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Empower Yourself

The person who can most assure your success in dealing with difficult people is you. Sure, you may, on occasion, need to turn to colleagues or a supervisor for help. But for the most part you’ll have to face down troublesome colleagues all by yourself. If you have any weak points in your defense system, sure them up.

For example, if you’ve spent your life avoiding conflict or if you cave when an overbearing colleague disagrees with you, you may suffer from low self-esteem. For people with a poor self-image, any conflict, especially one in the office, produces an overwhelming sense of helplessness. Build a sense of empowerment by first acknowledging low self-esteem. Then figure out how to lift it. Finding a helpful book on the topic is a good start. One of my favorites is Self-Esteem: A proven program of cognitive techniques for assessing, improving and maintaining your self-esteem by Matthew McKay and Patrick Fanning. If your problems are deeply entrenched you may need therapy to overcome low self-esteem. Your company’s benefits may cover most, if not all, of the costs of counseling sessions through an Employee Assistance Program. The dividends you’ll gain from investing in your emotional well-being will be enormous. You’ll find that when you operate from a strong foundation, the office troublemakers can’t unnerve you.