10 Tips for Dealing With Difficult People at Work

Dealing With Difficult People at Work

Difficult people are found in every single workplace. Difficult people come in every variety that you can imagine. But, how difficult a person is for you to deal with depends a lot on such factors as your self-esteem, your self-confidence, how closely you must work with them on a daily basis, and your professional courage.

Dealing with difficult people is easier when the person is just generally obnoxious or when the behavior affects more than one person. You can team together to address the behavior or inform management and Human Resources staff to get help addressing the employee issue before it spirals into negativity.

Dealing with difficult people is much harder if the individual is publicly undermining your professional credibility, claiming credit for your contributions, or attacking you personally like a bully.

Do you think that you work with a bully? You do if you regularly feel intimidated, dread to work anywhere near a particular coworker, and feel dismayed and upset about having to go to work. If you are yelled at, insulted, and put down, you work with a bully. If you have felt psychologically or physically threatened at work, you work with a bully.

Do you have a coworker who talks over you at meetings, who regularly criticizes your performance, and steals credit for your work? If you answer yes to these questions, then the chances are that you’re one of 54 million Americans who have been targeted by a bully at work.

Negative Coworker

Some coworkers wallow in their negativity. They don’t like their jobs, and they don’t like working for their company. They always have bad bosses who are jerks who always treat them unfairly. The company is always going to fail, and its customers are worthless and demanding.

You know these negative coworkers—every organization has a few. You can best deal with these negative coworkers by avoiding their presence at work. Find out more about dealing with negativity.

Confronting a coworker is never easy, but it’s often needed if you want to stick up for your rights at work. Whether the confrontation is about sharing credit for work accomplished, coworker habits and approaches that are irritating or sloppy, intentional missed customer delivery deadlines, or about keeping a project on track, sometimes you need to confront your coworker.

Although confrontation should not be your first step, you can become better and more comfortable with the necessary conflict. These tips will help you feel more comfortable when you need to confront a coworker.

Develop Effective Work Relationships

You can ruin both your job and your career by the relationships you develop with your coworkers at work. Your education, experience, or title don’t matter if you can’t play well with your coworkers. You won’t succeed in your career without forming positive relationships at work.

Effective relationships, with the boss and coworkers, create success and satisfaction on the job. Learn more about seven effective work relationship musts.

How to Hold a Difficult Conversation

Have you encountered any of these examples of needing to deal with difficult people at work? They’re just examples of the types of behavior that cry out for responsible feedback from a coworker or boss. But, for most people, holding a difficult conversation about a sensitive topic is challenging at work.

These steps will help you hold difficult conversations when people need professional feedback provided professionally. Holding a difficult conversation can have positive outcomes when the conversation is approached properly; here’s how to attain them.

Tackle Annoying Employee Habits and Issues

Have you worked with a coworker who had annoying habits such as loud gum chewing or bringing personal issues to the office every day? How about a coworker who had personal hygiene problems or exuded the smell of alcohol and coffee at work? You know what a problem and productivity downer these kinds of behavioral and personal issues can present in the workplace.

If you want to attain some happiness at work, you must address these issues. Do you need some help and ideas about how to hold a difficult conversation? Here’s how you can courageously address coworkers who have annoying habits in your workplace.

Dealing With Difficult Bosses

Nothing is more destructive in the workplace than difficult bosses. Every employee has bosses who provide direction throughout their working careers. Hopefully, most of your bosses are competent, kind, and worthy of your trust and respect. They play such a significant role with the employees who report to them. Bosses can make or break an employee’s day.

Too often, employees have difficult bosses who have a negative impact on their desire to engage and contribute in the workplace.

You want to be well known and liked among the people the company regards as their superstars, allies who have power and will speak up for you. You can achieve job security if you are viewed as a superstar by your organization.

Building alliances at work is smart and effective behavior when you want to develop positive coworker relationships. These alliances are also crucial for dealing with difficult or destructive coworker behavior in the workplace. They are also crucial when you want your ideas to be implemented.

Manage Gossip

Gossip is rampant in most workplaces. It often seems that people have nothing better to do than gossip about each other. They gossip about their coworkers, their managers, and their company’s prospects for success. They frequently take a partially true fact and blow it all out of proportion to its importance or intended meaning.

Dealing with difficult situations involving gossip occurs in every workplace. Find out how dealing with difficult gossip is a must-do and a can-do. You can obliterate destructive gossip from your workplace.