No One Shows Up to Fail.
Not one person I've ever encountered has shown up to work, a competition, or anything else intending to fail. Everyone wants to be successful. It doesn't always play out that way.
I see this across nearly every peer group we run. A CEO feels they need to let someone go from their leadership team. Wrong fit, they say. Not the right leader for where we're headed.
It's never a flippant conversation. It's always difficult, reluctant. An admission of failure by both sides: the CEO and the leader, about to be let go.
Here's what I've come to believe after enough of these conversations. It's rarely the individual who failed. It's the CEO who failed to select the right leader in the first place or failed to build the environment for that leader to succeed once in the seat.
Hiring or promoting on hope isn't a strategy. It's a bet, and most CEOs don't treat it that way. They pick someone they like, someone loyal, someone available, then skip the hard part. Defining the role. Building the person up. Checking in before it's a crisis, not after.
That means real conversations early. Clear expectations and priorities written down, not assumed. A mentor or coach assigned out of the gate.
Skip that work, and before long, you're sitting across from someone who never had a real shot, wondering why they didn't make it.
Lesson Learned: You are making the bet. Now build the odds for success in your favor.