Archive • dealing with difficult people • Buttondown

[difficult people] - 20. Aligning Visions: Setting Mutual Expectations

March 30, 2025

The Expectations Talk: A Story of Finding Common Ground Wei sat in her car, rehearsing the conversation one last time. In an hour, she'd be meeting with...

[difficult people] - 19. The Art of Managing Up

March 16, 2025

The View from the Middle: A Story About Managing Up Lisa stared at the email from her boss, Marcus, feeling that familiar knot in her stomach. Another last-...

[difficult people] - 18. The Agile Professional - being flexible and adaptable at work

March 9, 2025

Bend, Don't Break: A Story of Workplace Adaptability When Maria joined the product development team, she thought her biggest challenge would be learning the...

[difficult people] - 17. Self-Care Strategies when Relating is Tough

March 2, 2025

##Self-Care in Dealing with Difficult People When Self-Care Isn't Selfish: A Story of Workplace Survival Jamie's coffee had gone cold – again. She'd been so...

[difficult people] - 16. Stress Less: Strategies for Managing

February 23, 2025

##Dealing with Stress Ongoing dealings with difficult people will inevitably increase your stress levels. What can be done about that? Finding Your Calm: A...

[difficult people] - 15. Communication Strategies for Every Professional

February 16, 2025

##Communication: Skills in Communication When dealing with difficult people in the workplace, improving certain communication skills can significantly...

[difficult people] - 13. Effective Documentation: A Key to Clear Communication

February 15, 2025

Looking back over the list, somehow I didn’t send this one through! Too many in this series perhaps. At some point in your interactions with difficult...

[difficult people] - 14. Workplace Issues: When to call HR or Family

February 9, 2025

As we enter the final phase of this series on dealing with difficult people in the workplace, I wanted to let you know the thinking behind a change in...

[difficult people] - 12. EQ: Emotional Intelligence for Conflict Resolution

January 31, 2025

Conflict: Building Emotional Intelligence The level of emotional intelligence (EI / EQ) you’re able to bring to an interaction with a difficult person,...

[difficult people] - 11. Being an Ally: Supporting Colleagues Through Conflict

December 2, 2024

Conflict: Supporting People Through Conflict If there’s a workplace conflict, it seems vanishingly likely that you will be the only person impacted. How can...

[difficult people] - 10. Mastering Conflict Resolution

October 8, 2024

Conflict: Conflict Resolution Skills Conflict is inevitable in the workplace; there will always be a difference of opinions, and people with different levels...

[difficult people] - 9. Balancing the Scales: Navigating Power Imbalances in Conflict

August 11, 2024

Conflict: Dealing Where There Is a Power Imbalance What happens when there's conflict with a difficult person, combined with a power imbalance? The...

[difficult people] - 8. Overcoming Gaslighting: Strategies for Empowerment and Recovery

August 4, 2024

##Conflict: Dealing with Gaslighting Last newsletter we talked about how to recognise gaslighting in the workplace; now we move on to talking about dealing...

[difficult people] - 7. Shedding Light on Gaslighting: Recognition and Response

July 26, 2024

##Conflict: Recognizing Gaslighting I still haven't made the time to watch the 1944 movie Gaslight - where a lady's husband keeps changing the environment...

[difficult people] - 6. Emotional Wellbeing at Work: Managing Draining Interactions

June 30, 2024

##Dealing with Emotionally Draining People One term for referring to someone who is emotionally draining is energy vampire - someone who leaves you feeling...

[difficult people] - 5. Working with people who are unreliable

June 16, 2024

Unreliable People There are two aspects to dealing with unreliable people in the workplace: dealing with their unreliability, but also maintaining the kind...

[difficult people] - 4. Rise Above the Rumors: How to Navigate Workplace Gossip

June 8, 2024

Dealing with Gossip There are probably worse things than being in a workplace that is filled with gossip, but where it is possible to stamp this out, it can...

[difficult people] - 3. Empathy at Work: Understanding and Collaboration

May 5, 2024

Empathy and Understanding One way to improve your working relationship with everyone, whether difficult or not - is to increase your empathy and...

[difficult people] - 2. Work effectively with people of different difficulties

April 7, 2024

Types of People: Easy to Work With / Moderate / Difficult As we start the discussion about how best to deal with difficult people, we start out by working...

[difficult people] - 1. Introduction to managing difficult people

March 10, 2024

We are back with a new series of newsletters. This time, we will be thinking through how we can deal with difficult people in the workplace. Here is a...