The tightrope between staff loyalty and damage control is brutal.
I had someone who had been in the business for about 15 years. They turned up, they knew the place, and in plenty of ways they were loyal. The frustrating thing was that about 98% of the job was done well.
That made it very easy to give them far more rope than I should have.
The problem was the damage left in their wake. Customers were upset by their attitude. Other staff found them almost impossible to work with. Feedback never really landed, because they had no ability to see anything from anyone else's point of view. If something went wrong, it was always someone else's fault, or there was always a reason why they had done nothing wrong.
The blame culture became contagious.
For far too long, I absorbed it. Again and again I made excuses for them. I found myself trying to explain it away. I thought there must be a better way to manage it, a better conversation, different training, or some other way to get through to them.
There probably wasn't.
You can train skills. You can attempt to educate. You can set expectations. But you cannot transplant someone's character and personality. Trust me, I have tried.
When it was finally dealt with properly, the business felt different almost straight away. The working environment was calmer. Customers were happier. Staff morale improved.
That was the uncomfortable bit.
In trying to be loyal to one person, I had weakened the business for everyone else. There are limits to loyalty in business. Unless that loyalty puts the greater good first, it can become massively damaging.