Lost my temper with an underperforming employee and he quit

Question

I am the assistant manager of a small team in the service industry. I recently lost my temper with an employee, Ed, for his failure to complete his work on time. I barked at him, in view and earshot of other employees and my manager, chastising him for repeatedly refusing my help earlier in the shift, when I was checking on his progress. Immediately after, he told my manager that he was quitting; later he expanded to say that he's been thinking about quitting for a long time, because he doesn't feel like he's fitting in or working to the same standard as everyone else, and that he dreads coming to work.

This failure to perform his tasks has been a consistent problem for me with Ed; every shift that I work with him involves my (calm!) close supervision, guiding, and redirection of his activity. He does not prioritize well. He often takes on tasks that distract him from his main, written, duties. I have been very frustrated with his lack of progress in self-directing. This kind of supervision is not my preferred style of management, and I also have a full load of shift work of my own. His occasional bristling at my redirection has been an additional burr for me. I want him to succeed, but I haven't been able to find the right way of coaching him.

Regardless of his history, I was obviously wrong to lose my temper, and I've apologized to him for that. On the other hand, I believe that the reprimand itself was entirely justified; it just wasn't delivered appropriately. My manager agrees on both counts.

This is a restaurant, and we're in the kitchen; although yelling, and sometimes outright abuse, is the norm in some of those, I and my boss don't want that kind of environment.

The problem is that Ed is well-liked: he's a friendly, helpful guy (as noted above, too helpful sometimes) and his performance problems were not particularly visible to the other team we have here. Thus, from their view it probably looks like I came out of left field, flew off the handle, and bullied a good employee into leaving.

So, to the inevitable question of "What the heck happened to Ed?" my preferred response would be "He couldn't deal with being told he wasn't doing his job". Clearly not politic.

What should my overall response be as a responsible manager who realizes he handled the situation badly, even if the outcome (Ed's departure) was inevitable? How can I publicly be accountable for my own action without taking the blame for his?

Answer 1

As the OP asked for a more in depth answer, here is my analysis:

There are 3 issues mentioned here:

• The reason why Ed work was bad and needed to change. Really not relevant, the OP considers himself justified so let's take that for granted.

• The way in which the OP lost his temper in public. Obviously, the OP fault. The solution to this is to publicly recognize that it was a mistake from you and to promise not to repeat that again, so work relations are not affected.

• The way Ed reacted to the OP barking. This is the more contentious point. I think the OP feels that he is being singled as the single cause of Ed quitting and thinks he should not. But even if Ed was thinking of quitting, doing so just after the crisis clearly shows everyone which was the final cause.

  • If the OP would just repeat to the people what Ed told him, it would most probably backfire as people will see that as just a way of trying to avoid blame, and using the fact that Ed is not longer there to contradict him.

  • Even if Ed apppears at the place to repeat those claims, people won't miss that he could have changed his mind if it had not been for the OP.

So, the best thing to do is not try to avoid taking the blame, but doing some control damage:

• Explain that you apologized to Ed but Ed insisted in quitting.

• If allowed by management, talk to Ed in a few days; insist that you acknowledge that the way you treated him was not adequate and, that if he is interested, you can offer his job.

  Explain him it is not a free ride; he had some issues that needed to be solved and you want to discuss those with him (allow him to talk back so he can convince some of those issues are not really his fault), and that he should return only if he thinks he will be able to fit.

  If Ed does not want to return, inform your personal that you tried to but Ed did not agree. Again, don't get into detail about his perceived failures.

Those measures are not for making you look like less "guilty" for you reacting wrong, but to show that even if you caused Ed to quit in the first place, you have attempted to amend the situation and Ed has been given an honorable solution which he could have taken if he really wanted it.

Answer 2

"What the heck happened to Ed?"

"He couldn't deal with being told he wasn't doing his job". Clearly not politic.

Your response is "clearly politic" and "clearly" defensive, since you would be offering an unsolicited explanation to an innocent question. Also, that response is very defensive because you would be claiming some kind of psychic mind-reading ability, about knowing what was in his mind when he quit.

Instead, you should just say:

"He quit last Thursday"

If the person makes up his own mind about what happened (without asking follow-up questions), then let him. The more you try to control what someone is possibly thinking of you, the more you will create the opposite impression of what you want to communicate.

If he asks for more details, then tell him

"I blew up at him. Then he quit."

Describe what happened, not your interpretation of what happened. Then you can go into the specifics of what he said, what happened, and what you thought. But if you don't start with "I blew up at him. Then he quit", and leave it unspoken, then I assure you this is the explanation they will give themselves when you have your back turned. And it will sound ten times worse when they say it than when you say it.

Answer 3

I barked at him, in view and earshot of other employees and my manager [...]

[...] and I've apologized to him for that

There is an asymmetry between a public humiliation, and a private apology.

I don't need to tell you that a reprimand should have been done in private, but when you've already done it in front of so many others, the apology would have carried more weight if done equally public, regardless of whether or not you were right to do so.

How can I publicly be accountable for my own action without taking the blame for his?

Since Ed already quit, you might have lost that chance, and since your next worry is about how you should go about shirking your responsibility ("without taking the blame"), I'm afraid this falls off-topic, as we generally don't give advice along the lines of "you should do such-and-such".

However, since I'm posting this as an answer, my advice is to own up to it. You yelled at him, and he quit. Make it clear that you regret your actions, and that it will never happen again.

When they inevitably ask you "why did you yell at him?", make sure you don't badmouth Ed beyond the scope of the conversation. This can be a fine line, and hard to see, but Ed was still a hard-working employee, and for all his short-comings, he was still a person. Don't harp on it. Be concise, and to the point, then shut up about it. Your behavior is the topic now, not his.

Answer 4

edit: I'll be making assumptions based on what I read between the lines. I might be wrong.

The problem is that Ed is well-liked: he's a friendly, helpful guy (as noted above, too helpful sometimes)

From what I read from this, it could be that Ed helped people perform at good speed, and taking responsibility for making sure everyone could work in good conditions.

In other words, he was doing the manager's job (yours).

You should really ask yourself if it's ok to have 4 people performing at 100% and 1 at 50% because he helps a lot or 5 people performing at 75% because they are isolated. (those numbers reflect my personal experience)

I call it "chain of responsibility": if your manager expects you to monitor every single person an assess their performance, then you have to shout at Ed.

On the other way, if your manager just wants a well-performing team, then (sorry) you're the bad manager for not noticing how Ed's help was affecting your team's performance.

Helping is not something you can measure, yet it doesn't mean it's useless. In fact, I've yet to see a team where working without help is more efficient than the other way. It's also the best way to spread knowledge and increase performance over time.

To me, it looks like Ed paid the price for caring too much of the company and not enough of himself. That's exactly the kind of management I've seen so often and that leads to mediocre results, simply because it forces people to shift their efforts toward themselves instead of toward the company.

Answer 5

It's a long story. He had some performance issues and was thinking to quit. And when I lost my temper amd yelled at him last week, it helped him realize it is time to move on.

I think it's important to point out the long-term factor, otherwise people will think they have to react the same way when there is trouble. It's sad he left because he was so nice and you hope he finds a place where he fits in better.

Answer 6

First, Ed's performance is a private matter and cannot be discussed in public.

Next, why he quit is not a topic that you can discuss either. It is no one else's business.

What you can do is address your own performance problem in public. You apologize to your team and Ed (in absentia) for the blow up, state that it was wrong and tell them it won't happen again. Ask them to tell you if they see that you are starting to stress out.

Answer 7

If Ed told you or your boss he was quitting because he felt he wasn't able to work well and wasn't enjoying the job, that's what you can tell people about why he quit.

As to your actual question - not taking the blame for his quitting. Well, you probably won't be able to erase that. St best, you can explain that you had been working with Ed to try and improve the quality of his work to meet the team, and had vented frustration after he repeatedly failed to meet the standard of the rest of the team, acknowledging that it was wrong.

Everyone makes mistakes from time to time, but people are more forgiving about them if you openly admit them.

Answer 8

Lots of great points already, just want to add a few things:

1. First of all, you say: "yelling, and sometimes outright abuse, is the norm in some of those, I and my boss don't want that kind of environment." If you are a manager (or assistant manager), then you are largely responsible for the culture in which you work.

2. I can't say I've worked in that sort of environment, but generally at the next staff meeting when announcements are made, you say something like "so-and-so will be leaving, his/her last day will be X," or "so-and-so is no longer working with us." I've been told that for HR reasons, and out of fairness to someone who's leaving/left and therefore not able to defend himself, it's best to not go into details.

3. Usually what happens is having not gone into details, after someone leaving in the manner that Ed left your team, there is usually some team meeting/exercise to address the issue. In your case, it seems that either (1) your team prefers to work in a different manner then you have been asking them in which the team does more self-organization or (2) you have to be more clear about assigned responsibilities and why you want things run that way.

4. A suggestion for how to coach people like "Ed" - I imagine that you didn't want him doing "extra" things out of fear of something going wrong that he should have taken care of. Often, it is easier to teach/coach to results then actions. Give someone a very small, tightly controlled scenario in which they're behavior leads to some bad outcome (but, a small one!), then discuss with that person what happened and why in order to show how their choice in behavior wasn't helpful.

Answer 9

Patently, you care and for this you should be commended as most simply don't.

I see 3 learning points from this:

• be empathetic. Without being facile, what does that mean? It means getting to understand the POV of the other person. Why is this important? I have found in the past that people's apparently misguided actions are informed by all manner of misinformation and, mostly, simply miscommunication. When analysed properly, it has nearly always turned out that they have not heard clearly and unequivocally what their performance expectations are; so they do the best 'approximation' of what they understand they can. As, invariably, this includes things they 'should' be doing, it's easy to assume, as a manager, that they are choosing not to do what's asked of them when all along they simply haven't understood properly. I do hope that makes sense? Communication issues sit dead centre of nearly every problem with business and most of us managing forget that the responsibility for communication lies with the communicatOR (YOU) to ensure the message is both received AND understood - just ask them to explain back to you what they have to do in their own words!

• be protective. Organisational culture is rarely engaging of employees as 99.99% of it is blame based. Here you have the opportunity to become the 'umbrella' over your team, shielding them from the rubbish that rains down from high on a daily basis. When you do this, your team sees that you are doing it, trying to protect them, and will appreciate it - hopefully going the extra mile for both you and their team mates/colleagues.

• be honest. Ask the rest of your team for feedback (tis up to you as to whether it's private or public but public shouts more loudly that you care) on how you handled it. Ask how they might have done it. Ask how you go forward as a team to learn from it. Most importantly, LISTEN (without any agendas or excuses in your head) and acknowledge points by thanking the person brave enough to put their head above the parapet to make it. Then LEARN from it.

You WILL be fine, and if I can help in any way I'd be happy to via a PM