144 / LEADING THROUGH CHALLENGES
Leading difficult people
Dealing with conflict
Conflict arises when people stop listening
and approach a situation from their own
point of view. As leader, you must look
beyond the immediate confrontation to
understand what is really happening and
discover the roots of the hostility.
Begin with yourself: your role means
you may be a factor in a team member‘s
dissatisfaction. Differences in outlook,
behavior, and style can lead to tension—
which can be used constructively to
stimulate creativity and enrich the team
or, if left unmanaged, can cause division.
Meeting standards
It is tempting to work around a “difficult”
person, but this undermines the team
and your position as leader. You should
explore all courses of action to bring about
improvement. However, many people find
adversarial situations hard and may
sabotage their own future if they do not
see a way out. If open discussion and
support fails to achieve changes, you will
need to work within your organization’s
disciplinary policy and procedures to
deal with the person, and prevent an
adverse effect on the rest of the team.
Building a successful team depends on cooperation between all
members of the group. But what if an individual just won‘t play ball?
Unproductive confrontations with you as leader or between team
members can take a lot of your time, create a bad atmosphere, and
stop you from achieving your aims, so finding positive ways to deal
with disagreement or difficult individuals is a key leadership skill.
ASK YOURSELF…
YES NO
Is it me?
1 Have I explained new initiatives clearly—could they
be causing insecurity or anxiety? ...................................................
2 Do I come across as approachable and accessible? ......................
3 Have I made unreasonable demands? ............................................
4 Have I been fair in my praise or my criticism? ...............................
5 Am I portraying the right image for a leader? ...............................
US_144-145_Leading_difficult_people.indd 144 31/05/16 5:29 pm
LEADING DIFFICULT PEOPLE / 145
Offer support and training
over a reasonable timescale.
If there is little improvement,
their future in your team
is limited.
Explore causes in a one-
to-one discussion. If you
have inherited this individual,
you need to release the
burden of all the past broken
promises and build new
trust. Consider counseling.
Listen sympathetically
and arrange time off if you
think this will help solve the
problem. Make sure that you
recognize when the problem
goes beyond your ability and
ask for further help.
Get to know what particularly
motivates each member of
the team. Ask yourself if
you are over- or under-
delegating to the person.
Over-delegation can cause
paralyzing fear of failure.
Team member makes errors
and cannot do the job to
the required standard.
Other team members
become impatient.
Reaching
the limits of
current
capability
Becoming
disengaged
Getting
distracted
Losing
motivation
Rejection of the job;
withdrawal from involvement
with the team. Often caused
by frustration when high
achievers have been held
back over time. Will have
an adverse effect on the
entire team.
Focus moves elsewhere
reducing effectiveness.
The cause is often personal
and while colleagues will
sympathize initially, they
will soon tire of the issue.
Too little or too much
delegation or challenge
in the role can bring about
demotivation and decreased
effectiveness. The individual
can quickly have a negative
effect on team morale.
Why people become difficult
CAUSE EFFECT REMEDY
US_144-145_Leading_difficult_people.indd 145 30/05/16 3:02 pm
..................Content has been hidden....................
You can't read the all page of ebook, please click here login for view all page.