Leading Difficult Team Members

Let’s face it. You don’t always see eye-to-eye with everyone on your team. It is common to find teams that include a difficult person (or two).

Difficult team members can hamper team success and team members’ satisfaction. Often, we talk about the toxic person or how to get the right people in the right seat of the bus (or the wrong person off the bus completely). These are worthwhile conversations to have, but not to the exclusion of first making an investment in the lives of hurting or difficult people.

Unfortunately, leaders sometimes abdicate their responsibilities to develop others for comfort or ease. This lazy leadership occurs when one lumps a hard-to-work-with person into a category instead of doing the hard work of a leader.

Here are six insights on leading difficult team members:

1. Give your time. Commit to mentoring someone who isn’t meeting the standard. Provide extra guidance for that difficult person.

2. Give the benefit. Commit to believing the best about others rather than assigning judgment to unknown intentions. Provide extra grace for that difficult person.

3. Give trust. Commit to extending trust at the start rather than making it something to be earned. Provide extra chances when they break your trust, remembering that we all make mistakes.

4. Give relationship. Commit to getting to know the difficult team member more personally. Provide an open ear to hear their story and learn why they think or act the way they do.

5. Give feedback. Commit to having hard conversations backed by opportunities for growth and change. Provide clear evaluation and training to make shortcomings clear to all involved.

6. Give severance. Commit to letting people go graciously and with dignity when you have to get rid of those who aren’t willing to change. Provide generous pay, benefits, and a healthy send-off even when one is truly toxic or a bad fit.

Take on those difficult people in your organization as a challenge to lead. Leadership is not simply being at the top of the org chart but about developing others into the leaders they can become.

Christian leadership is particularly concerned with influencing broken people through the power of a gospel that changes hearts and lives. Lead toward developing difficult team members with a chance to change by providing proper resources and personal energy.

Kevin S. Hall is a graduate of Cedarville University (B.A.) and the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary (Adv. MDiv). He is currently pursuing a PhD at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary. Kevin is a former police officer and has served in Mexico as a missionary. He is married to Bethany, and they have three children.