Managers should explore new approaches to lead difficult individuals through periods of low productivity and embrace it as an essential management skill. This skill will equip the new or experienced manager with techniques and strategies to enable them to anticipate people, prevent conflict from escalating and assist awkward staff to ultimately become proactive members in a successful team.
Difficult employees certainly do exist. These difficult individuals at the workplace will prevent managers and colleagues from achieving their goals and tend to absorb the time and energy of the rest of the team. The earlier management can identify who will be difficult and when, the better their chances are of dealing with them successfully. They will need to know what make these individuals so difficult.
Everybody reacts differently to pressure and we all have different expectations in life. We may at times find it hard to deal with somebody who has embraced a contrary set of innate values. Once we understand ourselves and others better, we should be able not to judge others because of our latent differences. We should then attempt to stop changing them but instead to value others’ contributions.
Managers may be able to anticipate who is most likely to become difficult at the workplace in two ways: from observing people’s behavior and from your own personal knowledge of them. Once you know your staff well, it is possible to avoid difficulties when pressure points arise and adequate preparation will be made to offer support and development in the workplace.
By spotting these recurrent patterns, you can reduce events in the workplace that trigger stress and prepare yourself for resolving these challenges. Managers should also look at their own management style as well as how they are organizing work, reviewing objections and developing a supportive culture in order to prevent employees becoming unnecessarily difficult. Although different perspectives bring complimentary skills to any group they could possibly cause conflict so management need to understand individual differences in order to deal with these difficult personalities successfully.
Individuals tend to have different ways of learning as well. None of us intend to be difficult, we just have different ways of looking at things. It is useful to have people with preferences for different ways of learning though in your team.
Irrespective of our age, people are thought to approach the world from the perspective of the parent, who assumes that blame lies with the other person, the adult, who assesses situations logically, or the child, who feels he is to blame when a problem arises. We tend to switch constantly between these viewpoints. Conflict arises when someone communicating from one of these perspectives receives a response from someone with a different one leading to angry, upset or withdrawn behavior. Managers should take this opportunity to turn potential conflict into an exchange of understanding and co-operation. If a team member suddenly becomes difficult, irritable or angry than usual, this could be a sign of emotional stress. Once you have established that the problem is personal you can suggest various sources of external advice. These individuals become difficult when they have lost the ability to feel or care through much stress.
Managers need to also understand what motivates difficult team members and their role in the lack of motivated staff. Effective communication moves these relationships forward and helps people to work together successfully.
