How do you handle difficult employees?

You were designed for accomplishment, engineered for success, and endowed with the seeds of greatness

Zig Ziglar

Is it that one employee who simply doesn’t get it! he’s hard headed, not collaborative, always late and the first one to complain about his salary? When was the last time you had trouble communicating something to your team? Dealing with difficult people on a daily basis in exhausting. We expect work to be the environment where everyone is professional and ‘ticks the box’ or ‘thinks outside of it’. Being responsible for a team is hard work. In many instances, managers are seen as leaders of company’s vision and mission who forget about the people.

More often than not, those who perform very well, get promoted because of their great performance and skills in certain areas: machines, engines, documents, finances and so on; being an outstanding performer doesn’t cut it for an outstanding leader.

When newly promoted managers find themselves leading a team of difficult and different employees, they focus on what they know best and they expect their team members to behave as they would have: “It’s a job, get it done!”, “I would’ve done it better, I don’t understand what’s wrong with him”, “it’s an easy task.”  Dealing with people is not dealing with ‘yourself’, so if you were doing things better, faster, smarter – that’s you! To lead a team you must become behaviourally flexible, empathise with all your team members and help them out when they’re stuck.

Why do managers fail?

1. They ignore difficult employees, hoping they will ‘come around’ and problems will solve themselves.  Ignorance won’t make problems go. Ignoring a difficult employee will cause others to be de-motivated, or ‘relax’ a bit more, knowing that the manager will continue to ignore difficult behaviour. Long term effect is loss of people and / or business.

Some managers choose ignorance because

• They are afraid it might lead to a bigger argument or a deeper problem causing the situation to worsen.
• They don’t know what to do. (yes, this happens) Nobody was born a manager – but with the right training and continuous development, everybody can become one.

1. They reprimand difficult behaviour with warnings and policies, bringing arguments and scheduling meetings about how wrong these difficult employees are.

Managers choose reprimand because:

• They choose the easier and safer way – “by the book” approach
• They are not confident they can change these difficult employees with anything else but ‘authority’

Of course, after everything else failed, these approaches are the only way. It shouldn’t be among the first options.

What should be among the first options?

Coaching and Mentoring –  I asked a recent client who was struggling at the beginning of her career as a team leader, to describe a manager. She said:  great planner, analytical, problem solver, customer oriented, strategic thinker and other ‘technical’ traits. Then I asked her to describe a mentor and she said: motivating,  supportive, great listener, inspiring and other ‘human’ traits.  

If you’re a newly promoted manager for a team of people who are performing something you were great at, get your ‘hands dirty’ and teach them when they make mistakes, show them some empathy – not everyone learns as fast as you, that’s why you are their leader; understand their pain and then help them move forward. My client eventually reached the conclusion that a great manager or leader must have a combination of both ‘technical’ and ‘human’ traits.

Give feedback – both positive and constructive feedback. If an employee has done a great job, tell him / her. Celebrate their wins, their knowledge, their intuitive approach towards work. If they made a mistake, tell them that too. Use the sandwich feedback technique and do it. Remember the most important part of feedback is time – provide feedback as they do what they do, not tomorrow, not at the performance meetings, definitely not when they decide to leave the company.

Be descriptive and specific of what your concerns are: “I noticed you sent the customer an email and you mentioned ‘it is not your responsibility to do that task’ – I don’t want you to use this vocabulary with the clients and I am willing to listen to your concerns and what lead to writing that email”

Don’t make it personal – as challenging as this sounds (and as challenging as it actually gets), stick to your employees’ behaviour and actions, not their personality. This needs practice, especially if you’ve never been in charge of a team before. Do not attack the person; e.g: you’re terrible at this job; you’re wasting my time; you’re just causing problems!; instead use lots of Is; e.g: I don’t like receiving my reports late, John and this is the third time I didn’t get them on time. What is happening? I’m willing to look into it so we can resolve this.

Make it personal! Wait, I just said … What I mean this time is: take an interest in your employees’ life. Sometimes, their difficult behaviour and bad performance are linked to their personal life. When you have the chance, ask them how is everything else going.

Let go. If you try to save their job more than they do, it’s better to let them go. It could simply be a mismatch for them.

It’s all practice and the best way to practice is to start. Understand that everyone has needs and it is very important to make your employees feel understood and cared for. As soon as you do that, they’ll return the favour, you will start feeling less weight on your shoulders, less stress and have more productive employees.

The way management treats associates is exactly how associates will treat the customers

Sam Walton