Before You Blame Problem Staff, Check the System

Jun 22

Summer is officially doing what summer does, which is somehow making the days feel slower and the calendar feel like it was assembled by a committee with no adult supervision. Betty finished tennis camp with her cousins, I got my grays covered because priorities, we celebrated Jake’s birthday and Father’s Day, and I went to a retirement party for an amazing friend.

It was one of those weeks that made me think about seasons. The kind we celebrate. The kind we survive. The kind where people grow into something new. The kind where you realize what someone carried, built, learned, or became over time.

Years ago, I had an employee I initially thought was a problem employee. I had the story built in my head: difficult, resistant, not fully bought in, maybe not the right fit.

And then the story changed.

Not because I lowered expectations. Not because I ignored the issues. Not because everything was secretly fine and I just needed to be nicer, which is the kind of leadership advice that makes me want to scream.

The story changed because I changed the system around the work. I stopped assuming expectations were obvious and started naming them clearly. I gave more direct feedback instead of hoping the employee would connect the dots. I invested time in building trust so hard conversations felt productive instead of personal. I made sure the support I offered actually matched what was needed, and I became more consistent about accountability and follow-through.

And that employee became one of the strongest performers on the team.

That experience has stayed with me because it reminded me of something leaders sometimes forget: the system is not some mysterious force floating around the organization. Leaders build it. Leaders reinforce it. Leaders tolerate it. And leaders can change it.

So let’s start there.

TL;DR Leadership

This week’s idea comes from Gallup’s work on employee engagement, including its 2026 State of the Global Workplace report.

The useful part is this: disengagement is not just a mood. It is not just someone being annoying in a meeting or less enthusiastic than leadership would prefer. Gallup describes engagement as the psychological attachment employees have to their work, their team, and their employer. That means when engagement is low, it will eventually show up in behavior.

And this is where leaders get into trouble.

Because disengaged employees often look like “problem” employees from the outside.

They may be quiet. Defensive. Negative. Slow to follow through. Resistant to change. Checked out in meetings. Sharp in side conversations. Harder to motivate. Less willing to go above and beyond. Not exactly the energy you want in a staff meeting where everyone is already one agenda item away from losing it.

And sometimes, yes, the person really is the problem.

Some employees are in the wrong role. Some are avoiding accountability. Some are creating harm. Some are draining the team. Some have been given clarity, support, feedback, and time, and they are still choosing not to meet the standard.

We do not need to romanticize dysfunction. That helps no one, especially the strong people carrying extra weight while everyone tiptoes around what is obvious.

But “problem staff” should be a conclusion leaders reach after checking the system, not the shortcut they use to avoid checking it.

That is the distinction.

Before deciding someone is the problem, leaders have to ask harder questions about the conditions around that person’s work. Were expectations actually clear, or did we assume they understood? Was feedback direct, or did we soften it until it became fog? Was the role reasonable, or did it become a junk drawer of everyone else’s leftovers? Did the manager coach, avoid, rescue, hover, disappear, or only show up when something went wrong?

Did we name the standard? Did we give the support? Did we follow through on the consequence? Did we make strong work clear, possible, and worth staying engaged in?

Those questions are uncomfortable because they do not let anyone off the hook. Not the employee. Not the manager. Not the leader. Not the system. Good. That is where the useful work starts.

Because every one of those questions points back to something leaders can influence. Leaders create clarity. Leaders establish accountability. Leaders shape trust. Leaders decide what gets reinforced and what gets ignored. Leaders set the tone for whether feedback is normal or avoided. Leaders determine whether expectations live in people’s heads or in actual conversations.

Gallup’s 2026 report says global employee engagement has dropped to 20%, the lowest level since 2020. Hold on, read that again. That means only 1 in 5 employees are engaged. This is a huge deal.

Gallup also estimates that low engagement cost the world economy about $10 trillion in lost productivity. That is not a small “people are cranky” issue. That is a systems issue. A trust issue. A leadership issue. An execution issue.

The report also points to managers as a major pressure point. Manager engagement has dropped sharply since 2022, and the largest recent decline happened between 2024 and 2025, when manager engagement fell from 27% to 22%.

That matters because managers are often the bridge between the organization’s big words and the employee’s actual daily experience. The strategy says one thing. The manager makes it real or confusing. The values say one thing. The manager makes them credible or decorative. The performance standard says one thing. The manager either names it clearly or lets everyone guess.

So when leaders talk about problem staff, I want to know what happened before that label showed up.

Was there a clear expectation? Was there timely feedback? Was there enough context? Was there a real conversation? Was there a fair process? Was there trust? Was there capacity? Was there a manager equipped to manage?

Or did the organization let ambiguity sit for six months and then act shocked when frustration grew legs?

This is where my turnaround employee story still stays with me.

It would have been easy to keep seeing that employee through the first story I had created. It would have been easy to collect evidence that proved my original read. Leaders do this more than we like to admit. Once we decide someone is difficult, we start seeing everything through that filter.

Their question becomes resistance. Their silence becomes attitude. Their mistake becomes proof. Their frustration becomes character.

And sometimes the filter is accurate. Again, some people really are not a fit. But sometimes the filter is lazy.

In this case, the employee needed clearer expectations, more honest feedback, stronger trust, and a better way to understand what good performance looked like. Once those pieces were in place, the performance changed. The relationship changed. The contribution changed.

That did not happen because accountability disappeared. It happened because accountability finally had something solid to stand on.

Accountability without clarity turns personal fast. People start feeling attacked because the standard was implied, not named. Leaders get frustrated because the employee “should know.” The employee gets defensive because the rules seem to appear only after they have broken them. Everyone starts reacting to the tension instead of fixing the structure underneath it.

And then the person becomes the problem. Maybe they are. But maybe the system helped create the behavior leadership is now complaining about.

And if the system contributed to the problem, leaders have more power than they think because leaders can redesign systems. They can clarify expectations. They can improve communication. They can create feedback rhythms. They can address workload issues. They can coach managers. They can stop rewarding confusion and start rewarding consistency.

This does not mean leaders should tolerate poor performance forever. Please do not turn this into an inspirational poster about giving everyone endless chances. That is not leadership. That is avoidance wearing a cardigan.

The point is to diagnose before you decide.

If the issue is clarity, clarify. If the issue is feedback, tell the truth sooner. If the issue is capacity, stop pretending one person can carry three jobs and a miracle. If the issue is trust, address the break. If the issue is skill, train or coach. If the issue is fit, say so. If the issue is unwillingness after all of that, then act.

That sequence matters because strong teams do not grow from vague kindness or vague frustration. They grow from clear expectations, honest feedback, real support, and consistent follow-through.

The best leaders I know are not soft on performance. They are serious about conditions. They understand that people do better work when they know what is expected, have what they need, receive honest feedback, experience fair accountability, and can trust that leadership will not avoid the hard thing until it becomes everyone’s problem.

And they understand something else: culture is not something that happens to leaders. Systems are not something that happen to leaders. Those are things leaders create.

Before you blame problem staff, check the system. Not because the system is always the whole problem. Because responsible leadership checks it anyway. And because if the system needs to change, leaders are the people with the power to change it.

One move to try this week

Think of one employee, team member, or recurring staff issue that keeps getting labeled as a “people problem.”

Before the next side conversation, frustration spiral, or leadership meeting where everyone sighs with their whole chest, ask these five questions:

Have we clearly named what good performance looks like?
Have we given direct feedback, or have we hinted and hoped?
Have we checked whether the workload, role, or expectations are realistic?
Have we provided the support, coaching, tools, or context needed?
Have we named what happens next if the behavior does not change?

If the answer is no, start there. Do not wait for motivation, engagement, or culture to magically improve first. Those things often improve because leaders take action on the conditions that create them. If the answer is yes and the issue continues, that is useful too. Now you are not guessing. You are leading from evidence, not vibes.

Still Good in the World

This week’s good thing comes again from Good Morning America, and it is about 14-year-old Shrey Parikh, the 2026 Scripps National Spelling Bee champion.

What I loved about this story is that it was not a clean little straight-line success story. Shrey had placed 89th in a previous Bee, then third, then missed last year’s competition because he was sick. Then he came back and won.

That is the kind of story I want to keep noticing because it reminds us that people are not just their last result.

Sometimes growth looks like coming back after disappointment. Sometimes it looks like practicing after the moment passed. Sometimes it looks like being willing to try again after the evidence says you might not get the ending you wanted.

And then sometimes, beautifully, the kid who placed 89th becomes the kid holding the trophy.

That feels worth carrying into the week.

Fuel for the Week

“Clear is kind. Unclear is unkind.” Brené Brown

This is the line for this week because it holds both care and accountability. If expectations are unclear, feedback is vague, and consequences are implied, leaders should not be shocked when the work gets messy.

Clarity is not harsh. Clarity is what gives people a real chance to do better. And clarity is one of the most powerful tools leaders control every single day.

Until next week, go move the good work,

Nikki