Asking Someone to Leave, When Nobody Is the Boss

Every self-managing group eventually meets the situation it has no process for: someone has to go, and there is no manager whose job that is.

What happens next is predictable. Nobody feels entitled to act. Everyone assumes someone else will. The situation runs for a year or two while good people quietly leave around it, and the eventual removal is messy, personal, and damages the group far more than an early clean process would have.

Design this before you need it. Designing it while you need it means designing it about a specific person, and everyone will know.

Get the diagnosis right first

Four different situations get confused, and they need different responses.

Capability. They cannot do the work to the standard needed. Usually solvable: change the role, get support, or find the thing they are good at. Only becomes an exit if there is no such thing.

Conduct. They behave in a way that harms others. Not solvable by role changes. Needs to be addressed directly and quickly, and tolerance here is read by everyone as policy.

Fit. They are capable and decent, and they cannot work without a manager, or cannot handle being overruled, or need a certainty this structure does not have. Nobody's fault. Genuinely nobody's fault, and saying so honestly is what makes it survivable.

Capacity. The organization cannot afford them. Not about the person at all, and must not be dressed up as if it were.

Most groups avoid the diagnosis because it feels like judgment. But treating a fit problem as a capability problem produces months of pointless coaching, and treating a conduct problem as a fit problem lets harm continue.

The process, written in advance

1. Someone names it. As a tension, in the three sentences: what I observe, what it affects, what I want. See How to Name a Tension. It goes to the person directly first, always, unless it is a safety matter.

2. Direct conversation, with the actual words. Most of these end here, and most groups never get here because the conversation feels too hard. Say the specific thing. "In the last three sprints you have taken decisions that belong to your role back to the group, and it has slowed us. I need to understand what is happening."

3. A named support period. If it continues: an explicit period, six to twelve weeks, with what needs to change written down, who is helping, and a review date. Written, shared with them, and not a formality. This is where a fixable situation gets fixed.

4. Group decision. If it does not resolve: the group decides by consent, with the person informed that this is happening and given a chance to speak. Not a trial. They are told the process, the timing, and who is deciding.

5. Exit, decently. Notice, pay, a truthful account to the group, and no character assassination after they go.

Have a fast path for conduct that harms someone: immediate removal from the situation, then process. Write that down too, before you need it, or you will improvise it badly on the worst day.

The specific dysfunctions of a flat group

Diffusion. Everybody assumes somebody else is handling it. Fix: a named role. Someone whose explicit accountability is that these conversations happen. Not that they decide, that they do not go unaddressed. Without a name, the answer is always nobody.

The missing stair. Everyone has quietly adapted around one person. New people are warned informally. Nobody has ever said it to them directly, so from their side nothing is wrong and the eventual conversation is a blindside. If you find yourself warning newcomers about someone, you have found an unaddressed problem, and the warning is the evidence.

Endless process as avoidance. Another conversation, another support period, another review. Compassionate in appearance, cruel in practice: the person is left in a situation where they are failing and everyone knows, for months longer than necessary. Set the number of cycles in advance.

The founder exception. Sometimes the person who has to go is a founder or the most connected person. Most groups cannot do this and destroy themselves instead. Decide in advance whether your process applies to everyone, and if it does not, say so plainly rather than discovering it.

Conflict avoidance dressed as values. "We are a caring organization, so we do not do this." Not caring for the six people carrying the extra load, or the two who left, or the person themselves, who is failing in public and being told everything is fine.

Doing it decently

Say it once, clearly, and do not negotiate. The decision is made before the conversation. Presenting it as a discussion when it is not is cruel.

Be specific about what and vague about who. "The pattern was X" not "several people felt Y". Naming who said what turns an exit into a feud.

Give them the account they will use. They have to explain this to a partner and to a next employer. Agree what you will both say. This costs you nothing and matters enormously to them.

Money first, feelings second. Tell them exactly what they will be paid and when, in the first two minutes. Nobody can process anything else until they know.

Tell the group the same day, briefly and without detail. Silence generates worse stories than the truth.

Afterwards

Ask the group, a fortnight later: what did we learn, and how long did we know?

The second question is the one that matters. The answer is almost always "much longer than we admitted", and the fix is never a better exit process. It is having the first direct conversation earlier.

Try this week

Write the process down now, while it is about nobody. One page: who names it, what happens first, how long the support period is, who decides, what the fast path for harm is.

Then ask the hardest question in this article: is there someone we are all quietly working around?

If the answer is yes, the process is not what you need first. A direct conversation is, and it is overdue.