This is Help Launton, the show that tackles all the big work questions you cannot ask anyone else.

I'm Jason Pfeiffer, Editor-in-Chief of Entrepreneur Magazine, and I'm New York Time Specialing

author and money expert, Nicole Lapin.

The Help Line is open!

You know what's really hard to do?

Tell someone they're not doing a good job.

It's really, really hard.

It's a lot easier to just congratulate someone, to be on someone's side.

But if you are ever in a leadership position, something you will have to do is give someone a bad review.

Tell someone that they need to.

Shape up.

And even if you're not in a leadership position at work, this is something you will have to do at some point.

You will have a colleague, you will have a friend, you will have to sit down with somebody and basically say you are not living up to your potential.

You could be doing more, and you have to start, how do you do that?

It is not easy, but it is a question that many people will face, including a listener of this show, who left us this question.

I'm a first-time manager, and I'm about to lead my first round of performance reviews.

I have a direct report to doing a pretty sucky job.

I've been getting complaints from his peers about his laziness and how they've had to pick up his slack.

And if he continues like this, I'll probably have to let him go.

I've never had to have a conversation like this before, and I honestly, I hate confrontation.

How can I structure this conversation, how honest should I be, and how can I overcome my anxiety around having this conversation?

Thanks so much.

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