How to Manage a Dishonest Employee Who Avoids Work
A manager struggles with a lying, underperforming employee. Here's the no-nonsense playbook for handling it.
You've got a direct report who lies to your face and skips doing actual work. Sound familiar? This is one of the ugliest management problems you can inherit — and how you handle it defines your credibility as a leader.
The core instinct here is understandable: you want to make clear this person can't drag your name into her mess. That's a real concern. Your reputation is on the line every time she blames upward or sideways. But reacting emotionally — sending pointed messages or making it personal — hands her leverage she doesn't deserve.
Read more 10 Films That Predicted Humanoid Robots With Eerie Accuracy →
The smarter move is documentation, and lots of it. Every missed deliverable, every provable lie, every instance where expectations were clearly set and ignored — write it down with timestamps. This isn't about building a grudge file. It's about creating an objective record that HR and senior leadership can act on, without you looking like the aggressor.
You also need to stop relying on trust. Manage her outputs, not her intentions. Set short, measurable deadlines. Require written confirmations. Make the work visible so there's nowhere to hide. If she can't perform under that structure, the evidence speaks for itself — you don't have to.
The hardest part: this likely ends in a performance improvement plan or termination, and you need to be prepared to drive that process with your HR team. Hoping she'll change is not a strategy. Protecting yourself and your team is. Continue reading at MarketWatch.com
