(CNN) Sen. Amy Klobuchar's nascent presidential campaign has been dogged by allegations that the Minnesota Democrat mistreated her Senate staff. In an interview with CNN's Poppy Harlow on Thursday, the senator admitted she "can always do better" with her staff, but said her toughness would be an asset on the world stage.

Klobuchar cast the reports of staff mistreatment as a positive for her ability to operative on the international stage as president, namely when dealing with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

"If you are a boss, you have to have high standards, and that is what I have always had. And that doesn't mean it's a popularity contest all the time," she said. "And so I've had high standards for myself, high standards for our staff, and mostly I'm going to have high standards for the country."

She added: "One can always do better, and that means you want to be sure that you are listening to people if they felt that something was unfair, or they felt bad about something. But I still think that you have to demand good product. When you're out there on the world stage and dealing with people like Vladimir Putin, yeah, you want someone who's tough. You want someone that demands the answers and that's going to get things done, and that's what I've done my whole life."

Former staffers -- nearly all anonymously -- have accused Klobuchar of creating a hostile work environment during her years in the Senate. Some have complained about how her office handled human resources issues, including paid family leave, where Klobuchar's office required employees who took 12 weeks of paid maternity and paternity leave to stay at the office for three times that time off once they returned. That policy has since been scrapped.

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