Dear Kimberly: How to Deal With Prickly Personalities at Work

Kimberly McGlonn is back with gentle wisdom to help you navigate life’s tough situations. Have a Q for Kimberly? Fill out the form here and we’ll do our best to feature it in an upcoming column.

Dear Kimberly: I’m stepping into an executive leadership position soon and I’m wrestling with navigating strong, type-A personalities. I’m collaborative and human-centered in my leadership style with a fair amount of emotional intelligence, but I struggle with my patience when it comes to rudeness. How can I learn to navigate challenging personalities without taking it personally? How can I maintain a calm, executive presence in the face of overly assertive personalities? — Morality Over Meanness

Dear Morality Over Meanness,

First, I applaud you for identifying yourself as someone who aspires to human-centered leadership — that’s an approach we don’t hear about or celebrate often enough. In my mind, that means you consider yourself someone who wants to hold onto morality in decision-making, and offer tenderness for the people who have turned to you for guidance. Arguably, that’s the highest standard in leadership! That also means you have to be the one to hold space for all the things people bring with them — including, sometimes, a problematic personality.

Toxic attitudes get expressed in myriad ways, of course — in language that is aggressive or timelines that are untenable and demands that threaten one’s sense of personal dignity. What I’m learning is that each of us brings into our approaches the things that we’ve had modeled for us (what was nurtured), what we’ve observed (traits from characters in media), or what is inherently just natural to us. Any of these can sometimes be barriers to accomplishing ambitious team goals.

So what’s a moral, kind leader to do in the face of aggressive, overly assertive personalities?

There are a number of things we can do, and one of them you allude to: putting a limit on how much you take personally. It’s true that you’re fallible, and that there may be something that you’ve said or done in the past that has created some degree of harm. That might be worth examining, to see if there’s a tension that might be in your blind spot. But the reality is that sometimes the way people come to us has nothing to do with us! And here’s the hard part, perhaps: having the courage to name behaviors in real time, with precise language. What has worked for me is being really mindful of all of my language: what’s happening in my body, in my posture, with where I position my feet and my shoulders, how I think about proximity and eye contact, the way I use tone.

One of the ways to break through presumption is asking questions. It’s up to you to decide whether you want to question someone in a group setting or privately. But note: Whichever you choose will send a message about the culture you’re intending to create. Do you want to have the kind of culture where things are addressed publicly, in shared communal space, or do you prefer that things are handled away from the group? That’s a matter of preference, and I’ve learned that it’s also a matter of timing. I tend to err on the side of just how egregious or subtle the perceived affront is. When the level of “rude” is egregious and experienced by everyone, that’s when, as the leader, you should be reading the room to see how the behavior is landing with your team. When I’m reading the room and can see that everyone else is picking up on the same tension, I prefer to handle things head-on in an effort to tend to the best interests of the collective. But I also recognize that sometimes, someone’s emotionality might make it better that I wait.

In either case, be direct and be open, sharing your observations plainly. Say, “Your delivery right now is muddying our communication. Can you try to rephrase that for me?” or “Am I correct that you’re intending to say X?” or “When you said that, I interpreted it to mean X, which makes me feel X — am I correct?” Clarifying questions like those can go a long way in resetting an exchange.

Awkward workplace situations can also be opportunities — to break down walls, to clarify intentions, and to establish a culture that values candor. Along the way, assume good intentions, come with an open mind, and be willing to offer your team grace. And remember that the best leaders build and repair bridges. That is as much a part of what makes our role important as is the titles that we presume.

With courage and care,
Kimberly