Published: 15 June 2023
Difficult staff members may fixate over technicalities, disdain innovation and think you (or others) are after them. As labor becomes more communal, networked, and overlapped to boost productivity, this research helps executive leaders manage these workers and the stress they cause.
Research demonstrates that global unhappiness and work-related illness — loneliness, stress, resentment and anger — are an epidemic. Chief executives must now manage them in the workplace. After 2019, social media mentions about problematic co-workers increased 39% in 2021 and 16% in 2022 (the latest year data is available).
Difficult workplace personalities are consistently inappropriate, causing harm to the team, company and those they directly lead or work with due to their uncontrollable need for attention, protection and/or control.
The net impact of their negative behavior can range from difficult to toxic — gossiping, unreliability, undermining, bullying, insubordination, display of
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