How to Deal With Difficult People

All of us have had to deal with difficult people at one time or another. That person that no matter what you do, they don’t respect you, or they just refuse to do things the right way. When their emails, calls or messages hit your inbox, you feel anxiety and frustration. You just want to be removed from the situation.

The truth is, that you usually can’t just remove yourself from the situation. If they’re reaching out to you directly, there is probably a good reason, or at least they think there is a good reason, that they need to communicate with you. You can’t just ignore them, because they’ll either keep reaching out to you or start to go around you to other people that will come back to you.

You need a way to deal with this person that, while frustrating and difficult allows you to communicate back effectively. You need a way to avoid escalating your emotions and ensure that the other person understands and respects you coming out of the situation.

Here are some ways that I’ve learned to deal with people after decades in the business world dealing with people at all different levels of organizations. I’ve dealt with people that are a delight to work with and people that feel like a nightmare to work with. These tips will help you more effectively manage yourself and the situation when that difficult person reaches out.

Check Your Emotions

First and foremost, you need to check your emotions. You may be feeling anxiety, frustration or anger at needing to deal with this person, but they may be feeling nothing at all. You cannot gain anything positive by reacting with emotion. In fact, when you are feeling intense emotions there is a risk that you will respond in a way that you would regret later. If you are unable to do that in the moment, do not immediately reply to their communication, whether that means you set a follow-up for their email or let their call go to voicemail. Give yourself a moment to prepare to reply calmly first.

Look In The Mirror

Ask yourself why you have this reaction to this person. What is it about this person that stirs such intense emotions? Is it something they did once that you can’t let go of or isn’t something habitual. Sometimes having a clear understanding of why you’re upset with someone can lead to a mental or emotional breakthrough that allows you to let go of what’s driving the negative emotions. If this is the case, great, you’ll be finished with your negative experiences.

Behaviors Not People

When you respond, it’s important that you remember to respond with behaviors, facts and figures and not personal attacks on the person. For example, you wouldn’t want to say something “I’ve told you about this before. You just don’t get it!” Instead you would want to shift that statement slightly to highlight the behavior. “Hey, we’ve talked about this before. I sent you over the instructions two weeks ago. Please follow them.” This avoids making the other person feel personally attacked while clearly communicating your point.

Be Direct

Don’t beat around the bush or use passive aggressive language. This is a general rule of how to effectively communicate with other people, but is especially important with difficult people. You need to be able to speak from a position of authority so that your words command respect without putting the other person down.

Set Boundaries

Some people won’t respect your time or boundaries. For example a coworker may call you at 9 at night to discuss a project they’re working on, or reach out to you on the weekend or worse reach out when they know you’re on vacation. Others might refuse to use an approved process or disregard your direction about how to reach out. In these cases, set clear boundaries. If they’re reaching out late or on the weekend, set a reminder to reach back out during the next business day. If you’re on PTO and have set an out of office with next steps, assume that that process worked and they followed the next steps. Let them reach back out to you if they didn’t follow the right process. If they refuse to use the approved steps or methods, just refer them back to those. “Hey there, you need to submit this through X”.

Make the Call

Voice to voice communication is more effective than written communication. Written communication certainly has its place and in today’s day and age, most communication is non verbal in nature. However, non verbal communication lacks the intonation or inflection of your voice that helps to convey both the meaning and tone of your conversation. When you need to ensure someone understands completely, call them. This will not only ensure they walk away clearly understanding what you need them to, it also doesn’t not create a written record of your conversation, which is valuable in the event they would have misunderstood or mistook it.

Stop Apologizing

If you’re dealing with someone that doesn’t respect boundaries, doesn’t respect your time and constantly does things the wrong way, do not apologize. Do not say things like, “I’m sorry, I thought I sent that to you.” or “I must have not gotten you the right process before.”. You know that you did get them the right information before and your frustration is probably rooted in their lack of respect for you and their inability to follow direction. Don’t apologize for this. If you’ve done your part and provided the information and they’ve refused to follow it, they are the one that owes you the apology.

What are your experiences dealing with difficult people? Do you have a strategy for dealing with them or do you get overwhelmed with emotion or anxiety at the thought of them reaching out? Do you think these tips will help? I want to hear about it! Post below, contact me or meet me at my website LeaderLifeline.com!

Originally published at https://www.leaderlifeline.com on April 27, 2021.