No one gets promoted to deal with difficult employees. It’s not in the job description or the congratulatory email, so it essentially is a silent notification that you will be dealt with down the line. Therefore, the moment someone becomes a manager, challenging behaviors emerge: attitude issues, resistance, passive behavior, conflict, and maybe pushback?
Managing difficult employees in any field requires an understanding of cultural nuances surrounding respect and hierarchy.
Why Managing Difficult Employees Is a Core Leadership Skill?
Anyone can lead a compliant team. Real leadership emerges when handling difficult team members becomes necessary. This isn’t just a soft skill; it’s a credibility skill that separates exceptional leaders from average managers.
Understanding Difficult Employee Behavior: Beyond the Label
What “Difficult Employee” Really Means
When managers hear “difficult employee,” they often imagine someone rude, lazy, or disruptive. However, difficult employee behavior typically manifests as:
- High performers with problematic attitudes
- Quiet team members who resist change
- Senior staff refusing new initiatives
- Employees who challenge every decision
- Team members who withdraw instead of communicating
These individuals aren’t villains; they’re signals of deeper issues: frustration, fear, burnout, misalignment, or feeling unheard. Strong leaders read between the lines rather than simply labeling problem employees.
Why Managers Struggle With Difficult Employees?
Most managers receive training for tasks, not behavior management. They earn promotions for reliability and efficiency, then suddenly face expectations to manage emotions, conflict, resistance, and motivation.
In Malaysia, as per observation, this gap manifests distinctly. Many managers avoid confrontation to prevent appearing harsh, while others become overly controlling. Some hope that difficult employee issues resolve independently.
They rarely do..
When employee problems linger, teams notice, morale drops, and leadership credibility erodes. Meanwhile, the difficult employee might gain confidence.
Leadership Styles for Managing Difficult Employees
Different leadership approaches impact how you handle challenging team members. Here’s how each style performs in difficult employee situations:
1. Authoritative Leadership: Clear Direction and Boundaries
How it works: Sets clear expectations, makes firm decisions, and requires follow-through.
Managing difficult employees: Creates a structure where boundaries and expectations are explicit. Employees understand consequences and standards.
Risk: When executed poorly, feels controlling. Staff comply superficially while resisting underneath.
Best practice: Pair authority with fairness, not ego.
2. Democratic Leadership: Building Consensus
How it works: Solicits input, listens actively, and involves the team in decisions.
Managing difficult employees: Reduces defensiveness by making people feel heard. Opens communication channels and lowers tension.
Risk: Overuse leads to delayed decisions and weakened authority. Strong personalities may dominate.
Best practice: Listen genuinely, then decide decisively. Avoid endless consultation.
3. Coaching Leadership: Development-Focused Approach
How it works: Guides through questions, develops capabilities, and builds people up.
Managing difficult employees: Uncovers root causes like insecurity, skill gaps, fear, or past experiences. Builds trust and changes behavior long-term.
Risk: Requires significant time and emotional energy not always available.
Best practice: Invest in coaching for high-potential, difficult employees worth developing.
4. Laissez-Faire Leadership: Hands-Off Management
How it works: Provides autonomy and minimal interference.
Managing difficult employees: High-risk approach. Issues go unaddressed, standards slip, and strong personalities dominate.
Risk: Appears calm externally while chaos builds internally.
Best practice: Avoid this style with difficult employees. Active management is essential.
5. Transactional Leadership: Rules and Accountability
How it works: Establishes clear expectations, outcomes, and consequences.
Managing difficult employees: Provides structure and predictability. Employees know exactly where they stand.
Risk: Can feel mechanical. Achieves compliance without genuine commitment.
Best practice: Effective for performance management, limited for emotional or motivational issues.
Adapting Your Leadership Style to Difficult Employees
Effective leaders don’t rely on one approach. They adapt based on the situation:
- Stubborn senior staff: Require firmness and clear boundaries
- Defensive junior employees: Benefit from coaching and support
- Disruptive high performers: Need explicit behavioral boundaries
- Resistant teams: Respond to involvement and consultation
Leadership is a skill set, not a personality trait. Managing difficult employees tests how well you’ve developed that skill.
Common Mistakes When Managing Difficult Employees
Leaders typically fail by:
- Avoiding difficult conversations entirely
- Reacting emotionally instead of remaining calm
- Attacking the person rather than addressing the behavior
- Lecturing instead of listening
- Making assumptions without clarifying
- Delegating to HR what requires direct leadership
Managing difficult employees requires clarity and courage, not aggression or avoidance.
The Emotional Intelligence Factor in People Management
Managing Yourself While Managing Difficult Employees
Difficult behavior triggers emotional responses in leaders. It challenges ego, pride, and patience.
- A disrespected leader may overreact
- An insecure leader may become controlling
- An exhausted leader may disengage
Training for managing difficult employees must include self-management. This is both the hardest and most important component of effective people management.
Why Malaysian Companies Prioritize Difficult Employee Management Training
The Business Impact of Poor People Management
Organizations once assumed leaders would “figure out” employee management through trial and error. This approach proves costly:
- Decreased team morale
- Reduced productivity
- Increased turnover
- Lower engagement
- Damaged reputation
Malaysian companies now treat leadership behavior as a performance factor, not a personality trait. Managing difficult employees directly impacts business results.
Essential Skills for Managing Difficult Employees
Leaders need practical capabilities, not theoretical concepts:
- Conducting uncomfortable conversations without escalation
- Maintaining composure when challenged
- Setting boundaries without aggression
- Addressing attitude issues respectfully
- Handling resistance without intensifying conflict
- Documenting issues professionally
These are learnable, practicable skills that produce visible improvements in team dynamics.
How Difficult Employee Management Shapes Team Culture
The Ripple Effect of Your Leadership Response
Teams observe everything:
- How leaders handle conflict
- Which behaviors get tolerated
- Whether issues get addressed or ignored
When difficult behavior is tolerated, Standards decline. When handled poorly: Fear spreads. When handled well, Trust builds
Leadership credibility forms in these moments, quietly and quickly. Once lost, credibility is difficult to rebuild.
Managing Difficult Employees: Fairness Over Control
Some leaders worry that addressing difficult employee behavior makes them appear harsh or unpopular. However, allowing problematic behavior is unfair to everyone else on the team.
Your team deserves clarity, respect, and psychological safety. Managing difficult employees isn’t about control; it’s about protecting standards.
Standards define leadership.
Now, let’s wrap it up.
Leadership doesn’t have to be loud to matter. Sometimes it’s just a difficult word spoken with kindness, a standard held with fairness, or simply showing up when it’s uncomfortable. And suddenly, your team knows what real leadership looks like.
- How they communicate during awkward moments
- How they act when tension rises
- How do they decide when situations get messy
That’s leadership. Not the title, badge, or office, but the behavior.
Managing difficult employees is where your leadership truly shows.
Let’s make learning stick.
Visit www.goflexevents.com for our upcoming programs or drop us a note. We’d love to build something that actually works, for your people.
