New York Mets manager Willie Randolph finally got fired Monday evening after months of speculation. The Mets' unprecedented collapse last season—losing a seven-game division lead with just 17 games to go—initiated the death watch, and a poor start this year, despite having signed the best pitcher in baseball in the off-season, proved to be the final straw.

Along the way, Randolph seldom helped his cause, making strategic missteps both on and off the field. Here are some lessons the former manager could have learned from America's top corporate chieftains about hanging on to one's job even when shareholders are calling for one's head.
   
Throw someone under the bus. For John Mack at Morgan Stanley, when trouble came, it was him or Zoe Cruz. Cruz got the boot. Lehman Brothers' Richard Fuld, who is presiding over a sinking ship, may have bought some time for himself by getting rid of some of his top lieutenants. But throughout the current crisis, Randolph has steadfastly stood behind his coaches, expressing surprise and dismay last July when Mets general manager Omar Minaya fired hitting coach Rick Down, a close friend of Randolph's, for the team's poor performance at the plate. Now not only is Randolph gone, but so are his pitching coach and first-base coach.

Treat your talent well and they will flourish—and so will you.  Last July, Randolph benched and strongly criticized young star shortstop José Reyes for not running out a ground ball. Reyes sulked for weeks and never seemed the same afterward, hitting a paltry .248 over the last three months of the 2007 season and failing to produce in countless key situations during the Mets' epic collapse. Compare this with Jack Welch's renown for hiring and developing key talent while at G.E.—among them, current G.E. C.E.O. Jeff Immelt and current Chrysler chief Robert Nardelli. "It's understood if you're not managing talent effectively, your tenure is going to be short," says Dan Fisher, managing partner of Fisher Rock Consulting, an organizational consulting firm, of Fortune 100 companies. And the same is even truer in professional sports.

Face down your detractors. Randolph's been on the hot seat for months, forcing him (and all his players) to answer questions from the press about whether Randolph was worried about losing his job. While Randolph couldn't have guaranteed his own job security, it might have helped if he publicly accepted responsibility for the team's struggles, and more forcefully answered questions. Lehman's Dick Fuld did just that this week, and it seems to have kept him out of the line of fire, at least for now.

Be careful when playing the race card. Back in May, Randolph, who is black, angered the Mets' owners by suggesting in a newspaper interview that SportsNet New York, the Mets' cable station, had portrayed him negatively compared with white managers. The owners felt he was bringing up an unnecessary and unwarranted distraction, and held a private two-and-a-half-hour meeting with him to berate him for it. Randolph should probably have taken a page from successful black executives like American Express' Ken Chenault or former Time Warner C.E.O. Richard Parsons, who seldom, if ever, brought up race and certainly not in discussions of how they were being evaluated. While Randolph may have been right about having experienced racism, as an executive, it rarely helps your case to publicly call it out.