I fired someone for the first time today. This person was the first I hired and was with me for 18 months. It was a hard decision and probably months overdue. She didn’t take it well and ended up threatening me. The close friendship we had feels fake. I helped her in her times of need so many times and feel taken advantage of.

I couldn’t sleep last night and feel sick. I’ve done nothing wrong. I understand looking back at former bosses why they kept their distance. It’s just my nature to want to get close to employees because it’s a small business and we are together so many hours a week. Any words of advise from my fellow small business owners?

  • TheElusiveFox@alien.topBEnglish
    1·
    10 months ago

    I’d say a few things…

    First, its ok to feel shitty firing some one, it should never be a “Great” feeling, even if you aren’t their friend, unless they are acting maliciously you aren’t really going to be happy about it, its just something that is necessary, either because they aren’t pulling their weight, or because they are too much of a liability in one way or another…

    Its good, even great to have a sense of camaraderie with your coworkers and even for people to be friends with eachother, you spend a third or more of your day there, you should at least try to spend your day with people you respect even if you don’t like them all…

    However, as a person in a leadership position you need to both be hyper-aware of how much your authority over your team affects the relationship, “Hey can you help me after work”, can feel like a request to a friend from you, but a demand to your employee… and because of that awkwardness, what can feel like a friendship to you, can just be an employee being polite trying to keep their job.

    Does this mean its better to be removed/detached… not necessarily… it might make it easier to fire some one, and prevent your feelings from getting hurt as badly when you do. But having leadership that genuinely cares about their employees and doesn’t just see them as robots, or act fake polite… is how you are going to attract the best quality employees who genuinely care about your business and you, because they know you want them to succeed as well…