How To Deal With A Difficult Employee

One of the least favorite aspects of a leader’s job is when they have to deal with a difficult employee. It’s not fun to confront people who are misbehaving or deliberately avoiding their job. Difficult employees make things difficult for the entire team, whether it’s a passive-aggressive colleague, a narcissistic coworker, or an unresponsive direct report. But despite their prevalence, many leaders seem to be unwilling or unable to deal with them effectively. And that hurts everyone.

Dealing with difficult employees is unavoidable. But the good news is that taking the time to deal with a difficult employee can have a dramatically positive effect on the team. According to Harvard Business School professors Michael Housman and Dylan Minor, the productivity boost gained from removing toxic employees is greater than any boost gained from adding a star performer.

In this article, we’ll lay out a five-step process to help deal with a difficult employee.

Identify The Problem

The first step to deal with a difficult employee is to identify the problem. It needs to be named specifically otherwise it runs the risk of being ignored or tolerated. Not only does this help the person improve, but it also lets the rest of the team know you’re working on it. Identifying the problem doesn’t mean labelling…