You're a manager, not a parent

There's a manager I know who spent two years "developing" an underperformer. Weekly one-on-ones. Extra training. Adjusted expectations. Patience that would make a saint jealous. When he finally let the person go, he described it as "a personal failure."

That's not management. That's parenting. And it's destroying managers everywhere.

The parenting trap

Somewhere along the way, we started confusing management with child-rearing. "Develop your people." "Grow your team." "Invest in their potential." It sounds noble. It feels good. And it's a fundamental misunderstanding of what management actually is.

Here's where it comes from. Some managers genuinely care about people — which is fine, until caring becomes an excuse for avoiding hard decisions. Some have ego wrapped up in their team's growth — "I made them who they are" is a hell of a drug. And some are just conflict-averse, dressing up their inability to have tough conversations as "giving people time to improve."

The result is the same: managers who feel personally responsible for turning every hire into a success story. As if their job is to raise adults.

Adults don't need raising

Your team members are not your children. They're adults who chose to exchange their labor for your money. They showed up with skills, habits, and work ethics already formed. You didn't shape them. You hired them.

This isn't cynical. It's clarifying.

When you hire someone, you're entering a business transaction. You offer a workplace, a role, compensation, and conditions to succeed. They offer their time, skills, and effort. If the exchange works for both sides — great. If it doesn't — the transaction ends.

A parent's love is unconditional. A manager's investment shouldn't be.

The moment you start treating team members like children who need your guidance to become whole people, you've broken the contract. You've made it personal. And personal gets messy.

What you actually do

Let me reframe the job.

You're not a developer of people. You're an architect of workplaces.

Your job is to create slots — roles that need to exist for the business to function. Define what success looks like in each slot. Find people who can fill those slots. Give them the conditions to succeed. Measure whether they're succeeding. Replace them if they're not.

That's it. That's management.

"Development" exists, but it's not what most managers think. Development means: making a capable person more capable so they can fill a bigger slot or fill their current slot better. It's an investment with expected returns. Not charity. Not personal growth coaching. Not therapy.

When development serves the business, do it. When it becomes an end in itself — when you're developing someone because you feel obligated to, or because giving up would feel like failure — you've lost the plot.

The identity problem

This is where self-definition matters.

If you see yourself as "someone who grows people," you'll hold onto underperformers too long. You'll feel like a failure when someone doesn't work out. You'll burn out trying to save everyone. And paradoxically, you'll actually hurt your good performers — because they're stuck carrying dead weight while you play savior.

If you see yourself as "someone who creates productive workplaces," everything changes. Letting go of a bad fit isn't failure — it's maintenance. Hiring well matters more than developing endlessly. Your emotional energy goes into building systems, not rescuing individuals.

The first identity feels warmer. The second actually helps more people.

Think about it: a well-run team with clear expectations, fair evaluation, and quick removal of poor fits is a better place to work than a team where underperformers linger for years while the manager "works with them." Your good people know the difference. They're watching.

The guilt test

Here's how to know if you have a parenting identity instead of a business identity.

When you fire someone you've "invested in," do you feel guilty? Not sad — sadness is human. Guilty. Like you failed them.

If yes, ask yourself: what exactly did you fail at?

Did you fail to give them clear expectations? That's on you, fix it for next time. Did you fail to provide resources they needed? Also on you. Did you fail to somehow transform them into a different person with different capabilities and different work habits? That was never your job.

You can't fail at something that wasn't your responsibility.

Here's a harder version: if you feel guilty firing someone, ask whether you'd feel equally guilty not hiring someone. Both decisions affect a person's livelihood. But we don't agonize over rejecting candidates. Why? Because we haven't created a false personal bond yet.

The guilt isn't about the employee. It's about your identity as their "developer." You're grieving your own narrative, not their loss.

Development that makes sense

I'm not saying never invest in people. I'm saying invest like a business, not like a family.

Good development looks like this: you have someone performing at level. They show capacity for the next level. Promoting them or expanding their role would benefit the business. You invest time and resources to get them there. They get there. Everyone wins.

Bad development looks like this: you have someone underperforming. You believe they have "potential." You invest time and resources to unlock this potential. Months pass. The potential remains theoretical. You invest more, because quitting now would "waste" previous investment. Your good performers pick up slack. The business suffers. Eventually you let the person go anyway, having burned a year.

The difference? Good development is pulled by business need. Bad development is pushed by manager identity.

If you're investing in someone primarily because you feel responsible for their growth — stop. That's parenting. If you're investing because their growth directly serves a business need and they're showing actual progress — continue.

When to let go

The manager who can't fire has a parenting identity. Full stop.

Firing sucks. Nobody enjoys it. But the inability to do it — the prolonged "performance improvement plans" that everyone knows are just delayed terminations, the endless second chances, the lowered standards — that's not kindness. That's avoidance dressed as compassion.

Parents can't fire their kids. Managers can and must remove people who don't fit. If you can't do this, you haven't accepted what management actually is.

There's a test I use: if someone on your team left tomorrow and your first reaction would be relief — why are they still there? What are you waiting for? What story are you telling yourself about "development" to avoid the obvious action?

Usually the answer is: you've made it personal. You've created an identity where their failure is your failure. And so you keep trying, because giving up would mean admitting something about yourself.

Let it go. Their performance isn't your identity. Your job is to run a team, not to save souls.

The uncomfortable flip side

Here's where it gets harder: this same logic applies to you.

If you're a manager, someone created a slot for you. You're supposed to fill it effectively. If you're not — if you're burning out, if your team underperforms, if you can't make hard calls — that's information.

Maybe you're in the wrong slot. Maybe you'd be happier as an IC. Maybe management isn't a promotion for you — it's a career change you didn't actually want.

There's no shame in this. Individual contribution is valuable. Not everyone should manage. The shame is in staying in a management role while doing it poorly because you've tied your identity to the title.

Your boss should be thinking about you the same way you should think about your team: are you filling the slot? Not "are you trying hard" or "do you have potential" or "have we invested enough." Are you filling the slot.

The identity worth having

So what should a manager's identity be?

Try this: "I create conditions for work to get done."

Not "I grow people." Not "I build teams." Not "I develop talent."

I create conditions for work to get done. I define what needs doing. I find people who can do it. I remove obstacles. I measure results. I make changes when results aren't there.

This identity is less emotionally satisfying. You don't get to feel like a mentor, a coach, a parent figure. You don't get credit for someone's personal growth journey. You don't get to tell stories about employees you "believed in when no one else did."

But you get something better: a team that works. Good performers who aren't demoralized by carried underperformers. Clear standards that everyone understands. Decisions made on business logic, not emotional entanglement. And honestly? Less burnout. Parenting is exhausting. Managing is just work.

Your people don't need a parent. They need someone who creates a fair, functional workplace where good work is recognized and poor work isn't tolerated.

Be that person.

Have experience with this — on either side? Let's discuss. And if this resonates — subscribe. More coming.