APU Business Original

Using Emotional Intelligence for Difficult Subordinates

By Dr. Jarrod Sadulski
Faculty Member, Criminal Justice

One of the biggest challenges in the workplace for managers are subordinates who create conflict and are difficult to get along with. As a manager in both my military and civilian careers, I have experienced situations where a subordinate created turmoil in the workplace. The turmoil was caused by subordinates who:

  • Were disgruntled due to their assigned duties and responsibilities
  • Didn’t meet job expectations
  • Created conflicts with management and their coworkers

Working with Disgruntled Employees

When working with difficult subordinates, managers must develop strategies for overcoming and ensure that a subordinate’s performance and personality clashes don’t impact work productivity. In situations where subordinates are disgruntled with their duties and responsibilities, it is possible to overcome the conflict.

For instance, a manager can sit down with the subordinate for a discussion. The talk can involve what element of a task or responsibility is causing conflict, and both the manager and subordinate can discuss ideas how problems can be overcome. In some situations, it may be possible to assign other tasks to those difficult subordinates that better align with their skills and experience, which can increase their job satisfaction and mitigate conflict.

Another strategy is to apply transformational leadership to the situation and explain how mastering these least-desired tasks now can lead an employee to additional responsibilities and career growth. It is equally helpful to explain why those tasks and responsibilities are important and to build the employee’s buy-in by emphasizing how the tasks contribute to the team’s overall success.

Related link: Global Leaders and How Managers Can Improve Performance

Helping Difficult Subordinates to Meet Job Expectations

Supervisors are often faced with the challenge of subordinates who don’t meet their job expectations. In this situation, I have found it helpful to take a coach or mentor-style approach versus engaging in top-down, authoritarian leadership and simply disciplining employees for their failure.

For example, sitting down with subordinates to ask them how they feel they are doing is usually a good place to get a conversation started. If employees admits that they are struggling or not keeping up with their job responsibilities, this admission can lead into a discussion about why this situation is occurring.

An inability to meet job expectations could be due to one of several factors: a lack of training, difficulty with time management or conflicts in the employee’s personal life that impact their work performance. Each of these scenarios can be resolved through addressing them individually.

Related link: Removing “Us versus Them” Dynamics Leads to an Inclusive Workplace

Coping with Difficult Subordinates Who Create Conflict

Probably the most challenging situation for managers are employees who have personality clashes with the manager or other employees. They typically create conflict through gossip, undermine a manager’s directives or publicly speak out against the manager to create a toxic work environment.

In these scenarios, managers should apply emotional intelligence to resolve the conflict. Ideally, managers should avoid responding to emotional, angry subordinates who are acting out their feelings, which can be challenging.

However, supervisors who can keep their cool during personality clashes are far more likely to resolve a situation with such an employee. For subordinates who are very Type A and must be right all the time, managers must maintain their role as leaders by remaining firm on policies and expectations. They should set the standard for what is acceptable behavior in the workplace.

Difficult subordinates should be provided some autonomy with set boundaries. That strategy will enable those employees to take charge of a task with an understanding of what they are permitted to do and when they need to consult with a manager.

When a manager uses emotional intelligence, some strategies for managing personality clashes with difficult subordinates include:

  • Modeling the behavior that is expected from subordinates
  • Helping upset employees to avoid acting out of emotion
  • Providing positive reinforcement through feedback

Providing positive feedback on the subordinate’s performance as appropriate is very useful. Even if the manager does not personally care for the subordinate due to a personality clash, this behavior reflects the manager’s professionalism and keeps the focus on the job.

The use of emotional intelligence can also help managers overcome personality clashes with subordinates by enabling a manager to avoid getting upset when communicating with a subordinate. Emotional intelligence enables managers to find common ground with difficult subordinates and to resolve conflicts by being direct, fair, and honest in their communication without acting emotionally.

Ultimately, every manager will likely have to deal with difficult subordinates. Managers must maintain their position of authority and leadership while remaining empathetic and kind toward their employees. Utilizing emotional intelligence, focusing on the subordinates’ behavior instead of their personalities, being open to feedback from employees and discovering the causes of conflict so that they can be addressed are all useful strategies for managers to use.

Dr. Jarrod Sadulski is an associate criminal justice professor in the School of Security and Global Studies and has over two decades in the field of criminal justice and leadership. He provided leadership training to a nation’s criminal justice leaders in Latin America in 2019. His expertise includes leadership training, human trafficking consulting, maritime security and narcotics trafficking trends. Jarrod recently conducted in-country research in Central and South America on human trafficking and current trends in human and narcotics trafficking. Jarrod can be reached through his website at www.Sadulski.com for more information.

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