How To Lead And Guide Difficult Employees
Michele Robinson
As a leader, you love interacting with your team and helping them achieve great things. However, we know that there will come a time when you have to work with and guide a difficult employee who may challenge your leadership style or skills. At 3 Pillars of Leadership, we want to empower you with the knowledge and skills necessary to lead a difficult employee and help them overcome whatever obstacles they are facing. If you’d like to learn more after reading this post, please contact us today!
Listen
Listening is key to engaging with any employee, especially one who has been particularly difficult as of late. As a leader, it’s important to listen, not just hear. If you’re just waiting to respond to what your employee is saying, then you’re likely not actually listening to them. Take the time to listen to their struggles and complaints, as well as their ideas and solutions.
Give Clear Feedback
Once you’ve listened to your employee, you should take the time to develop and provide clear feedback on what you discussed. Give them a breakdown of how you feel they can improve and what benchmarks you’d like to see them reach in the next few weeks or months.
Document
Any employee interaction, be it an annual review or a disciplinary conversation, should be documented. This is imperative not only for Human Resources purposes, but also for clarity on any follow-up conversations you may have with the employee. You can reference what was said and what was agreed upon, making sure everyone is on the same page.
