Dealing with Employees Who Always Think They're Right

To ensure the smooth functioning of a team and mitigate negative behavior, it's crucial to provide employees with the support and guidance necessary for them to reach their full potential. However, fostering a completely cohesive team also requires individuals to respect their colleagues and the authority of their managers.

In roles such as project management or team leadership, encountering overconfident individuals exhibiting negative behavior is common. This cognitive bias, known as the Dunning-Krueger effect can pose significant management challenges.

Employees who consistently exhibit negative behavior, insisting they are always right, can be particularly challenging to handle. They often disregard guidance from senior managers and disrupt collaboration with their peers. Despite their talent and creativity, their overconfidence can hinder team dynamics. Balancing their contributions with those of the rest of the team is essential.

So, how can you effectively manage individuals exhibiting such negative behavior?

Why managers need to do something

As a manager, it can feel awkward to address performance issues with difficult employees. Direct reports who think they are perfect often have a difficult time receiving feedback and constructive criticism, which can hinder their ability to improve and grow in their role. However, failing to have these difficult conversations can lead to compounding performance issues, inappropriate behavior and prevent you from fostering a culture of continuous improvement, as the employee in question will likely continue to make the same mistakes.

How overconfidence can impact the rest of the team

A toxic employee who believes they are flawless can negatively affect your team and business in several ways:

• Toxic work environment: Their inappropriate behavior and bad attitude towards colleagues and resistance to feedback can create a demotivated and undervalued team
• Hinders progress: Their unwillingness to learn from mistakes or accept suggestions slows down the team and limits business growth
• Lowers morale: Arrogance and lack of humility breed resentment and hinder communication, leading to poor performance and missed opportunities
• Sets low standards: Ignoring their shortcomings sends the message that subpar work is acceptable, decreasing overall productivity and morale

Addressing the issue

While addressing these issues can be uncomfortable, it's necessary. Here's how to approach the difficult conversation:

• Focus on specifics: Provide concrete examples of areas needing improvement
• Offer support: Offer resources and guidance to help them grow

By taking these steps, you not only address the employee's performance but also foster a culture of continuous improvement within your team. This encourages everyone to learn, grow, and contribute to the team's success.

5 ways deal with employees who think they're perfect

1. Give them autonomy - but set clear boundaries

To channel strong-minded employees, you need to give them a role that they can take charge of. For people that find taking orders or backing down difficult, this can be the opportunity to give them the autonomy they crave but with firm boundaries. To do this, give them a breakdown of what their responsibilities will be, but make sure you're clear about what they need to consult with you or other team members on to make a decision.

This should give them the right level of compromise between being able to follow their gut and understanding the importance of considering the views of others.

2. Be consistent with discipline

They may be talented and of high value to the company, but there must be consequences for them when they go too far. Whether this is not listening to other co-workers during projects or not taking their manager's guidance into consideration, there needs to be a disciplinary procedure in place. This shouldn't be exclusive to any certain individual, but they need to know when they've overstepped the mark.

As with most disciplinary actions, you should have stages. The first, for example, should be an informal chat, which then leads into more serious consequences like written warnings. Holding employees accountable is incredibly important, to ensuring they can remain a key part of a team.

3. Keep things focused

You shouldn't allow underperforming employees to be a disruptive influence on the rest of the team. Strong-minded, overconfident individuals can take pleasure in having endless debates, hoping that people will concede and agree with them to avoid the conversation taking up any more time. The most important thing to deal with this is to ensure whoever is leading the meeting or brainstorm sticks to the schedule to keep things focused and will reign them in.

It's disrespectful to everyone else attending to allow events to overrun so have clear tactics to change the topic or draw a close to the meeting without them getting their own way. Managing such situations is crucial, especially when dealing with difficult employees who tend to dominate discussions.

4. Avoid reacting with emotion

When employees build themselves a reputation for being disruptive and strong-minded, it can become a self-fulfilling prophecy that they feel they have to maintain. This can mean they say or do things just to get a reaction from you or other team members. You should be careful that you don't respond with emotions but keep fixated on the goals of the meeting or discussion to avoid things spiraling.

It's also a good exercise to make sure you're not just clashing with someone's personality and dismissing their ideas, which may be of value. Strong leadership skills involve fostering an environment where all voices are heard and considered. Often, people can be jealous of younger professionals without even realizing it, so it's important that you check your own emotions and how you respond to strong-minded professionals on your team.

5. Praise them for high-quality work

Instead of simply reprimanding them in performance appraisals, another effective way to steer difficult employees in the right direction is by providing positive feedback in the form of public recognition and praise. Praising overconfident employees for their strengths can help them become more self-aware and understand the areas they need to work on. Similarly, acknowledging underperformers' efforts while publicly recognizing achievements is a powerful motivator for improvement.

Incorporating public recognition through formal performance reviews and appraisals is a great way to document progress and provide concrete avenues for these employees to improve, all without it feeling like a personal attack.

How to address overconfidence and foster psychological safety

Ever wonder why some colleagues seem overly confident, even when faced with challenges? This can be tricky to navigate, but there's good news! By understanding overconfidence, you can create a supportive environment that unlocks your team's full potential.

Signs to watch for

• Expressed overconfidence: Look for colleagues who display arrogance or a sense of entitlement. This might show up as constantly interrupting others or dismissing suggestions
• Inflated importance: Be mindful of those who seem to have an exaggerated view of their own abilities. They might downplay mistakes or take credit for team achievements

The supportive approach

Forget about criticism! Building trust is key. Here's how to create a space for open communication with psychological safety in mind:

• Acknowledge strengths: Everyone has something valuable to offer. Recognize their expertise while gently offering constructive feedback on areas for growth
• Focus on development: Encourage self-awareness, adaptability, and humility. These qualities foster a collaborative learning environment where everyone can improve and feel comfortable asking questions or admitting mistakes

Investing in your team

By addressing overconfidence and fostering a culture of:

• Collaboration: Teamwork allows everyone to share ideas and learn from each other in a safe space
• Accountability: Taking ownership of work fosters a sense of responsibility and continuous improvement, but within a framework that encourages support and learning
• Continuous learning: Encouraging ongoing development keeps everyone's skills sharp and relevant, and psychological safety allows individuals to feel comfortable seeking out new knowledge and learning opportunities

Maximizing potential

Tailored support for each employee's strengths and weaknesses keeps everyone motivated and productive. This ensures high performance standards throughout the organization.

Key takeaway

Managing overconfident employees who consistently exhibit negative behaviors can be challenging for any manager. However, it's crucial to address such issues head-on to prevent bigger problems from arising. While these conversations may feel uncomfortable, focusing on specific examples of areas for improvement and offering guidance and support can help steer overconfident individuals onto a better path. It's also important to maintain discipline fairly and avoid reacting emotionally. With the right approach, managers can channel employees' strengths productively while fostering an environment of psychological safety, collaboration and continuous learning where every member of the team can reach their full potential.