Difficult people are a fact of life. At home you can avoid them by
surrounding yourself with agreeable people, but in the work place most
of us don’t have that luxury.
While your natural tendency may be to avoid them at all costs, it’s
better to deal with them in a thoughtful manner. This is crucial to your
career. If you develop the ability to work with anyone and handle the
tough nuts, you’ll be the natural choice for promotions and leadership
positions.
The following are some suggestions for resolving potentially awkward
work situations. Just remember, if we can learn to effectively deal with
difficult people our work life will become much less stressful and far
more enjoyable.
Self Confidence
When our lives are made difficult by unsympathetic and dominating
people we can quickly lose our self-confidence. To avoid this it is
important not to value the opinions of negative people. If we can
maintain a self confidence and self belief then it will be easy to
ignore the criticisms of difficult work colleagues. Self confidence will
not be built by heavily criticizing the difficult person. Self
confidence comes through remembering our own positive qualities.
Should You Find a New Job?
Sometimes the people we work with are so awkward that we want to move
and get another job. This is a difficult choice. The first thing to
remember is that if we move jobs, there is a high chance we will meet
similar problems, just with a different set of people. If we keep moving
jobs with the hope of finding an office full of saints, we will be
continually on the move.
The first thing is to try and deal with the situation; we need to be
detached from the awkward person as much as possible. However, if we
have really tried everything possible and work is still making us
miserable, then is it worth considering a new job. We spend so much of
our waking time in our job that we can’t allow unpleasant people to
spoil it.
Dealing with a Dominating Boss
Some people enjoy bossing others around; maybe they have their own
insecurities and so they try to take it out on their work colleagues. If
you have a dominating boss there are no easy solutions. One solution is
to give in on little things and consider them as insignificant. If they
insist on small issues are done in a certain way then just comply.
Generally, it is not worth arguing about the best place to store the
stapler – save your energy for more important issues. Don’t feel bad
about having to follow these small instruction instructions, even if you
don’t agree with them. Just see it as part of your job.
However, whilst it is good to give in on small things, there are
certain issues where we cannot allow ourselves to be pushed around. If
your boss is encouraging you to be unpleasant to others, lie or perform
deceptive actions, then you should not feel compelled to follow. If you
feel inwardly awkward about something then avoid doing it. If you start
to follow all the whims of your boss, they will invariably seek to
exploit your willingness and only ask you to do more awkward tasks.
If you are asked to do something you feel is wrong, you should also
try seek the support of other members of staff and someone more senior
in the company. In these situations it is not helpful to suffer in
silence; a good company should have a support procedure for this kind of
eventuality. If your company has no support structure in procedure,
consider looking for help from independent bodies who can offer advice.
Avoiding Arguments
Difficult people are usually even more troublesome when you get into
arguments. If you are asked to do something you disagree with, it might
be appropriate to maintain a silence and just avoid doing it. If your
boss encourages you to do the wrong thing, don’t feel obliged to tell
him why he is wrong. Dominating people dislike being told they are
wrong; in response they will just be defensive and more aggressive.
Instead, just continue to do the right thing. For example, if you are
encouraged to speak badly of other colleagues just refuse to do it;
make a point of picking out some positive qualities of that person. In
these circumstances actions speak louder than words. Rather than arguing
directly with our boss, we just don’t follow their bad advice. This
means we can avoid doing the wrong thing without having to tell our boss
why they are mistaken. This may not help in every circumstance but it
is often worth trying.
Dealing With Constant Criticism
Some people seem to have an eye for picking up on people’s faults. No
mistake, no matter how small, seems to escape their attention. They
even seem to get a certain sense of satisfaction from pointing it out.
These kind of people are not much fun to work with, but we shouldn’t let
them make our work an unpleasant experience.
Firstly, don’t take all their criticisms to heart. If our
presentation has a few errors, it doesn’t mean we are a bad person. If
someone is pointing out all our mistakes, remember all the good things
you have done; critical people are often blind to the positive
contributions people can make. Don’t respond in kind. If we respond to
criticism by finding similar faults in the other person there will be no
end to the negativity. Either just ignore it or try to find some good
things that other people have done. Just smile and remember how
insignificant their complaints are.
Leave Work at Work
The good thing about working with difficult people is that at least
at the end of the day, you can forget all about your work. But, make
sure you do completely switch off from work, and avoid thinking about
work problems in the evening and at the weekends. Develop a social life
that doesn’t involve just meeting work colleagues. It is good to make a
clean break where there is no chance of the conversation being dominated
by boring work stuff.
If you find yourself worrying about awkward people away from work, it
is a sign that they are having an unhealthy impact on your life. If
this is the case, you need to feel greater detachment. Just try not to
think about them, tell yourself that whatever problem exists can wait
until the next workday.
Conclusion
It is not easy to offer advice about how to deal with difficult
people. Every case is different. Whilst maintaining silence may be
appropriate in one case, in another circumstance it may be better to
seek the help of other people. There is no simple formula for dealing
with difficult people. However, certain principles can make your life
easier.
The most important thing is to learn how to detach yourself from the
problems at work. This means we don’t allow awkward people to dominate
our lives. The most effective way to do this is be careful what we think
about. We need to ignore their complaints and criticisms and develop
our self confidence. If we can develop self confidence then it will be
much easier to deal with whatever situation we are facing.
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