We’ve been there too, and we feel your pain. It can be incredibly challenging and time-consuming to have to manage an employee who rubs others up the wrong way, who likes to do things their own (difficult) way or who for whatever other reason is challenging to manage effectively. But it’s your prerogative as manager to find tactics to overcome this issue, for the sake of your own sanity as well as for the good of the whole team. Don’t become the difficult employee’s  ‘hostage’ as so many managers do – you need to preserve your physical, mental and emotional energy for other things.

Listen

Our judgement of a situated can become clouded by our irritation with someone’s behaviour, and we can lose sight of the bigger picture. When something isn’t going right, a good manager pays even closer attention to the scenario playing out before them, including your difficult employee’s point of view. Listening without acting on impulse can often lead you more swiftly to the right course of action. Your problem staff member may even become more pliable and easier to deal with once they feel they’ve been heard, and you may start to uncover more authentic issues they’re facing that you can help them with.

Be Consistent

If you’ve made it clear that a certain behaviour isn’t acceptable in your workplace, don’t ever let this sort of behaviour slip through the net – tempting as it can be to turn a blind eye when we’ve a hundred other things to get on with. So, only set standards you’re willing to uphold yourself and maintain consistently. Then set fair but tangible consequences for failure to comply with the deadlines and benchmarks you set. Being vague and wishy-washy with what you expect and need from your team only invites your less meticulous staff to follow suit with wishy-washy discipline.

Be Professional

It sounds rather obvious, but you would be amazed at how many managers allow themselves to slip into a habit of bad-mouthing (or showing their feelings in other, unspoken ways towards) the problem employee. This fosters an environment of gossip and back-stabbing that harms morale and can spiral out of control. It will also make you look ineffective and deeply unprofessional. Try also to keep your self-talk in check, and steer your inner dialogue away from unhelpful judgements about the problem employee that may have become ingrained, like a stuck record.

If you can put these three approaches into practice when you have a difficult employee, you’ll know at the very least that you’ve been fair, professional and consistent in your handling of them. Let us know how you deal with tricky staff members either in the comments below or over in the Practice Managers’ Forum.