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.
Elsewhere: How to Deal With Bully Bosses
This article was written by Tejvan Pettinger. Tejvan lives in Oxford where he works as a teacher. He enjoys writing on topics of self improvement and updates a blog called Sri Chinmoy Inspiration. Recent articles include: When and How to Criticise Others.
This article was so timely for me. I just started a new job three months ago and I’m already to move to another location within my organization. My boss and supervisor are the worst I ever had. They talk down to everyone and make everyone feel stupid. I thought it was just me at first but have heard stories that others have been “abused” by these people too. I was just going to go silent… but these are some good tips… I am seeking my way out… but at least I can keep these things in mind while I’m looking. I think the self-confidence thing is right on the mark. Mine has eroded since I started there…
Thank you!
Yeah, while the advice is ok, I think for most people the problem with bosses/ colleagues who constantly nit-pick, criticize and control is not that they make you feel bad about yourself, but rather that they drain your energy. It is also difficult to understand why someone would go out of their way to be difficult/ nasty, and this can be emotionally difficult. Another aspect that you haven’t touched on is the kind of boss/ colleague who is just generally crazy. People who lie, make things up, bully, etc. These people are much more difficult to handle and incredibly career damaging.
Thanks for the info!
Although I don’t agree with all the points you made there.
You got to find your balance where to defend yourself against critisism
Giving strong arguments why your opinion is right, would even more increase your self confidence because you get the feeling your arguments mean something. Your boss/colleagues will also see that you really sure about your opinion and that they can take your words more like
a suggestion.
That’s a powerfull tactic to convince people, even if this will get you in trouble for some reason. In this case with your boss. So try to watch your words when you
talking to your boss, talking in a calm way and controlling your emotions even if the boss is yelling at you will bring you two to a better understanding.
You will certaintly score points with this! Your boss will find it harder to convince you, this
will avoid a lot of conflicts between you and your boss.
That’s because you win his ”respect”
Ignoring isn’t always the best tactic you
should choose in a conflict. You’ve got to know when to
avoid criticism and when to go out there and fight for yourself!
Loving the blog
Greetings from Amsterdam
[...] March 31, 2008 by Terry Portis I read a very good article today on 6 ways to cope with an abusive boss over at Pick the Brain. You can check it out here. [...]
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I agree you have to be careful knowing when to argue with the boss and stand up to him. I think Omar makes a good point about controlling the emotions when speaking to the boss, it will help any situation.
[...] I wrote a guest post at Pick the Brain on a similar theme – How To get on With Difficult Co-workers [...]
No job is worth taking the garbage from a jerk boss, or conniving co-workers.
It’s just a job, and there are other places to work. Way too many people think that they have to cling to their precious job, and NO you cannot “leave work at work”.
Don’t take it. Walk out, and get in someone’s face for trying to run you– keep your integrity.
Life is hard enough without being forced to take someone’s brainwashing.
You’ll love yourself more for fighting back.
Wise words. Thanks!
It definitely helps to look at your job. If you’re not feeling fulfilled, you probably won’t get along with anyone at all. That’s why taking the time to find something that fits is so important. It’s like the message in Success Built to Last: “There is no greater feeling in life or freedom in the world than to know that you can be yourself and part of a group that is engaged in a cause that is greater than you are.”
I have to disagree with a fair amount of this article… giving in, avoiding any confrontation, etc., actually encourages the problem person to continue to do what they’re doing, as you’re telling them that it’s alright with you.
It’s much better, in my opinion, to stand your ground… you don’t have to attack them, or be argumentative, but you also don’t have to give in when someone starts pushing you around. Let them know that you have the strength and character to be your own person, and if they don’t appreciate you after a short while, then look for a different job.
Any job where you have to shrink down within yourself, and pretend to be someone other than who you are, is not the right job.
I once would have taken the abuse boss (to a degree) and accepted it as part of the job. But I agree with Jason above, what price do you put on your emotional and mental health. No paycheck is worth degrading yourself every day for.
Know that you are better then that and find something else
There are a lot of good points made in both the article, and in the comments.
Its been my experience that a boss will make decisions simply because he has the power to make his or her own decisions, no matter if the ideas you brought to the table were the best solution.
Your comment, “This means we don’t allow awkward people to dominate our lives”, really hit home for me. I have been working on this aspect of myself with my boss. My friend handed me Dealing With Divas by Shelly Anderson, an excellent book that taught me just what you were explaining plus more. I learned to take responsibility for my own happiness in the work place.
I’m glad to know that other people are offering helpful suggestions as well. 
these are excellent ideas. can you please teach me how tobe a good listener and not always fighting for my rights.
I think this is great advice for dealing with a bad co-worker or two, but a boss who seems to enjoy criticizing everything is toxic. My last boss hadn’t ever kept an employee for longer than two years, but I managed to stick out the constant put-downs for four. I should have quit much sooner, as he ended up firing me because I wouldn’t work sixty hours every week and be two places at once. Those four years of criticism — and getting fired after helping my boss get a great promotion — have left me miserable and in search of a new career.
I’m not perfect, but in most jobs, I get complimented for hard work, intelligence, and responsibility, so the problem was definitely not me. Criticizers build themselves up by putting you down. In a co-worker, you can shrug it off. But if your boss is a criticism addict, look out! If you can get another job in these rough times, you should. Don’t help the jerk succeed.