How Project Managers Can Deal With Difficult Team Members

[metoc15411]

Much of project management depends on how well your team works together. Before creating budgets, Gantt charts, and risk analyses, project managers need to make sure they have an effective process in place.

And sometimes team members make it difficult.

Businessman

Some project managers attribute their team's inefficiency to some unchangeable personality trait - they are lazy, entitled, or overbearing. But poor team management can also be at the root of the problem.

How so, you ask?

Let's start with the fact that your team members can copy your own behavior.

Angry businessman yelling at employee

If you’re an aggressive project manager, you set the benefits of using this list for your marketing and promotions tone for the entire office. Psychology Today notes, “Brain imaging has shown that our brains actually experience what others experience. When someone smiles at us, we smile spontaneously. When someone screams in pain, we cringe.”

In other words, mirroring the behavior of others is a form of empathy that most people experience (even if we haven't had our morning cup of coffee).

If you regularly engage in negative behavior, badmouth your coworkers, or just slack off at work, your team members will definitely notice. Ironically, it’s a show of flattery that they copy you, but it’s bad for business. As a leader, you set the tone for your office—make sure you check your own behavior before criticizing the behavior of others.

But sometimes the problem isn't the tone you set.

Sometimes it's your expectations. Or lack thereof.

The concept of confusion.

If your goals aren’t clear, your team members may come across as lazy. Psychology Today also reports that “Procrastination isn’t just a problem of time management or laziness… Vague directions and unclear priorities increase procrastination. A boss who insists that everything is a top priority and that the deadline is yesterday is likely to be kept waiting.”

Sometimes, having unclear goals is a reflection of the PM’s lack of direction. One way to fix this from the inside out is to use project management software to help organize the project process. The collaboration and milestone tracking features found in programs like Mavenlink and Wrike allow project managers to detail specific goals, as well as deadlines and expectations for their team members. And trust me, your team members will thank you. Not only will they be more responsive to your vision for the project’s direction, but they’ll also accomplish more if it makes sense.

Once you've exhausted all of these options and you still have a bad, bad team member, it's time to face them head-on.