The problem employee

(2 minute read time)

Early on in my leadership career I had this one “problem” employee, let’s call her “Julie”

In my mind, Julie was just miserable and she was determined to make everyone around her miserable too.  Everything she said was negative – what wasn’t working, what was wrong, what could go wrong.

I wanted to like her, I just didn’t.  

I will be honest.  I never did learn to like her when she worked for me.  But, I did not know then what I know now.

Julie was never the problem.  People never are.

The real problem is that our brains like to be right and they look for evidence to support what we already believe.  

I mostly had negative beliefs about her and my ability to change anything about this situation.  All of this only added negativity to the situation and made it impossible to move in a different direction.    

Most of us think in order to feel better about a situation, the situation has to change. It just isn’t true.

I did not have to wait for Julie to be happy, or better, or “normal”.  

The only thing we need to do is recognize that what we are feeling now comes from our thoughts and acknowledge we are choosing those thoughts.   From that place, we can choose better feeling thoughts (believable ones of course).

Here’s some I could have used back then:  

Julie is perfectly human .

I am willing to continue working towards a solution .

Julie is unhappy about _____, and that’s ok.

I am a good leader, even if Julie is having a bad day.

It’s possible that ________.

I could be wrong about _____.

Want to learn more about how to feel better about a situation you’re in?  Click here to schedule a free 30-minute coaching session with me.