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We all know them – those difficult people who seem to delight in spreading misery. Inevitably, you will encounter a difficult person in your personal or professional life. And, this difficult employee, colleague, supplier, customer, relative, neighbor or friend will bring distress into your life. However, with the right strategies, you can deal with him or her effectively.
First, we’ll need to figure out exactly what a difficult person is. As a simple definition, a difficult person is somebody who has certain personality or emotional traits which make very difficult to communicate with. The intensity of somebody’s difficulty varies; some people are mere burdens or almost humorously frustrating, whereas some others can be seriously damaging to productivity and the overall sanity of one’s work environment.
To start, let’s take a look at the types of difficult people we are dealing with.
Dealing With Difficult People: Identification
Difficult people have learned that they can keep others off balance by acting up. If you are dealing with someone whose bad behavior is habitual and who is considered hard to take by most people, not just the overly sensitive or those who lack confidence, then you have a difficult person on your hands. Worst of all, these difficult people appear immune to all the usual methods of communication and persuasion designed to convince or help them change their ways. Here are the eight difficult types you may encounter.
- The bully is angry, abusive, abrupt, aggressive, intimidating, hostile and unpredictable. Needing to always get his or her way, he or she goes off over little things, expecting others to either run away or react with rage.
- Passive-aggressive personalities say yes and do no. Examples include being late for an event he or she doesn’t want to attend or leaving a note to avoid a face-to-face discussion.
- The sniper takes potshots and makes sneak attacks in subtle ways, such as humorous put-downs, sarcastic remarks, disapproving looks and innuendoes.
- Negative Nellies are complainers who are fearful, have little faith in themselves or in others and believe that the world is a hostile place. Their negativity, resentfulness and disappointment in life throw cold water on every idea and crush all glimmers of optimism.
- The blamer avoids taking responsibility. Instead, using an accusatory and self-righteous tone, he or she finds fault with everything and everyone.
- Unresponsives limit risk and seek safety by responding with a sullen look, an “I don’t know” or silence. They get away with not talking because the people around them are uncomfortable with silence and too quick to fill in the gaps.
- The yes-person is a super-agreeable people pleaser who over-promises and never delivers.
- The know-it-all is an expert who comes across like a bulldozer with an aura of personal authority that is condescending, imposing and pompous.
Original Article
Dealing With Difficult People: Coping Strategies
You don’t need to go through life holding your breath. Here are some strategies you can use to cope effectively with difficult people.
- First, assess the situation. Is this really a difficult person or is he or she just having a bad day?
- Set boundaries and limitations regarding what you will and will not tolerate from others.
- Seek understanding regarding the difficult person’s true motivation.
- Know when to let go and move on. Your best option may be to withdraw from the relationship—even though that might mean quitting your job, divorcing your spouse, eating lunch alone or moving far away from your parents or grown children. We all get to choose whom we allow to take up space in our lives. Choose wisely.
- Don’t fight back or try to beat them at their own game. They have been practicing their skills for a lifetime, and you’re an amateur.
Original Article
Dealing With Difficult People: Reject Appeasement
- Don’t try to appease them.Difficult people have an insatiable appetite for more.
- Don’t try to change them. You can only change your responses to their behavior.
- Take a detached, impersonal view. Your difficult person’s bad behavior is not about you. So don’t interpret this behavior as a personal attack.
- Do the opposite of what he or she expects. Change your response and avoid getting caught up in the cycle.
- Time your responses so that you reply when the difficult person is not under excessive stress or obligation.
- Let the difficult person say what he or she wants. Give him or her the last word, because you will have the last action. - Find a common goal, intention or “enemy” that you share
