Dealing with Difficult Personalities
{"Image DocumentName": "Dealing with Difficult Personalities", "Image ImageDescription": "Civility is one of the best ways to deal with difficult personalities in the workplace. Dealing with difficult personalities is simply a matter of setting and negotiating boundaries. Civility creates a positive atmosphere which allows people to see beyond the obvious implications of people\u2019s behavior. A huge source of stress at work is the need to adjust to different personalities. Each person is unique, and even when you\u2019re dealing with a responsible and emotionally mature co-worker, friction is inevitable simply because the other person will never be 100% similar to you. But the stress of interacting with co-workers gets multiplied a hundredfold when the other person doesn\u2019t just have a different personality, but also a difficult one. What may be considered as a difficult personality? The answer is subjective; a difficult personality for one person need not be a difficult personality for another. But usually, people perceived as difficult are those who manifest inflexible extremes of personality traits. For instance, while being controlling is a desirable trait in a manager (after all, a manager\u2019s job is to control what is happening in a workplace!), being excessively controlling would just make the people under the manager\u2019s care feel stifled and even abused. Recognition of the need to consult co-workers about major company decisions is a good thing. But when an employee consults everyone else on almost everything, to the point that the constant consultation is already dependency in disguise, then the person becomes difficult to work with. When working with a difficult personality, most people\u2019s immediate response is an unhelpful one: a response aimed more at relieving personal stress than creating a more workable relationship. For instance, there is a tendency to avoid dominant personality types, lecture the overly dependent, and exact vengeance on the passive-aggressive. The result is an endless cycle of dysfunctional relating that creates more problems than it solves. Civility is one of the best ways to deal with difficult personalities in the workplace. Civility sets the stage for effective communication --- in many ways, dealing with difficult personalities is simply a matter of setting and negotiating boundaries. After all, difficult personalities are not bad people. They just have a fixed way of relating and may need feedback from peers in order to adjust. As importantly, civility creates a positive atmosphere which allows people to see beyond the obvious implications of people\u2019s behavior. For instance, many supposedly difficult personalities are simply people who have needs that are not being functionally addressed. You may see your co-worker as annoying when he or she simply craves attention and recognition. It\u2019s also possible that your difficult co-worker is merely channeling anger and frustration from their personal life into their workplace. When you engaged in civil behavior with your co-worker, you provide more opportunities for supportive interaction and empathy --- which opens the door to fixing your problematic interaction with one another!", "Image XResolution": "37", "Image YResolution": "37", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Centimeter", "Image Software": "SlidePlayer", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Centered"}