Dealing with Resistant Staff: Some Principles and Some Practices
The interpersonal problems that arise from organizational change are among the most difficult that a leader will ever deal with. But dealing with them effectively, fairly, and consistently is among the most important duties of a leader.
In Tuesday's post, I shared the experience of hearing fellow managers say "My library really needs to do [X], but my staff would never accept it." To which I tended to respond (silently, in my head) "If you're going to take a leader's money, you need to be willing to do a leader's work."
That's easy to say, of course. But what exactly is the important work that, as leaders, we're sometimes tempted to avoid doing when dealing with recalcitrant or resistant staff? And how do we do it?
I have a few thoughts.
First of all, as I mentioned briefly in my previous post, in these situations leaders and managers always have to manage two countervailing temptations: to either exercise dictatorial power ("I'm in charge and you'll do as I say") or avoid conflict ("Oh, you don't want to do [X]? Okay, you don't have to"). Some of us are more inclined to take the power-move approach, and some of us are more inclined to try to appease – but both approaches are bad, for multiple reasons. These include:
Both approaches are lazy. Whether you're wielding power arbitrarily or running away from conflict, you're taking the easy way out and avoiding doing the actual work that leadership requires.