How many times have you heard this?
“I am dealing with a really difficult person.”
The phrase applies in a lot of different scenarios. A colleague becomes “impossible.” A partner is described as “unreasonable.” A team member is labeled “resistant.”
The tendency is to focus on the person. But when you take a step back and look more closely at the situation, the real challenge is the dynamic forming between people.
We see this pattern frequently in conflict resolution, particularly in high pressure, complex environments like healthcare. In one negotiation between hospital and physician group leaders, meetings repeatedly ended in frustration and eventually stalled. Each side privately described the other party in familiar terms.
“They refuse to listen.”
“They’re just protecting their own interests.”
Under this pressure, people pointed fingers and created stories based on assumptions rather than facts. Conversations were guarded and defensive and misunderstandings grew. Over time, individuals were reduced to simplified labels like “difficult,” “unreasonable,” or “impossible,” making them easier to blame. That narrative, once formed, began to define the whole relationship.
When the conversation slowed down enough for the underlying concerns to surface, a different picture emerged. Hospital leaders were under intense financial pressure tied to reimbursement changes and operational constraints. Physician leaders were worried about clinical autonomy, patient care decisions, and fair compensation.
Bringing those underlying concerns to the surface changed the tone of the conversation. What had appeared to be a conflict between “difficult” individuals was a system under strain. After the parties refocused on shared interests, both sides realized that the tension was a signal that something deeper had taken root which needed to be understood.
What Creates “Difficult” Behavior?
People rarely arrive at work with the intention to be difficult. Often what appears as rigidity, defensiveness, hostility, or withdrawal is a response to stress.
These responses tend to emerge when people feel uncertain, unheard, or threatened. Three patterns appear:
Control: Attempting to manage every detail or dominate decisions.
Withdrawal: Disengaging from discussion or avoiding accountability.
Blame: Redirecting responsibility toward others.
These reactions are deeply human. Many are learned in our childhood, long before our professional lives began. They were built to protect us when something feels at risk or uncertain.
In organizations, these reactions are often caused by unclear roles, fear of change, competing priorities, and lack of decision clarity. When clarity is missing, people fill the gaps with assumptions that over time morph into narratives about individuals.
Once those narratives take hold, the focus and conversation shifts from what is happening in the system to who is causing the problem. The label of “difficult person” becomes a simplified explanation for a much more complex dynamic.
Often, beneath the surface, people have similar goals but disagree about how to accomplish them.
Why Leaders Get Stuck?
Many leaders try to resolve conflict by focusing on behavior alone. They attempt to manage the personalities, skirt around or smooth over the tension, or move past conflict quickly in the interest of results. While they are well intentioned, these responses rarely resolve the underlying issue.
The tension remains. Assumptions go unchallenged, concerns stay unspoken, and fears fester and build. Leaders may believe they are managing or fixing a difficult individual when in fact underneath is a web of complexity of unclear expectations, fears, and interpretations that have not been aired.
Effective leadership requires stepping back and approaching these situations thoughtfully to understand what is beneath the surface before attempting to fix it. This approach saves time, energy, and frustration in the long run.
A Different Way to Approach Difficult Interactions
When tension rises in relationships, leaders have more influence than they realize. A few simple practices can shift a difficult interaction toward a more productive path.
Pause before reacting. Strong reactions tend to escalate already tense dynamics. Taking time to pause and gather yourself when a difficult situation arises allows space to respond deliberately rather than reflexively, and to choose words wisely.
Replace assumptions with curiosity. Questions such as “What outcome are you hoping for?” or “What concerns matter most?” help surface information that is not yet visible and shift the conversation from conflict to shared goals.
Reflect what you are hearing. Clarifying and summarizing what another person has said can reduce misunderstanding and demonstrates that perspectives are heard.
Use silence strategically. Allow time for silence. Silence creates space for reflection and invites others to air deeper, more open and honest responses. This is one of the most unused tools as people tend to be uncomfortable with silence.
Disagree respectfully and directly. Leaders can acknowledge differing views without escalating conflict by staying grounded, being curious, and behaving in a way that invites exploration of alternatives.
Look beyond the moment. Do not define a person by a single interaction. Step back to question the narrative and the labels built around an interaction. Take time to understand the broader pressures at play.
These practices do not eliminate conflict, but they allow leaders to use conflict as a growth opportunity and to work with it rather than against it.
The Question Leaders Should Really Be Asking
Encountering a difficult interaction, leaders often focus on one question:
How do I deal with this person?
A more useful question is:
What is happening in the dynamic between us?
That shift opens the door to a deeper understanding of what may be driving the tension. It restores agency to the leader who can influence the interaction through clarity, curiosity, and intention.
Do not try to “fix” the other person. Instead, change the interaction and the dynamic begins to change with it.
