10 actions to help you deal with difficult people

The ability to lead difficult individuals out of unproductive situations to improve performance and better working relationships are an essential management skill. Here are ten actions to help you deal with difficult people.

1. Identify the difficult people. People who are difficult absorb your time and energy. The earlier you can identify who will be difficult and when, the better your chances will be of dealing with them successfully. In order to do this, you need to know what makes people difficult.

2. Understand the dynamics. Effective communication moves relationships forward and helps people to work together successfully. By identifying the barriers to good communication, managers can maximise the potential of their team and mobilise difficult people.

3. Be assertive. In order to remain calm, even when the difficult person confronting you may be angry and aggressive, you need to be assertive. Encourage others to be aware of whether or not they are being assertive can help a difficult person move towards agreement.

4. Know when to stop. If you cannot change a difficult person, you may have to change your attitude. It is sometimes better for the organisation if you learn to live with, rather than continue to try to change, the individual. Alternatively, he or she may need to accept that it is time to leave.

5. Handle poor performance. Employees who are under too much or too little stress may under-perform. Spot the signs early so that you can help a difficult person operate at constructive stress levels. If performance fails to improve, you may have to dismiss the difficult individual.

6. Be objective. When dealing with difficult people, it helps to stay objective. Being objective demands a high level of self-awareness. Knowing your own biases and personality helps you understand what stands in the way of your working effectively with other people.

7. Communicate non-verbally. A difficult person will understand your approach through non-verbal communication long before you speak. Being able to observe the other person’s non-verbal signs, to know when a person is about to become difficult, puts you one step ahead.

8. Take the heat out of the situation. When a difficult person is behaving aggressively, you need to know how to take the immediate heat out of the situation. Only when you have calmed the person down will you be able to regain his or her attention and move forward into productive discussion.

9. Agree ground rules. Starting with an agreement on ground rules for working together is often easier to achieve than agreeing on the solution to the problem between you, and is a positive first step towards working more effectively with difficult people.

10. Learn for the next time. Every time you come into conflict with a difficult persona, you can learn how to handle the situation better for next time. To develop your sill at dealing with difficult people, review how the conflict arose in the first place, and how co-operation was gained.