In any corporate organization or culture, every manager encounters difficult situations and people. A well-versed management professional is able to deal with adversity and negative people or colleagues in a positive manner. Most of the people in managerial positions must have encountered with the situation where their colleague agrees with certain plan of action but ends doing something totally different, it’s frustrating! Such type of actions could lead to delay or sabotage of business goals. Another most popular difficult situation we must have faced is, the co-worker says something else and does something else. Let’s see how to deal with such passive yet aggressive colleague:

Shift your complete focus to work. Despite of your uncooperative colleague, your ultimate aim should be completion of the task that has been assigned. Do not expect changes in his attitude overnight, get your work done by yourself.
Provide feedback to your colleague. Get your point communicated to them effectively about your experience with them. Tell them how their behavior is affecting you and the work.
Encourage peer pressure. Hereafter any business meeting, you can involve others as well as this particular co-worker which is creating problems and ask them about their future strategies and how they are going to achieve the goals. Such peer pressure or competition can motivate the passive-aggressive colleague to get active and work on the given job.

Be Patient and Calm

Modern offices are more open physically and metaphorically, were hardly there is a privacy of a room or a cabin with a closed door. Right from the receptionist to the CEO everyone is visible to one another. Such high level of exposure and transparency leaves no room for displaying fragile emotions in isolation. Thus next time you are stressed out, do not lose your cool and display your weak emotions in front of others. If you are happened to be observed by others, just take few deep breaths and sip water. If this is not enough, take a short break and go outside of the situation. Present day office environments require you to be calm and composed in every situation.

Suggestions to Resolve Conflicts with your Colleague

Difference of opinions and ideas can happen between any two colleagues, which can be productive sometimes. It proves to be harmful if it turns ugly and leads to conflict between them. Here are some suggestions to deal with such stressful situation successfully:

Arrive at some points on which both of you agree on the start of the conversation. This would generate some amount of positivism and set of operating rules can be shared.
Listen completely and properly to the opinions shared by your colleague and their respective point of view. Without listening to the whole story do not disagree with them.
After listening and discussing the conversation offer a valid resolution that includes his/her perspective. It may be different from what you had thought initially.

The most common reaction when faced with oppose from your co-worker can be to demonize him, but this is not the solution it could worsen the situation and affect business goals. Giving up to such situations shows your weakness. Here we would advise you to sit down and have a healthy conversation with your co-worker, and know more about what are his concerns, what he cares and so on. Thus you will be able to arrive at the source of conflict and find a common area of mutual interest.

Experiment with your Set Limits

Everybody likes to avoid conflicting situations at the workplace. Sometimes there is no choice left but to face them and drive towards a conclusion. Leaving the situation as it is without saying anything can lead to anxiety and stress. To resolve such issues you can follow the following three steps:

Ask yourself have you stopped yourself from speaking in times of conflict when it was actually needed? There are times when you need to speak up to get over conflicts.
Inquire from your trusted friends or colleagues about your ability to deal with a conflict constructively. They might come up with points which you had overlooked.
Experiment with your abilities. For instance try speaking up your mind in a meeting where you have hesitated to talk. Always comment on your points that show you are doing it for solving the conflict.