Well, I wasn't there, but I'm more inclined to believe that he wasn't given the support and mentorship he needed to learn than that he was simply "bad" and incapable of growing into the role. Maybe your organization wasn't in a position to provide that and it was a bad match, it happens.
If you decide this dude isn't gunnuh make it and start cutting him off projects rather than getting him more support, it's a self fulfilling prophecy. And it's pretty messed up to trash him that way.
If I'm being perfectly frank, this doesn't so much sound like a case where brutal honesty saved a project than a case where you lacked the tact and emotional intelligence to navigate a delicate situation (or perhaps were frazzled by a complex project with deadlines where you felt your colleague wasn't carrying their weight), and so you just took a sledge hammer to it.
That's such a brutal way to treat a colleague, it must have been devastating for their moral. Like, what was your relationship to this person like after that? Did they stay on? Were your team lead and manager really okay with how you handled that?
If you decide this dude isn't gunnuh make it and start cutting him off projects rather than getting him more support, it's a self fulfilling prophecy. And it's pretty messed up to trash him that way.
If I'm being perfectly frank, this doesn't so much sound like a case where brutal honesty saved a project than a case where you lacked the tact and emotional intelligence to navigate a delicate situation (or perhaps were frazzled by a complex project with deadlines where you felt your colleague wasn't carrying their weight), and so you just took a sledge hammer to it.
That's such a brutal way to treat a colleague, it must have been devastating for their moral. Like, what was your relationship to this person like after that? Did they stay on? Were your team lead and manager really okay with how you handled that?