These words stopped me in my tracks.

“I don’t want to be the villain in their story.”

The leader I was coaching had gone through a messy situation with a small group of employees. While it had now resolved itself, there was a lingering discomfort for her.

We explored this together in our coaching session.

Maybe, there were some things she could have done differently.

Maybe, better training, or clearer agreements, could have been made.

But, in the end, she was left with a sinking feeling—that, in their version of events, she would forever be cast as the villain.

You see, she liked these people.

And, she’d enjoyed being their boss. For a time, things were working well. She’d been mentoring them. Then, it all unravelled.

There was no way around it—they had to go. She did it as humanely as possible. But it didn’t matter. They blamed her for everything. They were seething and hurt.

We All Like to be Liked

This was an uncomfortable role for her.

We all like to be liked. Some of us even need to be liked.

But at times, as leaders, we have to make tough or unpopular decisions.

At the extreme, despite our best efforts, or because of circumstances, there can come a time where we need to part ways with people. Allow them to ‘prosper elsewhere.’ End our ‘employment agreement.’ ‘Separate.’ Or, hey. Let’s just call it what it is: we fire them.

Of course, we love to hire people. There’s nothing nicer than building something new. You get to deliver good news. Change someone’s career story forever. A new hire will positively shape the team with a new set of skills and experiences.

So, perhaps because it’s such a positive experience, we spend a lot of time, money, and effort on hiring “the right person.”

When it doesn’t work out though, too often leaders spend a lot of time, money, and effort avoiding firing the “wrong person.”

There are many reasons for this. Some are obvious (e.g., avoiding the difficult conversation, or wishing to avoid negative financial or legal impacts.) But some are less obvious. Like this situation shows us.

We tend to want to be liked.

If you fire someone, there’s a some chance the person will blame you—rightly or wrongly.

And, once they are “gone” and the relationship is severed, there’s often little ability to ever repair that relationship.

Firing someone may solve an immediate problem, and it might be the right thing to do. But, it can also mean accepting the odds that forever after there may be a person who will—let’s be honest—basically hate you.

You will be the villain in their story.

Reframing the Story for Yourself 

What I worked on with this leader, is where we choose to put our focus.

A fired employee has every right to own their personal story, and believe in their version of events. We have little influence over it.

However, turning to our own ethical models can help. If we have acted in good faith, if we have been truthful, if we treated people as fairly as we could, then allowing the discordance is simply “be” is all there is to be done.

Sure, maybe there were things we could do differently next time. Lessons learned. But, if you allowed yourself to be guided by your principles in making the decision to fire the person, then you can also turn to those same principles to give you peace afterward.

How they cast you, is up to them. It’s their story.

The integrity with which you see yourself, and what you know to be true in your heart, well, that’s up to you. That’s a story only you can tell, and tell it you must, to an audience of one: yourself.