Leading Through Adversity: How to Successfully Manage Difficult Team Members

Nov 13, 2023 | Responding to an Executive

A leader who has to take the helm of a newly acquired company, manage a business through a market crash or lead the organization through a natural disaster might be scenarios that come to mind when you think of leading through adversity.

However, one of the most challenging – and common – scenarios of leading through adversity arises when leaders have to manage difficult team members.

• There might be a high performer who doesn’t play nice with others. While their skills are niche or superior and they bring in results to drive business goals, they feel like less of an asset as they destroy team morale. But do you want to confront a cantankerous and difficult star employee?
  
• It could be there’s a team member who has the talent to do well, but falls short regularly and doesn’t seem motivated to even try – or blames others or circumstances for their mistakes. When is continually monitoring and asking for revisions or more thorough work too much?
  
• Sometimes it’s an employee who ticks all the right boxes for personality and tries very hard, but seems to lack the core competencies to do their job properly. Is a congenial temperament worth the ongoing aggravation and extra work for others on the team?
  
• Then there are the folks who have been around for years, despite consistently poor performance and attitude – perhaps even insubordination and questioning your authority. Where do you even start?

Too often, managers are reluctant to have conversations with difficult team members who might have an emotional outburst or tackle performance issues with a nice person who is struggling or oblivious. They often hope that the issue will go away with enough time (it won’t!) and they just manage around the difficult team member.

The trouble is that when there is a difficult employee of any kind, there are repercussions for the entire team. These include:

• Negatively affecting productivity and perhaps even organizational success.
  
• Hurting employee morale because it’s human nature to feel frustrated when someone seems to get preferential treatment when they’re not meeting expectations for performance or behavior.
  
• A ripple effect where other employees are either disgruntled and are no longer motivated to do their best, or they feel that the bar is set lower for everyone and stop working as hard.

How to Approach an Issue with an Employee

Effective leaders approach a difficult employee or a challenging situation as a problem to solve with curiosity and empathy. They tackle conflict directly and without unnecessary delay.

Nothing improves when we ignore issues and it won’t serve any manager to be conflict avoidant. At the same time, an effective leader isn’t a dictator, but rather someone who seeks to figure out what’s happening and how to fairly resolve the situation.

Like any puzzle, strategy matters.

1. Objectively assess the situation.

Step back and look at what you’re seeing with a difficult employee. What are the issues that you see? What evidence do you have to consider as you evaluate potential causes? What concrete examples do you have to discuss with this employee?

2. Take a moment to consider whether your leadership may have contributed to the situation.

It’s hard for some of us to think about this, but effective leadership starts when we can be self-aware and self-reflective. Is it possible you didn’t communicate expectations or deadlines or responsibilities clearly and this person really didn’t know? Or, if you did communicate clearly, is it possible that you weren’t fair or reasonable? Did anything change with the team member’s role or responsibilities that was implied but they didn’t grasp? Could your management style be causing issues? For example, are you micromanaging or changing deliverables on the fly?

3. Consider things from their perspective.

There could be reasons why these issues are arising that are contributing to problematic behaviors. If someone doesn’t seem to be willfully rude or obstinate and they aren’t bullying others or trying to undermine you, what’s going on? It’s possible there’s a personal or health issue that is a strain. There could be other factors at play. Are there issues between this person and another team member or even a client?

4. Consult someone if you need more information.

Sometimes it is very helpful to get the opinion of someone that you trust when you have to deal with a delicate situation. This might be someone in Human Resources, a boss or manager, a mentor, a peer or a professional leadership coach. Reaching out for guidance is not a sign of weakness; on the contrary, it’s wise to acknowledge when you could use a little support.

5. Book a time to have a conversation with the employee.

Ideally, you want to have any delicate conversations in person or at least face-to-face online. It’s too easy to misinterpret tone when you can’t read facial expressions.

Review our keys to having effective performance conversations, particularly meeting on neutral ground, listening with the intent to understand and using specific examples to discuss as you approach the issue (“The deliverable was X, but you did Y and missed the deadline. Can you walk me through what happened?”).

Active listening fosters trust and builds rapport, but it’s also critical to really seek to understand what they share with you. Address any concerns with empathy and compassion so that the dialogue is constructive.

6. Identify the gap together.

Through this conversation, your objective curiosity about what is going wrong could help you uncover something unexpected.

Consider:

• Are there tools, resources or other support that would help them do their job better?
• Did they have adequate training? Do they need a refresher or more training?
• Are there procedures or processes that aren’t working?
• Can they identify barriers they encounter?
• Do others on the team face the same issues in the same or different ways?
• What are their natural talents, skills and abilities? Are they aligned with this role?
• Is there conflict that is affecting their performance?
• Do they feel their personal values don’t line up with the company?

7. Create an action plan to move forward.

This is going to vary depending on what you feel is the root cause of the issue. Is this team member an asset? Then figure out actionable goals, clearly define what you want to see in terms of results and commit to giving timely and effective feedback going forward. Do they need resources, mentoring or coaching? There are ways to encourage better performance from your team members. If the team member is more of a liability, it might be time to talk to your HR Manager about steps toward termination.

When you need to have difficult conversations with team members (we prefer to call them essential conversations), apply these strategies and seek professional executive coaching for further support.

Insight Questions:

How have you previously dealt with difficult employees? What were the effects on the problem and on others in that previous situation? What is your gut response to conflict? What could you change or do differently going forward?

Tags: Active Listening, Communication, Leadership, management, Self-Reflection

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Are You Climbing the Ladder of Assumptions? How to Build Your Critical Thinking and Problem-Solving Skills

Jan 8, 2024 | | Responding to an Executive

When was the last time you got an email from a boss, coworker or client and worried they were angry or annoyed with you, only to find out you misinterpreted the tone or wording?

As leaders, we’re often encouraged to go with our gut feelings, but sometimes we make assumptions that are wrong–and might even override our critical thinking and set us to catastrophizing.

Think about other workplace situations when miscommunication arises because of assumptions. As executive coaches, this is a common theme we explore with leaders. 

Sometimes a leader assumes that silence in a meeting means everyone on the team understands a project as assigned, but one key person doesn’t understand the tasks assigned to them or the deadline, which becomes a huge problem. 

Or, they judge a team member as scattered, unfocused and unreliable–only to learn that the team member’s direct supervisor isn’t giving them the information required to complete their work.

Frequently, folks assume they know other people’s motives, skills and competencies (or lack thereof). They assume they know the information others have been given and how it’s been understood. 

It’s problematic because making assumptions can damage your team. The fallout ranges from hard feelings and decreased motivation to retention issues because division causes a toxic work culture.

We’re wired to interpret our environments. As humans, we’re always trying to figure out “why” – “why did they say that?” or, “what prompted that?”  We are prone to:

• Cognitive bias, which is when we misinterpret information because we focus on information or view the situation in a certain way because of beliefs we hold. An example of this would be only reading news stories that confirm opinions that you hold, or analyzing data and only looking for information that supports your theory.
• Implicit (or unconscious) bias, which happens when our thoughts or decisions are unconsciously influenced by pre-existing beliefs or attitudes about certain groups or situations. For example, we might meet someone who looks very professional and attractive and assume they are competent when they’re not–and dismiss someone who appears disheveled as incompetent when they are experienced and capable. Or we might have had a bad experience with a certain type of client and that makes us wary when encountering someone similar.
• We also tend to think our view of the world is “accurate.”  Meanwhile, we don’t realize we’re looking at things from our perspective, and our experience, not the other person’s. This leads to an illusion of transparency, which is the tendency for people to overestimate the degree to which their personal mental state is known by others, and to overestimate how well they understand others’ personal mental states. It also leads to the illusion of validity, the tendency to overestimate the accuracy of one’s judgments, especially when available information is consistent or inter-correlated.

Without critical thinking, the actions we take after making assumptions might reinforce false beliefs and biases, even if they’re invalid. The way we act (or react) because of them affects communication and relationships.

Are Your Decisions Based on Reality or Assumptions? 

How would you know? In our work as executive coaches, we use a tool called the Ladder of Assumptions to help clients reflect on the decisions they make, evaluate their critical thinking process and actively reject biases. 

The Ladder of Assumptions (which is also called the Ladder of Inference) was created by Chris Argyris, a business theorist, in 1970 to describe how the mental models people have are the lens through which they view the world. It’s a way to reflect on the reasoning behind how we assess a situation and decide how to react or take action. 

Each rung on the ladder represents a step in this decision-making process. Here are the steps on the Ladder of Assumptions:

Observe—the first step is when our senses pick up on everything around us (many things subconsciously).

Filter—the second step is when our brains begin to take note of some of the observations, but still very much subconsciously. Some of the data is selected.

Meaning—the next step is when our brains add meaning to the selected information that’s been observed, based on our culture (familial heritage, organizational culture and personal norms) and lived experiences.

Assumptions—from the meanings, we proceed to the next step and make assumptions. We try to answer “why” to figure out why something has happened, what caused a situation or why someone has said something. However, we look at this from our own perspective and not from the perspective of the other person or people.

Conclusions—from the assumptions we make, then we draw conclusions about the people, environment or situation we’ve observed.

Beliefs—the conclusions we draw inform the beliefs we adopt about the world, our life experiences and relationships with other people.

Actions—the next step is to take actions based on our beliefs that are based on the assumptions we made about the meaning that our brains subconsciously applied to experience.

As we get near the top of the Ladder of Assumptions, we begin to loop back. 

The Reflective Loop is when the beliefs we form influence what we observe (unconsciously) and select or filter the next time.

The Action Loop is when our actions create new situations. How we act or react will affect how others act or react in response. 

The Ladder of Assumptions can be critical and helpful, protecting us from potential harm when our gut feelings are cautioning us to act carefully. However, at times the Ladder of Assumptions can be problematic because we might be making assumptions that are invalid, which then lead to flawed conclusions and unwarranted beliefs. This is why it’s important to use the Ladder of Assumptions to consider whether we are aware of any biases or incorrect assumptions that would lead to bad decisions.

How to Use the Ladder of Assumptions

You can draw the ladder on a sheet of paper or download our free worksheet here. This tool is intended to create self-awareness so that we can recognize cognitive and unconscious biases. It is NOT a tool to take you through steps to make your best decisions.

The Ladder of Assumptions is a visual explanation of how we make decisions based on judgments that are influenced by assumptions. 

1. Start at the bottom rung and work your way up. Talk yourself through each rung on the ladder: data, observe, filter, meaning, assumptions, conclusions, beliefs and actions.  What are you thinking at each step?
   
2. Now work your way back down the ladder, rung by rung. This time, as you consider each step on the ladder, you’re going to consider why you think this. For example:

Data–Do I have all the facts?

Observe–What have I observed? Is there anything I’ve missed or disregarded?

Filter–What data have I decided to consider? Why did I make this choice?

Meaning–What cultural and personal meanings have I attached to this? Do they really have any meaning for this new situation?

Assumptions–What did I assume? Are they realistic?

Conclusions–Why did I come to these conclusions? Is there evidence to back the conclusions?

Beliefs–What beliefs informed my actions? Are these beliefs grounded in reality?

Actions–Why did I act in this way? Could I have acted differently?

3. Take your new perspective back up the ladder. Work your way from rung to rung, trying to keep any assumptions from clouding your perception. Consider any beliefs you’ve made that might guide you – the reflective loop. Then, consider any actions you’ve taken (deliberate or unconscious like negative body language) that may affect those around you and prompt them to react and make their own conclusions – the action loop. Some folks find it helpful to talk their way through as if they’re explaining their reasoning to another person so that they feel like they’re accountable.

When to Use the Ladder of Assumptions

This tool is valuable any time that you want to understand how someone has come to a particular belief or action. It’s very useful if you want to:

• understand why there’s been an emotional reaction to someone or to a situation.
• facilitate a discussion when different team members have conflicting beliefs (so they understand opposing points of view better).
• help someone uncover their own biases.

The Ladder of Assumptions can help with conflict in the workplace because it’s a way to build consensus while exploring and understanding different perspectives. It helps team members sharpen their critical thinking skills and become aware of times that they are jumping to conclusions. This is valuable when you need to challenge assumptions, identify gaps or blind spots and consider all courses of direction.

Whether you use this tool for yourself or with your team, the Ladder of Assumptions helps to ensure that all available evidence is considered and biases are checked before decisions are made.

Insight Questions

When have assumptions negatively affected your work or your team? How can you use the Ladder of Assumptions? How can you sharpen your critical thinking skills?