Really excellent article. I’ve been in this line of work for 35 years and you’ve done a nice job identifying the archetypes AND offering practical advise. Thanks!
Claire, your articulation of the five difficult employee archetypes is spot on! Each profile reflects real challenges I've faced, and your practical advice is incredibly helpful.
Thank you for sharing such a valuable resource. This guide is now a go-to reference for me in navigating team dynamics. Your insights have made a tangible difference in my approach to leadership.
It felt quite incomplete to me. The viewpoint of this article is that the employee is completely at fault here and had better straighten up and fly straight. Or else.
Don't get me wrong, I have had employees that were getting things wrong, and some of them even fit into these categories. A few did have to be let go. I'm not unfamiliar with uncomfortable conversations.
But not all of them. Maybe 50-60% were recoverable simply by me realising where my leadership wasn't serving, helping, communicating, coaching or thanking them. In other words, I as the leader was the problem, not the employee.
Maybe I'm coming in and only catching the end of a thread. Maybe I didn't understand the long-term conversation that this fits into.
It's worth noting that 99.6% of people (in a recent survey we ran) reported having had a bad boss. Many people who were bosses have reported having no or no effective training.
Bottom line: managers get things wrong too, especially with the stress they shoulder. We owe it to ourselves and our people to make sure we're doing our bit.
Hey Ken — really appreciate this thoughtful comment. I couldn’t agree more with you: Absolutely, sometimes it IS the leader, and not the employee! The intention of this piece is to highlight those situations where an employee is *especially* difficult or toxic to work with, and you as a leader have already done your own self-reflection to how you might be contributing to the behavior.
Most of my other writing focuses on helping a leader uncover these blindspots, so I thought it a helpful change of pace to focus on the other situations (which I agree are likely 50% or less of the time).
Hope that helps to clear things up, and thanks for writing this.
Also! I just re-read my essay, and agree that I could’ve made it much clearer in the beginning that these steps come later, after you as the leader have tried to alleviate how they are complicit in the situation. I’ll take that into consideration for next time. Thank you!
Really excellent article. I’ve been in this line of work for 35 years and you’ve done a nice job identifying the archetypes AND offering practical advise. Thanks!
So glad it was useful to you, Ellyn!
Claire, your articulation of the five difficult employee archetypes is spot on! Each profile reflects real challenges I've faced, and your practical advice is incredibly helpful.
Thank you for sharing such a valuable resource. This guide is now a go-to reference for me in navigating team dynamics. Your insights have made a tangible difference in my approach to leadership.
Warm regards, Browny
Heya Claire,
Just read this article.
It felt quite incomplete to me. The viewpoint of this article is that the employee is completely at fault here and had better straighten up and fly straight. Or else.
Don't get me wrong, I have had employees that were getting things wrong, and some of them even fit into these categories. A few did have to be let go. I'm not unfamiliar with uncomfortable conversations.
But not all of them. Maybe 50-60% were recoverable simply by me realising where my leadership wasn't serving, helping, communicating, coaching or thanking them. In other words, I as the leader was the problem, not the employee.
Maybe I'm coming in and only catching the end of a thread. Maybe I didn't understand the long-term conversation that this fits into.
It's worth noting that 99.6% of people (in a recent survey we ran) reported having had a bad boss. Many people who were bosses have reported having no or no effective training.
Bottom line: managers get things wrong too, especially with the stress they shoulder. We owe it to ourselves and our people to make sure we're doing our bit.
Hey Ken — really appreciate this thoughtful comment. I couldn’t agree more with you: Absolutely, sometimes it IS the leader, and not the employee! The intention of this piece is to highlight those situations where an employee is *especially* difficult or toxic to work with, and you as a leader have already done your own self-reflection to how you might be contributing to the behavior.
Most of my other writing focuses on helping a leader uncover these blindspots, so I thought it a helpful change of pace to focus on the other situations (which I agree are likely 50% or less of the time).
Hope that helps to clear things up, and thanks for writing this.
Also! I just re-read my essay, and agree that I could’ve made it much clearer in the beginning that these steps come later, after you as the leader have tried to alleviate how they are complicit in the situation. I’ll take that into consideration for next time. Thank you!