22 - Managing an employee you do not like.

How to keep your judgement clean when the problem is chemistry, not performance.

Picture the person who gets under your skin. They are not a bad employee. The work gets done, the clients are happy and there is nothing you could point to on a review. They just rub you up the wrong way. The way they talk over people in meetings. The constant updates you never asked for. The laugh. You find yourself scanning their work harder than anyone else’s, reading tone into their emails and a little too quick to believe the worst when something goes sideways. You would never say it out loud, but if they resigned tomorrow part of you would be relieved.

Every owner has had one. It is human. You spend more waking hours with your team than with your own family. You are not going to click with all of them. Liking everyone is not the job. The trouble starts when the not-liking leaks into your decisions, into who gets the good work, the benefit of the doubt, the pay rise or the promotion. That is where a private feeling becomes an unfair workplace.

In a big company a personality clash can be diluted across a floor of people. In a small team it cannot. Your mood toward one person is visible to everyone. If the team senses you have a favourite, or a target, trust erodes fast. If the person you dislike happens to be good, letting that feeling drive them out is an expensive way to indulge a preference.

The goal is not to force yourself to like them. It is to make sure your feelings do not decide how you treat them. Here is how to keep the two apart.

You do not have to like someone to be fair to them. Fairness is the part that is actually your job.

Be honest with yourself first

You cannot manage a bias you will not admit to. Sit with the discomfort for a moment. Is this person actually underperforming, or do they just irritate you. Naming it privately, that you find this person annoying and it is colouring how you see their work, is not a character flaw. It is the first step to not acting on it. The owners who get this wrong are the ones who dress up a personal dislike as a performance concern.

Separate the behaviour from the person

Sometimes the irritation points at something real, a habit that genuinely affects the team. Sometimes it is just style, the way they are, harmless. Learn to tell the difference. If it is behaviour that hurts the work, address it plainly as you would with anyone. If it is just that they are not your cup of tea, that is your thing to manage rather than theirs to fix.

Judge the work, not the feeling

When it comes to the decisions that matter, the reviews, the opportunities and the rewards, force yourself onto the facts. What did they actually deliver. Would you rate this the same way if your favourite had done it. Asking that question honestly catches most of the bias before it does damage. Write down the reasons for a decision and see whether they hold up once the feeling is taken away.

Find one thing you respect

You do not have to be friends. You do have to find something genuine to work with. Almost everyone who is good at their job is good for a reason. Maybe they are relentless. Maybe they are brilliant with a difficult client. Maybe they never miss a deadline. Focusing on the thing you respect, rather than the thing that grates, slowly changes how you deal with them. They feel it too.

Keep it to yourself

Whatever you feel, the team does not need to know it. No eye-rolls, no side comments to your trusted few, no subtle freezing-out. The moment your dislike becomes public it gives everyone permission to pile on. You have turned a private problem into a workplace one. Professional warmth, held steadily, is not fake. It is the discipline the job asks of you.

What would you do?

Picture a team member who is technically excellent and personally exhausting. They question your calls, over-explain everything and generally make your jaw tighten. A small mistake lands and your first instinct is to come down harder than you would on anyone else. Stop there. Ask whether the mistake itself actually warrants that response, or whether you are reaching for a reason. Deal with the error exactly as you would for someone you like. Keep your tone level. You may never enjoy their company. You can still be the boss who treated them fairly, which is the only part that shows up in how the rest of the team sees you.

“Fairness is not a feeling. It is what you do when the feeling says otherwise.”

You are allowed to not like people. You are not allowed to let that quietly run your decisions. The discipline is simple to state and hard to hold. Notice the feeling, name it, then set it to one side and judge the work on its merits. Do that and you keep good people you might otherwise have lost. You also stay the kind of leader a team can trust, one who treats them by the same yardstick whether or not they would ever pick them for a beer on Friday.

Next in the series, how to turn a dysfunctional team back into one that actually works together.