Release Schedule

Once upon a time I was in an all-employee meeting. There were roughly one hundred of us in the room. The CEO wanted to let us know that an employee had been fired the previous evening. I didn’t know the employee myself, as he was in a different division, but he was a decently big deal. His firing was significant.

The CEO had a lot of good leadership qualities, but not nearly as many good management qualities in my opinion. He had immediately gathered us all together to talk about so-and-so being let go and what this meant to the organizational structure and stuff. That’s good leadership.

But, after getting the technical stuff out of the way, the CEO had no desire to discuss and understand how we felt about this person no longer being with us. The only thing he said was, “I’ll answer any questions that are appropriate.” Needless to say, no one raised their hands and the meeting was over. That’s not good management.

– Ben