09/03/2026
Here’s an interesting question...
What do you do when an anonymous employee survey comes back with: “Fire X.”
Okay... but why?
You keep reading, assuming there’s going to be something behind it. An example, an incident, a behavior. Literally anything you can actually look into.
Instead, you get:
“They’re terrible.”
“Nobody likes them.”
“They shouldn’t be in that position.”
“Get rid of them.”
Well... that’s certainly feedback. 😅
And this is where anonymous surveys get tricky.
Employees absolutely should have a way to speak candidly, especially when they don’t feel comfortable putting their name on something.
But an anonymous source does not automatically mean it's credible. And it definitely doesn’t mean it's actionable.
If you tell me your manager embarrassed you in front of the team, consistently talks over people in meetings, or did XYZ last Tuesday, great. Now I have something I can dig into.
But “everyone hates her, fire her”?
That tells me something... It just doesn’t tell me nearly enough to actually do something.
Am I paying attention? Absolutely. I’m looking for patterns. Have I heard this before? What does turnover look like? Exit feedback? Previous complaints? What are other leaders observing? I’m filing the information away and keeping my eyes open.
But what I’m not doing is firing someone based on an anonymous popularity vote.
Especially when we’re talking about leadership.
Managers are going to tick people off sometimes. They have to say no, they have to make decisions employees don’t like, they have to enforce policies they may not have even created, they have to address performance issues and have uncomfortable conversations. And occasionally, they're going to screw something up.
Welcome to management!
Also, since we’re already here...
Sometimes people just aren’t that likeable. Seriously. Not every leader is warm, charming, charismatic, or the person everyone wants to grab lunch with.
Maybe there are some rough edges worth coaching, fine.
But "I don't like my boss" is not, by itself, an HR problem.
Don't get me wrong, sometimes the manager really is the problem. But sometimes it’s the new policy, or a business decision that nobody particularly likes. Sometimes, an employee was told “no” or held accountable and simply isn't thrilled about it.
And sometimes... two human beings just DO NOT mesh.
The job isn't to dismiss critique. But it also isn't to panic or have a knee-jerk reaction every time someone writes something ugly in an anonymous survey.
The job is to figure out whether there’s actually a problem underneath it. Because there’s a big difference between unpopular leadership and problematic leadership.
And HR needs to know the difference.
