Leading Difficult Staff

By Rose O. Sherman, EdD, RN, NEA-BC

One of the biggest challenges for new leaders is dealing with difficult staff members. Left unchecked, difficult staff can do an amygdala hijack of the team, causing everyone to go into stressful fight-or-flight responses. Consider the following story:

 A new manager has several RN team members who have worked on the unit for years yet are pessimistic. A nursing instructor talked with the manager because these nurses had questioned the students about why they wanted to be nurses. They also had negative things to say about their health system, urging the students to seek employment elsewhere. Their behaviors directly conflicted with their organization’s plan to welcome and hopefully recruit students who rotated through their department. The manager wondered about the source of their negativity since they chose to stay on the team and with their employer. She talked with them about being role models and asked what frustrations had led to these conversations with students. She acknowledges that nursing is hard but continually tries to reframe their perspective.

Dr. Amy Gallo points out that when colleagues act in ways they shouldn’t and cause us to question ourselves, they create group conflict by excluding or rejecting others and threatening the sense of team belonging. In her book titled Getting Along with Anyone (Even Difficult People), she identified seven difficult personality types. These include:

The Pessimist – these team members have something negative to say even when things are going well. They complain about new initiatives, other team members, and their leaders but rarely offer constructive solutions.

The Victim – these team members feel sorry for themselves and often feel they do more work than anyone else on the team. They evade accountability by blaming others and pushing back on constructive criticism.

The Passive-Aggressive Team Member – these team members make promises they don’t keep, ignore emails and other communication, shift blame to others and make snarky comments.

The Know-It-All – these team members display a “my way or the highway” approach to work. They position their ideas as superior and don’t credit others for their contributions.

The Tormentor – these team members are bullies and mistreat others by giving them heavier assignments or micromanaging their work.

The Biased Team Member – these team members stereotype others, use derogatory words and demonstrate discriminatory behaviors.

The Political Operator – these team members brag about their success, take undue credit for their work, push their agendas, and seek to curry favor with those in power.

Gallo offers specific strategies for each of the seven personality types but reminds leaders that these behaviors are often hardwired and challenging to change. You may be unsuccessful in changing their behavior or meditating on the conflict you experience, but you have control over your response. Below are five strategies to use when in conflict with difficult people:³⁴

1. Focus on what you can control – generally, you are experiencing well-established behavior patterns with difficult people. Nothing will change unless the team member takes accountability for their role in the conflict. You can point out the behavior, but it is not your responsibility to change it.
2. Don’t overreact – the behaviors you witness from difficult people reflect where they are personally more than anything you may have said or done. When you see an explosive reaction in conflict situations, you can be sure that there are underlying emotions that the person is experiencing.
3. Set ground rules – remember that you teach other people how to treat you when in conflict. Let the team member know that you will respect them but expect to be treated with respect in return. Don’t tolerate yelling; if necessary, tell the person that you need to remove yourself from the conflict.
4. Use empathy – you may disagree with their point of view but acknowledge that they appear very angry about whatever point they are arguing. It can be challenging to be stuck in a place of negativity or anger. Empathy can sometimes help to de-escalate explosive conflict situations.
5. Talk less and listen more – listening can be a powerful tool in team conflict. Less conversation is often more effective with difficult people.  Use short, concise messages to drive your point home, and set a time limit on how much you will engage in the discussion. Avoid using the word “attitude” because this is subjective – focus instead on the behavior.

For new leaders, it is essential to remain optimistic and not take difficult staff behavior personally. These behaviors are often more of a function of where that staff member is in their lives than the work environment.

Read to Lead

Gallo A. Getting Along with Anyone (Even Difficult People). Boston: Harvard Business Press; 2022.