I don't want to work for a manager who will never think: "Huh, this situation is serious enough for someone to make this kind of ultimatum. Who is right and why? Let me take a moment to think about it with an open mind and pick the most appropriate reaction regardless of what I previously thought."
Sometimes the person making an ultimatum is right, sometimes they're wrong. It shouldn't be as adversarial as viewing yielding as weak. Insisting on always "winning" is in my view the weak position.
Additionally, firing someone is not always legal in some countries, even after an ultimatum, assuming they pick the wording of their ultimatum carefully (e.g. "I may very well resign if/unless [desired condition]") to retain control over whether they will later finalize their conditional decision to resign.
As one example, in Quebec, employees who don't qualify as "senior management" and who have been employed at a company there for an uninterrupted period of at least 2 years cannot legally be fired without what the law considers good cause, period, not even if the company gives them a notice period or pay in lieu. Any alleged noncompliance or misconduct that falls short of the most extreme examples must be first dealt with a graduated process of progressively stronger discipline, and it must be possible for someone to recover from that instead of having the outcome of the process as a foregone conclusion. There is a government tribunal to which an aggrieved party can appeal if they aren't happy with the outcome, with the power to order remedies including back pay and even reinstatement.
Similar things are found in many European countries, though certainly not all.
Of course, ultimatums with more definitive wording like "I resign if/unless [condition that the listener has control over]" -- note the absence of hesitating words like "may very well" -- can irreversibly become an effective resignation worldwide, based on choice of the listener on whether to satisfy or reject the condition.
Sometimes the person making an ultimatum is right, sometimes they're wrong. It shouldn't be as adversarial as viewing yielding as weak. Insisting on always "winning" is in my view the weak position.
Additionally, firing someone is not always legal in some countries, even after an ultimatum, assuming they pick the wording of their ultimatum carefully (e.g. "I may very well resign if/unless [desired condition]") to retain control over whether they will later finalize their conditional decision to resign.
As one example, in Quebec, employees who don't qualify as "senior management" and who have been employed at a company there for an uninterrupted period of at least 2 years cannot legally be fired without what the law considers good cause, period, not even if the company gives them a notice period or pay in lieu. Any alleged noncompliance or misconduct that falls short of the most extreme examples must be first dealt with a graduated process of progressively stronger discipline, and it must be possible for someone to recover from that instead of having the outcome of the process as a foregone conclusion. There is a government tribunal to which an aggrieved party can appeal if they aren't happy with the outcome, with the power to order remedies including back pay and even reinstatement.
Similar things are found in many European countries, though certainly not all.
Of course, ultimatums with more definitive wording like "I resign if/unless [condition that the listener has control over]" -- note the absence of hesitating words like "may very well" -- can irreversibly become an effective resignation worldwide, based on choice of the listener on whether to satisfy or reject the condition.