Boss Trying to Get Me Fired? Warning Signs and How to Protect Your Job

First, breathe. If your boss wanted you gone and could easily fire you, you’d already be gone. The fact that you’re still employed usually means something is stopping him — and knowing what that is changes how afraid you need to be.

Then take it seriously anyway, because a boss who wants you fired but can’t afford it yet will often start building toward the day he can. This article covers both: the locks protecting you, the warning signs those locks are being picked, and the strategy that keeps you hard to fire.

Why He Hasn’t Fired You Yet

A boss who targets a strong performer is usually caught in a bind. Four locks hold him back:

He runs on your output. Your work props up his numbers and deadlines. Firing you crashes results that land on his review.

People are watching. If others above and around him know your value, firing you invites the question he fears most: what’s going on in that department?

He needs deniability. Openly destroying a good employee creates HR risk, legal risk, and reputation risk. He needs your fall to look self-inflicted. King Saul said it plainly three thousand years ago: “Let not mine hand be upon him” (1 Samuel 18:17) — he wanted David destroyed by Philistine hands, not his own. The move hasn’t changed.

Inside, he controls your story. Employed, you’re behind his filter. Fired, you’re free to thrive somewhere else in front of everyone — the outcome his ego can least survive.

Here’s why this matters: most targeted employees are more afraid of firing than the facts justify, and that inflated fear does the boss’s work for him — it keeps you silent, over-compliant, and shrinking. The threat he radiates is an instrument, not a plan.

The Warning Signs a File Is Being Built

The locks are real, but they can be picked — and a boss who’s decided to afford your termination leaves fingerprints. Watch for:

1. Formal write-ups over trivia that would have been a hallway comment six months ago
2. A performance improvement plan out of nowhere, especially with vague or shifting success criteria
3. HR appearing in routine conversations where HR never used to be
4. Sudden documentation requests — “put that in writing,” “recap that meeting” — from a boss who never wanted paper before
5. Your access shrinking fast: cut from meetings, projects reassigned, your visibility to leadership going dark
6. The word “attitude” entering your reviews for the first time in your career, with no incidents attached

One of these is a Tuesday. Three or more, accelerating, means the timeline is real — not a reason to panic, but a reason to execute.

The Clean-Hands Strategy

If someone is hunting for a legitimate reason to fire you, your job is to make sure there isn’t one. The hunted keep immaculate books:

Perfect the small compliance. Expenses exact, hours defensible, policies followed to the letter, no shortcuts a hostile reader could inflate. Deny him the only ammunition that actually works — the legitimate kind. David survived years of a king searching for a lawful charge against him because there was never one to find.

Keep your performance undeniable. Dropping your standards out of despair manufactures his evidence for free. Your excellence is your job security system.

Build your own record — off company systems. Every incident dated, every witness noted, every verbal instruction confirmed by a same-day email. If this ends in a dispute, severance negotiation, or legal review, the contest is his file versus yours. Make yours better.

Stay visible beyond him. Every person outside his filter who knows your value firsthand reinforces the locks. Isolation is how the locks get picked.

Quietly prepare the exit you may never need. References lined up, resume current, finances building. A person with options negotiates from strength — and often never has to.

Go Deeper

The four locks, the file-building signs, the clean-hands doctrine, and the complete documentation system are all from my book, The Spirit of Saul: Surviving the Boss Who Wants to See You Fall — a field manual for high performers being targeted by insecure leaders.

Fear is what he’s counting on. Strategy is what he isn’t.

Commissioner William Epps is an author and security leadership consultant. His books are published through E.P.P.S Method Publishing Co.