Cathy Wasserman, LMSW
Cathy Wasserman, LMSW

Managing Difficult People

Managing Difficult People. I have extensive experience and training in working with difficult personalities and those they affect, in and out of the workplace. I can help you build your Self-Leadership and empowerment to most effectively deal with the situation you’re facing. I work to expand your toolkit in building your boundaries and managing your triggers. We’ll grow your capacity to recognize exactly what’s going on and what you can and cannot do to resolve the issue.

If you feel like you may be in a difficult patch yourself or even have Narcissistic Personality Disorder, I’m available to work with you on building your empathy and Self-Leadership skills to navigate life and work more easily. I believe it’s possible for people to change if they really make the commitment to do so over time. I have years of experience in building a path to manage difficult behaviors and listening deeply to what lies beneath them.

Managing Difficult People

 

Seeking better ways to give feedback to a difficult person?

Looking to resolve issues with an employee who won’t adjust their behavior no matter what you say?

Having trouble managing your own triggers and establishing healthy boundaries with difficult people?

Relationships don’t always go smoothly and that’s okay — sometimes friction can fuel creativity and growth, but there’s a limit. When someone is bringing too much negativity into the mix it’s not always easy to know what to do. Of course we can all be difficult at times, however, I use the term “difficult people” to refer to individuals who are regularly challenging.

Identifying and addressing our own and others’ disruptive behavior is crucial for individual and organizational health. Conflicts with difficult people cost organizations billions of dollars in time, reduced motivation and high turnover. On the far end of the spectrum, people with Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD) are estimated to make up 3-6% of the population — that’s potentially 20 million people in the U.S. alone — so chances are there’s someone with NPD in any large family or organization. When you include less severe but still challenging traits and behaviors, the number rises significantly.

One of the reasons that difficult people tend to cause so much damage is that those around them don’t recognize the patterns in their behavior. Earlier recognition and expert counsel on managing your own attitude and behaviors can be decisive in creating better outcomes.

I have extensive experience and training in working with difficult personalities and those they affect, in and out of the workplace. I can help you build your Self-Leadership and empowerment to most effectively deal with the situation you’re facing. I work to expand your toolkit in building your boundaries and managing your triggers. We’ll grow your capacity to recognize exactly what’s going on and what you can and cannot do to resolve the issue.

If you feel like you may be in a difficult patch yourself or even have NPD, I’m available to work with you on building your empathy and Self-Leadership skills to navigate life and work more easily. I believe it’s possible for people to change if they really make the commitment to do so over time. I have years of experience in building a path to manage difficult behaviors and listening deeply to what lies beneath them.

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“Once you do away with the idea of people as fixed, static entities, then you see that people can change, and there is hope.”

bell hooks

 

“Cathy is an incredibly gifted coach and healer. Not only has she coached me into the very fulfilling work I do now, but she helped me overcome a recurring issue I faced in my work and personal life: allowing narcissists into my life and repeating a pattern in which I felt victimized by their behavior. Cathy is one of the few individuals I have met who really gets narcissism in all its forms, its particular context in our current socio-political climate and how its dynamics can repeat from the family system to the organizational system and vice versa. Healing my own repetition pattern, learning to protect myself, disengage energetically, etc. required the knowledgeable and intuitive guidance Cathy provided — beyond what any other coach, therapist or healer I have met could hold.”

—Nina Kaur, Entrepreneur, Educator & Writer

 

Sample Tools and topics for managing difficult people

  • Building your Self-Leadership and confidence in handling people no matter how disruptive their behaviors are

  • Growing your understanding of the range of styles, experiences and disorders that contribute to problematic behavior

  • Increasing your capacity to set boundaries and respectful limits

  • Developing your understanding of how you can best manage your triggers

  • Managing a difficult boss and the complicated power dynamics that come with that

  • Creating clear, time-bound performance/attitude improvement plans that support difficult employees in moving forward, or if necessary, in transitioning them out

  • Increasing your understanding of how to support staff, family members or others in dealing with difficult people

For Difficult People

  • Identifying the specific ways you challenge others

  • Building your self-awareness and ability to meet your own needs and deepen your self-empathy and confidence while growing your empathy and respect for others’ boundaries