How To Manage Someone Who Doesn’t Respect Your Authority – 10 Tips

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You’ve probably already discovered that you can occasionally work with a subpar employee. If even one of your staff members has a problem with you for any reason, the team’s morale could be negatively impacted, and your job would become much more difficult.

The true barometer of your leadership abilities is how skillfully you handle difficult employees of all stripes. Your coworkers, fellow workers, and colleagues will probably watch how you respond to a disrespectful employee’s treatment of you. Here are a few management hints for dealing with these challenging workers to ensure that you handle things as professionally as you can.

How To Manage Someone Who Doesn’t Respect Your Authority

Document Expectations

Having your expectations for that employee in writing will help if disciplinary action becomes necessary. This should be presented as soon as possible after a new employee is hired and reviewed at least once a year to make sure those expectations are being met. Describe the responsibilities of that specific job to the employee and ensure they have the assistance they need to carry out those responsibilities. Lack of communication is the cause of many issues with unsatisfied workers

Accept Blame

In some cases, the supervisor is equally responsible for fostering a culture of disrespect. You might be encouraging a culture where workers feel they have little direction if your management style is too lax. You might be able to enhance your management style and gain the respect of your entire team if you privately and directly address these problems as you become aware of them.

Maintain a Positive Attitude

It’s crucial to resist putting yourself on the same level as the employee, no matter how challenging that may be. You should control your temper and maintain a professional demeanor even if the employee is insulting you and making derogatory remarks. When you have finished the meeting, schedule a private meeting in your office rather than publicly criticizing the employee. Asking the employee to voice any worries and then offering to fix any problems you can are good starting points. When they think their opinions are important to the company as a whole, employees tend to feel better about themselves. In the event that this is unsuccessful, it might be time to start recording behaviors in anticipation of potential disciplinary action.

Follow Up To Ensure Compliance

Getting subordinates who resist authority to behave more submissively is your aim when managing them. To make sure that the employee’s attitude is changing, it is crucial to follow up on a weekly basis. By giving out orders with clear instructions and assigning projects with short deadlines, you can monitor progress. If the measures you’ve put in place don’t help, you’ll have all the evidence you need to take more drastic action, but it’s likely that they will make things better and restore harmony at work.

Create A Performance Action Plan

Create a performance action plan after you’ve had a formal meeting with the problematic employee or after you’ve given that employee a copy of the company policy manual. This action plan outlines the steps you are taking to improve the employee’s behavior, including counseling sessions, regular meetings with supervisors, and any necessary training to make sure the employee is qualified to perform the job. A performance review that isn’t good enough should be included in the plan, along with written records of each act, occurrence, or attitude of disrespect. The action plan must also outline any potential repercussions if the employee’s disrespectful actions persist. For instance, the policy might state that any future acts of disrespect will result in a written warning and that after three warnings, a meeting with supervisors may result in a promotion. Repeated offenses could result in a meeting with human resources, a suspension from work, or even termination.

Provide The Written Company Policy Manual

In some cases, you can hand a copy of your company’s code of conduct to employees who defy authority rather than calling a meeting. This manual lists the kinds of behavior that violate that policy as well as the behavioral standards and performance expectations. For instance, insubordination—which includes disrespect for authority—is listed as an unacceptable pattern of behavior in the majority of company policy manuals. The company policy manual can be shown to a disobedient employee to ensure that she is aware of the expectations of her position and to help her stop the bad behavior.

Accept Blame

In some cases, the supervisor is equally responsible for fostering a culture of disrespect. You might be encouraging a culture where workers feel they have little direction if your management style is too lax. You might be able to enhance your management style and gain the respect of your entire team if you privately and directly address these problems as you become aware of them.

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Resist Micromanaging

Finding the right people and having faith in them to carry out their duties is essential for a manager to succeed. Your staff will probably start to resent your interference if you micromanage them. An employee who feels trusted may rebel against the oversight and lash out at you rather than requesting to be given more authority. Through transformational leadership, leaders increase the likelihood of developing empowered, motivated employees who are aware of their place within the company. Call for regular meetings where you can detail your activities as well as those of your employees.

Discipline Insubordination

If your efforts to change the employee’s general attitude are still unsuccessful, you’ll likely need to take disciplinary action. It’s crucial to concentrate on particular behaviors because attitudes can be arbitrary. When an employee’s actions are directly at odds with their stated job responsibilities, insubordination may be grounds for disciplinary action. Remind the employee of his duties during discipline and let him know that there will be repercussions if the insubordination persists. Losing a worker is never easy, but if the worker was a negative force in the office as a whole, it might be a relief.

Draw the Line

When all efforts to foster a positive work environment have failed, it’s time to have a frank conversation with the disgruntled employee. Mention specific instances when you felt the employee behaved improperly toward you, and let the employee know that while you are available to discuss any issues the employee is having, you expect a certain level of respect in return. You might be able to stop the issue before it worsens by assisting the employee in understanding the effect these bad habits have on the team as a whole.

What Is The Action That Someone Disrespect You

You can’t respect a manager or supervisor if you don’t believe in or respect their leadership. Working with them every day can be difficult because of this. You may become frustrated at work if you don’t respect your boss. You might not respect a supervisor for a number of reasons, such as:

  • Feeling their words or actions do not meet professional standards
  • Having a history of unfair treatment from your supervisor
  • Disagreeing with their motives or decisions
  • Being micromanaged by your supervisor
  • Believing they are not qualified for their position
  • Feeling your work and insight are not valued
  • Being passed over for a promotion after you’ve completed excellent work
  • Believing you are not trusted to complete your job duties
  • Witnessing their inappropriate behavior in the workplace or outside of it

Even at work, respect is frequently something you have to earn. You’ll achieve more if you simply communicate with the employee if you observe disrespectful behavior on their part. Failure to communicate could cause the issue to worsen until it affects the entire team.