Is their performance my fault?
Have you ever spent more time worrying about a performance conversation than it would take to actually have it?
Often, I have discussions with clients where the energy is:
"I know I need to address this, but I'm not sure if it's my fault. Have I been clear enough? Did I set the right expectations? Should I have caught this sooner?"
The hard part about leading people is that sometimes you feel like you've been crystal clear about expectations, but you're still not seeing the outcomes you want to see.
I get it. These moments are messy.
The challenge isn’t always that someone’s underperforming. The challenge is the swirl of questions that hits you at once:
Did I set the expectations clearly enough?
Is this resistance, burnout, or just a bad fit?
Am I contributing to the problem in ways I haven’t admitted yet?
Is it time to be more direct… or more supportive?
These are the real questions that keep leaders up at night. And the hard truth is this: if you’re asking them, you care. That matters.
But here's the rub: every day you delay the conversation, you’re not just avoiding discomfort — you’re draining your leadership energy. You’re operating from the weeds, not from the canopy.
Over the last few weeks, I’ve worked with leaders stuck in this very tension. One of them came to me convinced their team member “just doesn’t want to work hard.” After we unpacked the situation, they realized they needed to test this assumption and see if something else was going on before they took action.
Another was wrestling with whether it was time to have a hard performance conversation, "But sometimes the work is great," they said. But when we dug deeper, we discovered they'd been making accommodations for months, and others were starting to notice the gaps.
Leadership isn’t about always knowing the right answer. It’s about staying curious long enough to find the right next move.
Here’s what I help leaders figure out:
What’s really going on beneath the surface?
What role have I played — intentionally or not?
What have I been tolerating, adjusting for, or excusing?
What outcome do I actually want from this next conversation?
And most importantly… how do I lead in a way that aligns with the kind of leader I want to be long term?
There’s rarely one perfect path forward. That’s why performance conversations feel so heavy — they’re rarely just about performance.
This is why leaders need thinking partnerships, not advice. You don’t need a script. You need someone to sit beside you, help you make sense of the nuance, and reflect it back in a way that helps you move forward.
When you're caught in the “what do I do?” fog — that’s your signal to zoom out.
From the canopy view, the question shifts from "Who's to blame?" to "How do we both succeed from here?" It moves from guilt to partnership, from judgment to strategy.
That's where clarity lives. And clarity is what creates the confidence to have the conversation that's been weighing on you.
What conversation are you still playing out in your head? If you're ready for a partner to help you sort through it, I’d love to talk.
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