Consider the Source: How to Deal With the Problem Employee Nobody Wants to Talk About

Most leaders don't avoid problem employees because they don't care. They avoid them because they don't know if they'll be supported when they do something about it.

In this episode of Leadership After 5, Kim gets honest about one of the hardest parts of leadership: dealing with the employee who is quietly destroying your team's culture while the organization looks the other way. She shares her worst leadership story, including what it felt like to return from maternity leave and walk directly into a campaign designed to dismantle her reputation, and the mentor's advice that got her through it.

Kim also names her biggest leadership regret from that season. And gives you the four things that actually move the needle when you are dealing with a problem employee the right way.

This episode is for the leader who knows what needs to be done. And is trying to find the courage to do it anyway.

Consider the source. And keep going.

Transcript

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Welcome to Leadership After Five, where leadership gets real. If you're new here, hi, I'm Kim. I'm so happy you're here. I want to suspend something for a moment. I know you've heard it. I've probably said it myself. And that is feedback is a gift. And it is. But for the purposes of this conversation, I need you to set that idea down. Because today, I want to look at feedback differently, not as a gift, but as a survival mechanism for you, for your team, and for the organization you are responsible for leading. Because the conversation we are about to have is not about feedback as a nicety. It is about feedback as a thing that stands between a functional team and a culture in free fall. Today we are talking about the problem employee, the one nobody wants to deal with, the one that gets shuffled from manager to manager, division to division, every four to six months, like a hot potato nobody wants to hold. The one that is quietly destroying your team's culture while leadership looks the other way. And I'm going to tell you my worst leadership story, because why not, right? But no, honestly, you deserve the real version of this conversation, not the sanitized one. When I was an individual contributor, I used to watch my managers avoid problem employees, and I had opinions about it. I thought they were scared, they lacked courage. I thought if I were ever in that position, I would handle it differently. I would do the thing, whatever the thing is. I would address it directly. I would not let a problem employee disrupt the entire team while leadership pretended not to notice. I think you know where I'm going with this, right? Then I became a leader. Surprise. And I walked directly into one of the most complex and humbling parts of this job. If it's nothing else I learned from this, it was to keep my mouth shut and stop judging because you never know until you're walking in that shoes. But here we go. Giving feedback to a problem employee and taking disciplinary action, that's hard. And doing the thing I had judged other leaders for not doing was also hard. And I will be honest with you about what I felt in those moments. It was fear. Not because I didn't know what needed to be done. I did. It was because I looked around at the culture I was operating in and I realized very quickly, yeah, I don't know if I'm going to be supported if I do this. And that changed everything for me. I want to tell you about a season in my career that I have never fully talked about publicly. I had just returned from maternity leave, and you know, I was finding my footing, adjusting to being back, trying to be present at work while also being present at home in a completely new way. Within my first month back, I walked into a nightmare. Complete nightmare. I had made a decision, a strategic one, one that aligned to the broader organizational goals. And someone on my team disagreed with it, which is fine. But they not only disagreed, but they wanted me to abandon it entirely and go in a completely different direction. And I refused. A black top and a pair of jeans. My husband was in the living room waiting for me to finish the call. We had lunch plans. We were already late. And I was on that call raising this situation to leadership, describing what was happening, asking for support. And what I got back was not what I needed. And it's no criticism to my leadership at the time. It's the culture. The culture at that organization was not supportive of leaders taking disciplinary actions. There was an unspoken rule that keeping the peace mattered more than addressing the problem. And so instead of support, I got something that felt a lot like figure it out, work around it, make it work. My husband waited, of course, you know, lunch got later. And I sat at that computer realizing that I was on my own. That situation and that realization changed something for me. I was in the military, so I know what it's like to be on my own and really having to defend myself in a much different way. But I never once thought that once I stepped into a leadership role, that that would come back into my life of some like something I needed to do. I did what I could and I carried that situation longer than I should have. Because honestly, the culture made it clear that pressing forward with disciplinary action was not only not accepted, but it was going to put a target on my back. So I did what was acceptable instead of what was right. And that is one of my greatest leadership regrets. I know now I should have pressed a disciplinary action route. I should have documented more. I should have moved through the formal process regardless of whether the culture supported it. Instead, I watched that employee get shuffled, move to another manager, another department, another team that inherited the same problem with no context and no warning. And I have to live with the fact that I allowed that to happen. Here's what got me through the hardest part of it. I had a mentor, and they said something to me that I have never forgotten. Consider the source. Don't try to fix the narrative, don't try to chase it, don't respond to every whisper. Let it play out. Because the people know the source, and no amount of reputation destroying will ever change who the source actually is. I held on to that, and they were right. I mean, I'm still here. My career not only survived that season, it grew beyond it. The narrative that person tried to build about me never had a foundation because the foundation they were building was not on truth. It was an agenda. But I want to be clear about something. Surviving it does not mean I handle it perfectly. And the lesson I carry from that season is not just about resilience. It is about what happens when leaders don't do hard things because the culture makes it too costly. The problem doesn't go away, it just becomes someone else's problem until eventually it becomes the organization's problem. And by then, it has cost far more than anyone wanted to pay. I want to name something directly before I give you a practical framework to work with. If your organization shuffles problem employees instead of addressing them, that is not a manager problem. That is a leadership failure at the top. When the culture signals that taking disciplinary action puts a target on your back, when leaders who do the right thing get left on an island without support, when the unspoken rule is to keep the peace at the expense of the people being impacted by the problem, you have created a system that protects the wrong people. And that system has a cost. And the payday always comes. The team member who watches the problem employee get shuffled and learns that this organization will not protect them. The manager who does the right thing and pays for it professionally. The next team that inherits the problem with no context and no warning. And the problem employee themselves, who never gets the honest feedback that might actually change something, you know, they get moved instead of develop, they eventually exit the organization having never been given a real opportunity to course correct. That is a culture problem. And it starts at the top. If you're a senior leader listening to this, the way you respond when a manager brings you a difficult employee situation is either building a culture of accountability or destroying it. There is no neutral position here. Okay, so now let's get practical. Because knowing why it's hard doesn't help you if you don't know what to do about it. So I'm gonna give you four things, and I want to be clear up front. This is not about setting someone up. This is not about abusing your position. This is for the leader who is genuinely trying to move the work forward and is being challenged by someone whose primary interest is disruption. Okay. First, set clear expectations again. I know you've probably already done it. Do it again. But this time, do it in a way that is methodical, documented, and unambiguous, not as a power move, as a leadership responsibility. The employee needs to know exactly what is expected of them, what good performance looks like, and what the consequences are if those expectations are not met. No gray areas, no room for interpretation clear. Second, hold them accountable every time. This is where most leaders fall asleep at the wheel. You set the expectations and then life happens and you ease up. Don't. If a deadline was set and not met, name it explicitly, document it. Give the employee the opportunity to course correct and make it clear what happens if they don't. You cannot hold someone accountable to a standard you set and then stop enforcing it. Consistency is everything here. Third, give continuous feedback, not just in a formal review, not just when something goes wrong, but regularly and specifically. This employee needs to know at every interval exactly where they stand, what they're doing well, and where they still need to improve. What is at risk if the pattern continues? Remove all the personal from it. This is a business conversation. The work either meets the standard or it doesn't. Keep it there. The fourth and last is be ready to move to the formal action and mean it. This is the step most leaders avoid, and I get it. And it is the most important one, to be quite fair. Settle it in yourself before you get there. Decide if the expectations are met, if the accountability conversations are not producing change, if the continuous feedback is not landing, you are going to move to formal action and you are going to follow through. Lean on your HR department. If you have a functional relationship there, use them for the language, the documentation, the process. That is what they are for. And if you're in an organization where you know that formal action will not be supported, that is important information. It does not mean you do nothing. It does not mean you document nothing. No, document everything anyway. You do the right thing anyway, and you make sure there is a clear record of what you did and what the organization chose not to support. Because someday that record matters. Dealing with the problem employee is not optional. It is not something you can table indefinitely. It is not something you solve by moving the problem to someone else's desk. It is one of the most important things you will do as a leader because every day you don't address it, your team is watching. And what they're seeing is either a leader that has my back, or this leader will let the problem fester to protect their own comfort. You do not get to choose whether this is hard. It is hard. That is not negotiable. What you do get to choose is whether you do the hard thing anyway. And if someone is running a campaign against you right now, if someone is trying to build a narrative about who you are that has nothing to do with who you actually are, consider the source. Don't chase the narrative, don't respond to every whisper. Let it play out. I know it feels tough, but let it play out because the truth has foundation and the agenda doesn't. You are still here, so keep going. This came from a real place today. And I hope it landed in a real place for you. Hey, I want to hear from you. Find me on LinkedIn, send me an email, tell me what you're dealing with. This is leadership after five, where leadership gets real. I'll see you in the next episode. Take care.