WomenCo.

Dealing With Difficult People: Identification

Difficult people have learned that they can keep others off balance by acting up. If you are dealing with someone whose bad behavior is habitual and who is considered hard to take by most people, not just the overly sensitive or those who lack confidence, then you have a difficult person on your hands. Worst of all, these difficult people appear immune to all the usual methods of communication and persuasion designed to convince or help them change their ways. Here are the eight difficult types you may encounter.

- The bully is angry, abusive, abrupt, aggressive, intimidating, hostile and unpredictable. Needing to always get his or her way, he or she goes off over little things, expecting others to either run away or react with rage.
- Passive-aggressive personalities say yes and do no. Examples include being late for an event he or she doesn’t want to attend or leaving a note to avoid a face-to-face discussion.
- The sniper takes potshots and makes sneak attacks in subtle ways, such as humorous put-downs, sarcastic remarks, disapproving looks and innuendoes.
- Negative Nellies are complainers who are fearful, have little faith in themselves or in others and believe that the world is a hostile place. Their negativity, resentfulness and disappointment in life throw cold water on every idea and crush all glimmers of optimism.
- The blamer avoids taking responsibility. Instead, using an accusatory and self-righteous tone, he or she finds fault with everything and everyone.
- Unresponsives limit risk and seek safety by responding with a sullen look, an “I don’t know” or silence. They get away with not talking because the people around them are uncomfortable with silence and too quick to fill in the gaps.
- The yes-person is a super-agreeable people pleaser who over-promises and never delivers.
- The know-it-all is an expert who comes across like a bulldozer with an aura of personal authority that is condescending, imposing and pompous.

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