As a manager, you’ll be exposed to loads of different character types over your career. To be a great manager, you need to be able to lead, coach and sometimes discipline all of them. It takes different skills for each type of employee, and a person with the ability to change their management style to fit the worker – and not the other way around.
In this article we will look at seven different personalities who might offer challenges in your workplace. In the months to come, we will talk about addressing performance with these difficult employees, resolving conflict with them, and finally, building trust and rapport with challenging staff members.
The Diva: High-Performer with Attitude
A diva is someone who consistently exceeds performance expectations and delivers exceptional results. They won’t hesitate to tell you what they have accomplished – they thrive on recognition and praise.
Their high levels of self-confidence and sometimes their highly assertive communication style can be perceived as aggressive or confrontational. They will also kick back against authority, perceiving their power in the organisation to be greater than it is and engaging in power play.
If they fail to achieve a goal, the Diva will be openly frustrated and critical of others they think have contributed to their failure – be those systems, team members or customers.
They will prefer to work alone, believing that they are better at assuring their own success than in a team, and feedback is difficult for managers to deliver because they immediately assume you are trying to undermine them, or minimise their successes.
The Poisoner: Passive Aggressive
Passive aggressive employees poison the atmosphere at your workplace. They use sarcasm as a weapon, then when someone pulls them up on it, they claim they were joking.
Their permanent negativity means they drag a cloud of misery around with them, enveloping whoever gets in their way.
They downplay the achievements of others or ignore them altogether. But they also have difficulty taking responsibility for their own actions and will not hesitate to blame others for their mistakes if they think they can get away with it.
A Poisoner takes a perverse pleasure in disruption – they’ll take a sick day on the day of an important presentation or take their time doing a task that others are relying on being completed so their work can move forward.
Most passive aggressive employees believe themselves to have been injured somehow, but do not possess the skills to confront the problem and resolve it.
The Broken Record: Chronic Complainers
Broken records will complain about everything – home life, work, health, the government, they are constantly morose, angry, and powerless. Your attempts to interrupt their spiral and bring a glimmer of positivity to them are usually quickly shut down.
A broken record is self-sabotaging – constantly thinking about negative things reinforces the bad thought patterns, making it easier for those negative thoughts to repeat.
They see the world in black and white, with no possibility of compromise. They see problems instead of solutions. Chronic complaining is used as a tactic to avoid confronting difficult feelings and experiences.
In the workplace, a broken record makes other people uncomfortable. They drive people away and can’t understand why. They may be manipulative, trying to use their complaining to recruit others to their point of view.
The Puppetmaster: Micromanagers
Micromanagers need to control everything about their worker’s jobs – to the point where the worker feels smothered and disempowered.
According to the Harvard Business Review, micromanagers:
- want to feel more connected to lower-level workers
- were much more comfortable doing their old job rather than overseeing others doing it
- are terrified their teams will tarnish their reputations.
Puppetmasters need to approve every decision. Giving up control is difficult for them – which means they also can’t delegate effectively.
In the workplace, a micromanager will zap the energy of a team. They will make workers annoyed by not giving them enough autonomy to do their jobs effectively – and then they will question why results aren’t forthcoming. Their refusal to delegate erodes the confidence of team members.
The Time Thief: Procrastinators
Time thieves are masters of delay. They will postpone boring or frustrating tasks, waiting until the last minute to get things done. Or will postpone a decision until it’s too late.
A procrastinator will work on trivial things instead of doing the value-adding tasks. And they will have excuses as to why they are doing it – sometimes they are even good excuses.
Procrastinators may waste time in everything they do, or might concentrate on specific tasks.
While they won’t tell you, procrastinators may be feeling overwhelmed by all the things they have to do, or they may overestimate what they can accomplish in a certain period of time.
There are actually six different types of time thieves:
- those that don’t start tasks in case they fail
- those who can’t start until they are assured the outcome will be perfect
- the ones who overcommit their time, believing they can accomplish more than they really can
- the ones who think they need to create a crisis moment for themselves before they will be motivated to do a task,
- the ones who believe they don’t have to work very hard to get what they want, and finally,
- those who delay due to resentment, rebellion and anger.
The Boulder: Resistant to Change
While it’s a biological human reaction to resist change, most of us can overcome the resistance, especially when we can see the change will be to our benefit.
Boulders will stubbornly resist change even if they are shown the evidence that it will be beneficial. They are wired to fear the unknown, and are not interested in working through it, preferring to remain comfortably same.
They don’t trust change, or don’t trust leaders who suggest change. They fear that the change will lead to failure, and especially if they have been convinced to change in the past and it has led to failure.
Boulders can proclaim their resistance out loud or make insidious efforts to undermine the change. They will group together for more power.
In the workplace, workers who are resistant to change will keep your organisation from moving forward. Their negative attitudes towards changes will erode any positive efforts, and they may also actively oppose the change, refusing to move to a new process or approach.
The Ghost: Detached, Disengaged and Disinterested
Ghosts appear at work but don’t actually do anything. They are mentally or physically checked out, so while they are present, their mind is well and truly elsewhere.
Disinterested employees are a drain on a company’s bottom line. They put in the bare minimum that they are required to and stop supporting their teams.
Generally, Ghosts will have a poor relationship with management. They believe their bosses are out to squeeze the most out of them they can, and they actively work to push back against this perceived injustice.
Often these workers are described as having no initiative. They might take many coffee or snack breaks or smokos. They may be silent when everyone else is celebrating a win, or even contemptuous. They aren’t interested in the industry they work in or learning more about it.
You will find that Ghosts don’t have any meaningful relationships at work, and don’t feel a connection to the company’s mission or goals.
So, what do you do about them?
So, now you know what to look for to identify your troublesome employees, what do you do about them? Each type of difficult employee will need a slightly different approach, but there are several universal strategies:
- Look for their strengths – what qualities do they have that can be aligned to the organisation’s values and mission? What are they interested in that can be linked back to the mission? It’s important for all employees to feel as if they are part of something bigger than themselves.
- Communicate – asking open questions often provides a supervisor or manager with insights they wouldn’t otherwise see. For yourself, make sure that you are as transparent as possible, and talk to all of your workers regularly – with actual words, not just via email.
- Projects – when a project is available, and they have skills or qualities that may be of assistance to the project, show your trust in them by putting them on the project team. Sometimes a change is as good as a holiday.
