If your team at a startup of <=10 people assumes you are lying or that you have no idea how someone performs (to the point of firing a good performer for bad performance) you've got much bigger problems than that employee.

I don't think so. There can be good reasons not to tell the whole truth about why someone was fired, and it's normal for managers to have only a rough idea of how well people are performing, even in a small company.

If you're the boss then "what you perceive" as poor performance and "what is" poor performance are effectively the same thing. Companies aren't democracies were the team decides on what the bar is. The role of the lead / manager / owner is to set that bar and help the team to reach it.

It's certainly possible for the boss to base their evaluation on mistaken beliefs. For example, they might think Employee A is largely responsible for a delay in releasing Feature X when in fact it was Employee B.

I have to say though, this whole discussion is a fascinating insight into what appears to be the thought process of many managers and/or founders.

Who was responsible for a delay isn't what's being asked at all. What's being asked is: "I have an employee who isn't producing the outputs requested of them in a timely manner, what should I do?" This has nothing to do with Feature X or Feature Y. They also highlighted behavioural issues. These are all within the scope of a leader to determine.

I understand that. The point is just that a boss isn't infallible in evaluating the performance of their employees. I wasn't expecting that to be a controversial statement, but you seemed to be challenging it. As to whether or not the person who asked the question is right, it's obviously impossible for us to know.

My response was in the context of "what your team members perceive" to be performance. My response was quite simply: "you get what you measure." Your team will respond to your perception by focusing on improving in areas that you perceive to be markers of good performance.

That certainly can happen. However, it depends on at least the following assumptions:

* Your perception of your employees' performance is consistent and predictable over time. Not all bosses evaluate based on consistent and predictable criteria.

* Your perception isn't significantly distorted by false beliefs about who has done (or not done) what.

(Needless to say, that's generic 'you', not you specifically.)

If you want, you can say "I hereby define 'good performance' to be any performance that I, the boss, think is good" – but that's just a semantic game.

None of that is relevant to my point.

"I hereby define 'good performance' to be any performance that I, the boss, think is good"

At its most basic level, that's _exactly_ what we as leadership do. All you're now saying is "some bosses suck." Well... yes, news at 11.