This a curious practice. You are in front of a mess, a business fiasco, something perhaps gone horribly wrong. The leader in question ‘takes responsibility’ and resigns. Isn’t that interesting? I would have thought that ‘taking responsibility’ is to stay, clean up the mess and move on. Resigning is not ‘taking responsibility’; it’s passing the monkey.
I know, I know, what we mean is that he has to pay for the mess. Agree. So he stays and fixes it, I say.
OK, you think, then, that, what is meant is that he is not the right person, that is incompetent or unsuitable. That may be the case. But, suddenly? After the mess? Did we see it coming, and nobody did anything? Or are we just firing a sudden failure? Should we also fire his boss? Just kidding.
In my experience, in perhaps 9 out of 10 cases of ‘resignation’, the person resigning is still the most suitable, knowledgeable and equipped to fix ‘the reason’ for the resignation.
I don’t buy the ‘leaving’ as a punishment, as a macho power exercising, as a signal that the person has to pay, and when all this is done in a blind way, ignoring the possibility –just the possibility – that this person maybe the best suited to fix it. Maybe.
I don’t know who told me the story of a manager screwing up and producing a 100K loss, and going to his boss saying, ‘Well, I suppose this is it, sorry, I will resign’. To his boss replying, ‘Resigning?, you must be joking! I have just spent 100K in your education’.
Brave? There is a point here.
Macho management, making-the-point-management, paying-for-mistakes-management, they hardly are good business practices.
I don’t know. Perhaps he should resign, perhaps he wants to resign, but, could he clean up the mess first, please? Then we talk.
PS. And, making the big mistake(s), resigning, passing the monkey and leaving with a golden parachute, is simply immoral and stupid.