AMA - Bad Construction Foreman

Today is another AMA episode (ask me anything). 

Kristi from Dayton Ohio asks:

I had to let my most trusted foreman go. I was really sick for 3 months last March and this man became my right hand man. I let him have more control of my job sites than I normally give any employee because I trusted him.

He also became our friend and would frequently send food and candy home for me and my husband. I stopped talking directly to my employees and only communicated with my foreman.

We went through 38 employees since January. I had multiple complaints from my employees that my foreman would yell at them, have unrealistic expectations, and wasn't doing any work on any of the job sites, he was only giving orders.

My first mistake is that I thought the job my foreman was doing for me was more important than listening to my employees who had reached out to me. I let my foreman fire the people who weren't working out.

I decided to watch the work he did during a course of a week.

During this week of observation, hardly anything got done, the work he did was shotty, and he tried to take credit for others work. There was no one else to blame for the short comings. He had to go. Where did we go wrong?