There was an incident that occurred in 2013 that had its own viral moment.

It’s the type of situation that every company’s public relations, human resources, and legal departments fear.

It’s the day the head of their well-known company makes global news — in a REALLY bad way!

So, what happened in 2013 that’s relevant today for managers who want to succeed at the people part of the job?

In 2013, Tim Armstrong, who was then the CEO of America Online, became the object lesson on how not to handle employee performance issues. Sadly, even today his actions are still an object lesson as a Google search of the words “tim armstrong firing” brings up over 4 million hits (as of today).

I remember the incident well. At that time, I was traveling the country conducting leadership seminars for a global training firm. His real world mistake became a valuable teaching moment in my seminars on how not to correct an employee.

Even though I used the incident with Tim Armstrong to help the managers in my seminars become better leaders, I actually felt badly for him. I know how difficult management can be. And, it’s easy for any manager to have a temporary lapse of judgment and let his or her emotions get the best of him or her. In the heat of the moment, those emotions can cause any manager to say or do something that he or she might later regret.

Social media and the press criticized him severely over his public firing of an employee in a conference call of over 1,000 participants. To his credit, Tim did apologize for the manner in which he fired his employee. The damage was done however and this incident remains a teachable moment in management and leadership circles.

So, what was that critical leadership lesson from Tim’s unfortunate lapse in judgment that’s still relevant today?

The lesson is a well known leadership principle for employee performance management. It’s the concept that when you are dealing with performance management issues, as much as possible, you should praise in public and correct in private.

This principle is valuable for employee motivation and morale. It’s also valuable for your own career survival however.

Here’s why this is true: before this millennium, the firing of an employee during an internal conference call would never have made national news. In this new century, however, we live in different times. With digital media, everyone is a journalist now. With social media, everyone now has a global distribution platform through which they can get out their message.

The truth is that employees have never responded well to public humiliation. And, employees have always found ways to get even with their bosses. This 2013 AOL firing shows how easy this is to do in this new century.

In 2013, a leaked audio recording made its way onto a media blog where it then spread like a wild fire to major media sources. It’s even easier today for employees to get even. They don’t have to leak an audio file. They can just post any incident online in multiple platforms and create a global viral moment.

Think about this situation this way:

In these days where anyone can record you and put your actions on the Internet for the entire world to see, do you want your public image to be one of you losing your temper with your employee? The reason for your anger won’t matter much if your actions become a viral moment!

This lesson from this 2013 incident shows that it’s best to be careful how you interact with your employees in all situations. It’s important to always have and use emotional intelligence as you manage your team. It’s especially important to have emotional intelligence when you deal with difficult situations in the workplace.

So, the next time you feel yourself getting angry with an employee, remember that you are just one click away from becoming an unwanted YouTube viral video case study of how a manager should not act. And, most of all no matter how angry you may justifiably be about something going wrong in the workplace, avoid publicly humiliating the affected employee.

The fact is that publicly humiliating your employee will likely backfire on you in some way!