Every leader I know has a conversation they keep putting off — the underperformance that isn't improving, the scope decision nobody wants to own, the feedback that will land badly. The delay feels kind, or at least harmless. It isn't. While you wait, the team reads your silence as approval, the problem compounds, and the conversation you finally have is about six months of drift instead of one honest issue.
Have it early, in private, and with specifics: what you observed, what needs to change, and by when. That is not confrontation for its own sake. It is the difference between managing a problem while it is still small and explaining later why you let it grow. Leaders don't get judged on the conversations they enjoyed. They get judged on the ones they didn't avoid.