Managing Oppositional Employees

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​Oppositional employees are perpetual naysayers, refusing to follow instructions, debating or dismissing feedback, or creating an ongoing stream of negative comments. Writing in the Harvard Business Review, Fortune 500 consultant and former NYU professor Liz Kislik offers several approaches to help managers get the best from such difficult employees:

• Adjust job responsibilities to leverage their strengths. Sometimes defiance masks a fear of looking incompetent. For a time, overlooking someone’s oppositional behaviors and focusing on how they might best employ their strengths might restore their cooperation.

 

• Consider that they might have some valid points. Employees who express negativity can grow more negative when they feel unheard. If you listen to their concerns, you may find that some are justified and that hearing them out may make them more willing to hear you out.   (Tweet it!)

 

• Know where to draw the line. If an employee, even one who is personally successful and productive, is an unrelenting drain on morale and consistently makes others feel denigrated, the organization cannot sustain it. They must be encouraged to move on.

Letting an oppositional employee go may not be necessary. First, try understanding their concerns and motivations, and provide support through possible job redesign and relationship building. “Then,” says Kislik, “employees who were once seen as problems can bring their greatest strengths to bear on behalf of the organization, rather than against it.”

Have you ever had to manage an oppositional employee? Were your approaches successful? To join the conversation, click "comments" above.

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