Person record locked when selected as proposed manager

Summary

Why is Proposed manager person record locked for editing? - "You can't make any changes for this person because their manager has changes pending approval."

Content

Where can you find out information on why is an employee record locked when there is no obvious reason. For example: when manager gets terminated and their direct reports are reassigned to a new proposed manager, the record of this proposed manager is locked for editing. When searching by name in the Transaction console or BPM worklist, the termination transaction is not showing. Is there a way that you can search by proposed manager or find out which is the specific transaction that is in flight?