If you’re having trouble with an asshole, then typically you won’t be the only one exasperated. So find people who agree with you that this asshole has to go—talk to their peers, talk to HR. Find the right moment and talk to their boss—they’ll usually give you a nod and say they’re already doing something about it. It’ll probably take forever and be very messy, but hopefully they’ll either get off your project or entirely out of your life.

If that doesn’t work, you can try to transfer teams. But when you’re dealing with a real asshole, their reputation is probably well known in the company. If another team knows that taking you on will bring on the ire of the asshole in question, they might decide it’s not worth the hassle. I remember one instance where a person became a pariah—no other team wanted them, for fear that the losing manager would seek revenge.

Every manager lives with the fantasy that their team can read their mind. But in reality, you have to make your expectations clear. And your team can’t be excellent if you’re not holding them accountable to the standards you’ve set. You normalize these corrections by making them swiftly, whenever they’re needed.

And make those corrections in private. I can still feel the flush of shame and horror that crept up from my collar when I was screamed at in the dining room by the chef de cuisine at Spago; I’ll remember it for the rest of my life. And while it was a terrible experience, it was also a privileged peek at a mistake I never wanted to make.

Correct an employee in front of their colleagues, and they’ll never forgive you. In fact, the wall of shame that goes up may mean they can’t even absorb what you’re telling them. Issue the same correction in private, though, and it’s a different exchange.

Whether criticism or praise, it’s a leader’s job to give their team feedback all the time. But every person on the team should be hearing more about what they did well than what they could do better, or they’re going to feel deflated and unmotivated. And if you can’t find more compliments to deliver than criticism, that’s a failure in leadership—either you’re not coaching the person sufficiently, or you’ve tried and it’s not working, which means they should no longer be on the team.

These rules help your team to feel safe—especially if you practice them consistently. Consistency is one of the most important and underrated aspects of being a leader. A person can’t feel safe at work if they’re apprehensive about what version of their manager they’re going to encounter on any given day. So if you’re the boss, you need to be steady, controlling your moods so you don’t end up taking out that morning’s squabble with your spouse on a server with a wrinkled shirt.

This is the ideal—but let’s be honest: every once in a while, you’re going to mess up. When you do, apologize. There’s an inherent intensity that comes with being passionate about what you do, and on occasion, it can get the better of you. I’ve certainly expressed exasperation and disappointment in ways that weren’t textbook illustrations of how to handle a correction in the workplace. But every time, I’ve made sure to apologize—not for the feedback itself, but for the way I delivered it.

I’m always interested in what others, and not just the esteemed critic from The New York Times, think about what we’re doing. If your business involves making people happy, then you can’t be good at it if you don’t care what people think. The day you stop reading your criticism is the day you grow complacent, and irrelevance won’t be far behind.

Most of us have no difficulty at all in delivering praise; that’s the fun part of being a boss. But it’s hard to criticize someone. So I spend a lot of time with my managers talking about criticism—how to deliver it, how to receive it, and maybe most important, how to think about it. We all want to be liked, and when you give someone a note about what they could be doing differently and better, you run the risk of losing their goodwill. That’s why I say there is no better way to show someone you care than by being willing to offer them a correction; it’s the purest expression of putting someone else’s needs above your own, which is what hospitality is all about. Praise is affirmation, but criticism is investment.”