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Key Takeaways Being fired, especially more than once, can shake your confidence. Make sure you center yourself, assess your skills and market yourself accurately in future job interviews.
You cannot anticipate every difficult board, cultural mismatch or biased leader. That said, you can still focus on building your self-awareness, investing in your growth and carefully evaluating your next opportunity so you stop repeating the same cycle.
As a tech career and executive coach, one of the most frustrating issues I see senior leaders face is having an impressive track record, yet being let go more than once and not being able to figure out why. When you’re terminated at the leadership level, feedback is often minimal or non-existent, leaving you wondering what happened and what you can do differently next time.
Here’s an important distinction: Being fired isn’t the same as being laid off. Layoffs are ravaging the tech industry. This article isn’t about them. It’s specifically for leaders who have been let go for performance, behavior, or fit-related reasons and who keep finding themselves in the same situation.
When you get fired, especially more than once, it’s worth looking inward. The goal isn’t to assign blame but to identify what’s within your control and can be changed and what isn’t.
1. Did you adequately vet the company before joining?
Most leaders prepare obsessively for interviews but rarely invest equal time evaluating whether a potential company, culture, board or role is truly right for them. Interview processes are designed to sell you on the company, which means you must actively push back to ensure the fit works both ways. This is particularly important at the leadership level, where value mismatches can quickly lead to termination.
Reflecting back, did you talk to people who left before accepting the role? Did you ask why the last person in this role left and how long they lasted? Did you understand the board’s priorities and what success would look like at 90 days, six months and one year?
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