The tough parts of leadership

Firing someone:  If you haven't had to do this, rest assured you will and it sucks.  I have been laid off twice.  The first time, I was not prepared at all.  The second time, I already had a job lined up.  Both times, you are left with an empty feeling - so much of my identity is tied to my job, whether you are fired or laid off, its a message that is hard to hear and even harder to reconcile with.  This was a great article on how to do this part of your job with compassion and respect.

How to handle underperformers on a team you inherit: Regardless of whether you have a team of solid performers or underperformers, I think a new managers first task should be to set clear expecations about what good performance looks like.  This article did a nice job of laying out some things I had to figure out on my own the first time I encountered this problem.