Managing Difficult People – 5 Things You Should Know

No matter how large or small your company is, you will always have at least one “difficult” employee on your team.  It’s hard to deal with because you know they are good workers and have the experience and knowledge to get the job done, but they make everything seemingly harder for yourself and your team. 

Inevitably, when you have a difficult team member, you will most likely have team dysfunction instead of team synergy.  Team dysfunction can throw off your entire workflow process, lower morale, and just make everyone dread coming to work each day.  

So what do you do? How does managing difficult people work in order to create the team synergy you’re looking for? 

We’ve got you covered.  

At MVision Consulting, we want to be a knowledgeable resource for you to reference when you feel like your team could use a little recalibrating. We offer these blogs, our team workshops, and leadership coaching to help you manage your team and grow a successful business.  

Let’s talk about 5 ways of managing difficult employees in the workplace. 

Don’t Poison The Well

If there is an issue with a difficult employee, do not GOSSIP about it.  You may want to vent out your frustration to your other colleagues, but you need to keep it professional and not personal.  

Most of the time, the behavior is not a direct result of your management, so taking it personally will just escalate the situation and cause tension throughout the workplace.  You know how gossip works; once you tell one person, you might as well tell the entire office. 

Identify The Cause Of The Problem

For an employee to become difficult, there must be an underlying cause.  No one just wakes up one morning and decides to be a difficult employee.  As a manager, it is your responsibility to observe and assess the situation.  Quietly review your employee’s work, and see if there is anything that you can identify as the turning point in their behavior.  

Once you have observed your employee, pull them in and ask them how they are doing, take a pulse on their attitude and behavior and see if you can get them to open up about any hardships or issues they have been going through. 

These issues could be related to:

• Their work
• Relationships with other colleagues
• Personal issues that prevent them from performing their job adequately

Once you have identified the problem, it’s time for the next step.

Listen and Show Respect

If an employee is struggling in the workplace and the workplace is the main cause of the problem, listen to their concerns and show them respect no matter what they happen to say.  You do not want to escalate the situation even further, and by showing respect you are building trust and breaking down barriers. Then, write down their grievances and see what you as a manager can do to ease those issues.  

If it is an issue outside the workplace, listen to them.  You won’t have to offer any advice or help necessarily, but a listening ear can help them relieve stress and feel better knowing that you know what is happening in their lives.  And now that you know, you might be able to find ways to relieve some of the workplace stress and approach them differently due to their current situation. 

Create A Plan

Once you get to the bottom of the problem, create an action plan that allows you to engage with the employee and offer encouragement and assistance when needed.  If they are of value to your team and your company, you want to do whatever you can to get them back on track.  

Create a plan with them to make it feel like more of a compromise than a punishment.  This will give the difficult employee incentive to find their way back to becoming a participating member of the team.

Follow Through

Now that you have set a plan, you can’t just forget about it.  This action plan is for both you, the manager, and the employee.  This action plan will either show you they can bounce back and become part of the team again, or it will show the opposite. 

If you find that there is pushback or no motivation to follow through with the plan, it is time to speak with HR about further action, consequences, or termination.  You need to know when it is time to let go as much as you need to know when it is time to work with someone.  

Employees who want to be there will do the work, recognize their behaviors and actions, and show a change in the workplace.  It will be noticeable.  

Need Help managing difficult people? See MVision Consulting.

Difficult employees consistently bring the workplace morale down and cause the team synergy to suffer.  You don’t want to cause a chain reaction and bring other employees into that loop by not reacting and changing the environment.  

If you aren’t sure how to do that, we can help. At MVision Consulting, we offer one-day and multi-day workshops directed by founder Dr. Marc Camras on various topics, including how to deal with difficult employees.  There are many benefits of leadership coaching, and one of those benefits is learning how to be an effective change leader.  

If you are interested in scheduling a leadership training session at your company, schedule a discovery call today.  

We also suggest you read our blog, How To Prepare For Executive Coaching, to make sure you get the full benefits of the session.