes because I script my podcast. Thank you very much. One of the things that I wanted to talk about was another reframe, if you will, about firing people. This is something that I came up with once I started owning my own business.
That's truly it's okay for me to make mistakes as a leader. It's okay for me to hire the wrong person. It's okay for me to think that a role needs to do X, Y, and Z. It's okay to fail. As leaders, especially the ones who follow me, I know you're driven. I know you want to be the best. Most of the people who I work with are at the top of their game. You want to be the best. You feel like this is taking the L. You don't want to take a loss. It's okay.
Nobody hits it out of the park every time they hire someone. It's okay to fail. It does not make you a bad leader because you need to fire an employee. Now what does make you a bad leader is if you gotta keep firing employees. But just because you have to fire an employee or two throughout your career, that says nothing about your leadership. It is okay to fail. If you're taking notes, it is okay to fail.
Also, when you lead people go, this is so good, when you let people go who need to be let go, meaning going back to an underperformer, not only are you doing what's best for the overall business, you're doing what's best for that person and your team. What you're talking about, Leslie? How are you doing what's best for the team? I'm so glad you asked.
Number one, if someone isn't doing their job, it’s because the job ain't right for them. Can we just normalize that and just tell the truth? If someone's not doing their job, it’s because it's not a good fit for them. It doesn't fire them up, they're not passionate about it and so they just phone in and they work. If you're phoning in your work, I have a responsibility to let you go and find the job, the career, maybe hell, you need to start your own business.
If you think you can do it better than me, then do it. In my Kanye West’s voice, if you think you can do it better than me, then do it. Do it. But I am releasing you into your destiny. I am releasing you to go and find the job and the career that satisfies your soul. That's how it benefits the person because everybody should be in a job or career that they love. You don't love it here, it’s clearly torturing you, go be great. May the wind always be at your back. Go be great.
The second thing is 9 times out of 10, when it's an underperforming employee, there's been somebody on your team who's been picking up the slack. There have been other people on your team who feels the negative energy. They feel the pressure. Maybe they're picking up the work, whatever. Every time I've fired somebody, I'll never forget, okay, storytime, I let go somebody from my studio.
When you're a small business, sometimes people think that they get you over a barrel. Do you know what I mean by that? Because I realized that I'm 50 years old and I'd be using phrases that you little young whippersnappers don't know anything about. Do you know what I mean when I say that people think they get you over a barrel?
Essentially, they think that if you lose them, how are you going to do it? Oh, I have two stories for this actually. The first story was when I had bought another studio. That was about 30 to 45 minutes away from my current studio. My team was not ready. My team was not ready for us to be in two locations.
You guys hear me talk all the time about you must have a team of A-players, star players when you want to expand. I did not have a star-player team. I had some A-players but my team was not a star-player team. They weren't an A-team. I'll never forget these two employees who I ended up letting go who were out at this other location, they were like, “Well, she can’t be in two places at one time.”
Meaning they got to do what they wanted to do at that other studio, because I couldn't duplicate myself. At that time, y'all, I was still on the teaching staff at my studio. That meant they knew that if they were out there teaching the class and I was teaching the class, if they didn't show up, they felt I needed them. Very common in small environments because everybody knows the roles.
They know that if they pull out, it's going to cause extra work for you, other team members, whatever so they start feeling like you need them. Especially if you're in a boutique business where you can't just hire people off the street, where they need specialized training, where it's going to take time to get people ramped up, they start feeling like they can phone in at work, give bad behavior, or do whatever the hell they want to do because you need them.
Now Leslie, don't need nobody but Jesus. What you say? I don't nobody but Jesus. That's one person I need. Anybody else can be replaced, down to me. My role can be replaced. That's the first thing. The second thing is sometimes employees feel like they can hold you hostage. This stuff don't happen in Fortune 100 companies, y'all. This stuff don't happen to Fortune 500 companies.
This is why I speak specifically to small business owners because you'll be trying to take policies that Wells Fargo, a multibillion-dollar bank, and putting into your $500,000-a-year studio, boutique, daycare center, or what have you, their policies ain’t made to fit our environment, y’all. You got to extract that because people know they can be replaced in Fortune 500 companies all the time. They know they’re just a dime a dozen and somebody will know your job.
They don't think they can hold the owner hostage. As small businesses, they feel like they can hold you hostage. Fast forward, next person I'm letting go. This person thought that they were the superstar in my space. They were the most skilled, they taught the majority of our advanced classes, all the things, and they also had a very good relationship with other employees.
She thought that when she was given leave and I told her I need to talk to her and all that stuff, she thought that when she left, everybody was going to leave. Wrong answer. Wrong answer, baby. People were relieved when you left. Because people don't like tension, people like calm workspaces. People like peace.
She thought that when she left, everybody was going to leave. She was rudely awakened. When you let someone go for nonperformance, you're doing them a favor and your team a favor.
The last thing that I will say is that as long as your heart posture towards the termination is to make sure that people have dignity, you speak to people with respect, you choose your words properly, and you keep in mind you're doing what's best not only for your business but for that person, it will alleviate some of the guilt.
I want to leave you with this: the next time you are forced to fire someone, I do want you to reflect on it. What was it about this person? Is there something you can learn so you don't replicate the mistake and hire someone again who wasn't a good fit? Is there something you can learn? That's not guilt. That's wisdom to reflect on what you did, so that you don't find yourself in that situation again. That's wisdom. Reflect on it.
The second thing that I want you to remember though is you didn't fire them, unless it was for business reason. If it was because they were incompetent just for the lack of a better word, they fired themselves, you did not fire them. You really must believe in your heart that you did what was best for your business and also for them.
Alright, my loves. If this type of stuff gets you all itchy and scratchy, hit me up at my DM, share with me your firing stories because I bet there’s some [goobers] out there. But this comes along with the territory, y’all, and you have to protect your heart and your mind because I think that some people think that they should never feel bad. It's okay. You will be alright. You can feel bad but not feel guilty. You're doing the right thing. Keep doing the job. Keep doing the hard work. I'll talk to you on the next episode. Grace and peace.