Shuhaib Shariff

This week, I had to ask a colleague to Quit

This person (lets call him/her “X”) was one of nicest I’ve met … positive energy, full of ideas and very friendly. “X” has been with us for nearly two years, infact was one of the early employees; somebody who believed in what we were doing … at a time when nobody took us seriously.

There’s more: In the first year, “X” was very passionate about the work and quite enterprising as well. I promoted “X” to leadership role and everything seemed good. Colleagues loved “X” and were very happy to be a part of “X’s” team.

The fall:
The second year was a huge disappointment. “X’s” performance went downhill every quarter. There was a noticeable lack of passion and focus. Most importantly there was a lack of professionalism. Its almost like I choose absolutely the wrong person in a leadership role. It seemed that “X’s” only goal was to get to a leadership position … and that was the end of it!

Tasks that could have been done in a day or two took weeks and sometimes months. The quality of work was consistently inconsistent.
I’ve had several closed door meetings with “X” in the past year, on some ocassions asking the person to QUIT but for some reason (that I cannot explain) “X” stayed on. In hindsight I think it was a BIG mistake… and I’ve had to pay a price for it: Slowdown in the Organization’s growth.

Now that this person has QUIT, I have mixed feelings; for very obvious reasons, I’ll keep them to myself
Our entire team is SAD … they cant believe that they will no longer
see the lovable “X” at the workplace. It is as if a sibling has moved out of the house. “X” will be missed.
And it sucks to know that I’m responsible for this decision.

I hope they’ll understand that my options are limited. When you lead a startup: Very few decisions are easy.

In hindsight I think that if “X” was not promoted to a leadership position and instead was reporting to somebody, it would have been better for everybody.

I’ve learnt something here the hard way: Leaders are born, not made