Sometimes, you may not be an observer but rather a disputant in a conflict. If the dispute is between you and someone whose work you supervise, then it will be almost impossible for you to be objective. You may want to turn to the human resources department or to your own manager for assistance. It is wise to talk about the situation to determine if the clash is due to a personality conflict with your employee or a job performance problem. It may be either, and the latter is more easily solved.
A personality conflict occurs when you and your employee don’t agree with each other. But it can go further than this. Besides a difference of viewpoints, a strained relationship may prompt destructive action by the employee. Your staff member may work in an acceptable manner but may question you at every turn of events. Worse, the employee may be sullen or unpleasant in speaking to you, ignore your instructions, and gossip against you. Under these circumstances, you will find it hard to be polite and civil to the individual. It only makes it doubly difficult for you if the individual is friendly with and respected by coworkers.
Under these circumstances, what should you do?
Once you determine that a personality conflict exists, you need to work to reduce or resolve the conflict. Even in this situation, where conflict involves just two individuals, you’re really still in the middle. As the employee’s supervisor, you have to judge not only the employee’s behavior but also your own. Ask yourself, “Am I contributing to this problem?”
It’s very easy to forget that our behavior, which seems quite acceptable to us, might upset, even infuriate another person. For instance, a manager committing “halo effect” appraisal error judges an employee’s total work by only one characteristic, the individual’s neat desk. The employee with a very messy workstation may be labeled a poor worker, when in reality this person may be a top performer. If you maintain a neat office, you may have a skewed perspective on the office pack rat.
Take another situation. A manager who gets angry and upset easily may not realize that what feels like “blowing off a little steam” can be intimidating, rude, or incendiary to one of the staff members. Or take a manager who is always in a hurry. An employee who needs time to question the manager about work assignments may feel frustrated, even alienated.
Only after determining to what extent, if at all, you contribute to a personality conflict can you determine how to resolve the difference. Here are some actions you can take.
- Focus on the work. Don’t feel that you need to socialize with your employee. It is best to stick to matters of work so that the staff member will have no reason to feel that you are being either invasive or unnaturally friendly.
- Accentuate the positive. When you see evidence of positive performance from the employee, acknowledge it as such. Let your staff member know that such job performance is appreciated.
- Communicate with care. An employee who does not like a manager often looks for ways to use the manager’s own words to make “mistakes” by “following the directions.” Likewise, very smart people can become very stupid when they’re reading instructions they don’t want to follow. You shouldn’t give your troublesome staff member cause to do either.
- Treat everyone the same. You have to be careful not to treat your other staff members more favorably than the individual with whom you are having difficulties. Favoritism can open up a Pandora’s box of problems.
- Try the direct approach. Talking with the staff member may or may not help, but it is worth a try. However, you need to meet with the staff member on equal terms, putting aside your position of authority. Even if you agree only that there is a personality conflict and to try to stay out of each other’s way, just clearing the air may help.
If you are sure that you have been as fair and as accommodating to the other party as possible, but your employee continues to act with hostility, what can you do? As the individual’s manager, you have the option of disciplining or even terminating the staff member. However, you must be sure that you aren’t disciplining someone just for being difficult to work with. Especially if the employee in question doesn’t like you, you can expect that your decision to terminate will be challenged vigorously in court. Liking everyone you work with is not a job requirement. Being able to work with everyone, however, is. A better solution is to transfer the employee to a different department.