How to deal with difficult people – Types of difficult people

Difficult people are people you have a hard time interacting with. Most of us have several difficult people with whom we must deal often. Some of the most difficult people I have to deal with are family members. For the purposes of this article, it doesn’t matter if other people have a hard time dealing with a particular person or not, what matters is that you have a hard time dealing with them.

People who are difficult to deal with can be divided into seven subgroups.

1. Hostile-aggressive: These people are often perceived as bullies. They tend to overwhelm others by making cutting comments. They may even throw a tantrum when the situation gets out of hand. They may use a loud voice and display an aggressive type of behavior.

2. Negative people: They are the people who always love to leave plans as impossible. They are wonderful for deflating the balloon of optimism. They are afraid of change and express their fear by finding fault with anything or anyone who plans to succeed.

3. Overly Nice: People who are super nice often act very supportive and willing to work with you. They find no fault and apparently agree to do a substantial amount of work, but they don’t produce in the way you would expect from your kindness.

4. Complainers: We all know people who complain about anything. No matter what the suggestion, they complain about one thing or another. One thing these people have in common is that they never take steps to improve their condition or welcome help in solving their problems.

5. Indecisive people: These are the people who can never make a decision. They waver back and forth and procrastinate until the entire decision is made for them. They want everything to be perfect, which of course never happens, so they don’t commit to anything or state their preference.

6. People who don’t respond: We all deal with people who we can’t get their attention. They will sit quietly and show no agreement or disagreement. They are just there in body only.

7. The Experts: Smarties want everyone to know that they know the most about everything and that they know everyone worth knowing. They patronize their coworkers or family members because they want everyone to recognize that they are the experts. They can even be pompous and make others feel worthless.

Identifying why you have problems with the people you deal with is helpful because you are identifying the quality that you have the most trouble accepting and managing. This gives you a key to working with the difficult people in your life. Knowing what exactly is causing the problems is itself part of the solution and can give you ideas on how to deal with them more effectively.