How to Handle Overbearing People on Your Team
I was reading a blog post by Ray Higdon yesterday, and he had an interesting article on overbearing people and “demanding teammates” in your network marketing business.
His article reminds me of a very difficult team member that just left the “tribe.” This person didn’t like the way I handled him when he was very demanding of my time and resources.
How to Deal with Demanding People
Learning how to handle overbearing people on your team is primary to your organization if it’s to grow and flourish prosperously.
Demanding people in your team requires a certain amount of posturing and authority to set the record straight with them.
How to handle these types of people requires you to understand the two different classes of people that fit within this category.
There are two classes of “demanding people” in network marketing. There are people demanding time and there are controlling people; and many times both types overlap one with the other.
People Demanding Time
Whether members of your team need too much attention of your time or resources, you’re probably feeling a little drained having to bear the weight of their responsibility.
Confronting a needy teammate can end disastrously. There are, however, ways to skirt the disaster, saving your relationship with them.
There’s nothing wrong with being generous, but people demanding too much of your time are taking a mile when you’re giving them an inch.
Here’s a way to stave off ruined relationships with team members demanding too much of your time.
It’s called the law of association.
Whether by phone or face to face, pair yourself with positive influences when you’re talking with difficult team members requiring more of your time than is needed. If you’re there for them both in good times and bad, they’ll associate you with the feelings they experienced at that time.
When they have a promotion, compliment them. When they do wrong, correct them immediately. By doing so, they’ll always associate you with good feelings and experiences that will attract them to your positive stimuli.
This gives them a leadership model to emulate and follow.
This is why it’s important that you meditate in the morning, avoid negative news and people. Associate only with a circle of influence which gives you a positive outlook on life.
Quit watching TV news and shows that do nothing but stimulate you in negative ways.
Only by doing so are you able to be positive for those demanding more of your time than what’s needed. Then when they see your posture of being positive, this moves them with a healthy experience and they’ll seek to duplicate what you do.
Does this always work? No, there are not guarantees, but people who are so demanding on time are not necessarily controlling as they are with wanting to find a proper role model to be and do. Be that role model and do what they cannotat the time.
Controlling People
Controlling people have a different kind of temperament than people demanding time from you. They have more of a demanding personality than those demanding time. Without getting too techy, demanding personality types are usually associated with anxiety, depression and sometimes personality quirks that shrink from responsibility.
So, how do you handle these types of people? There is only one way to handle them. Handle them in the same way they handle you.
Set them straight right from the beginning. Correct them right away posturing yourself as the authority that demands respect from them. You are not their whipping boy nor their slave. You are the leader and so lead.
Educate them that if they treat their team members or customers negatively and barking out orders rather than lead, they will not grow their team, and thus not be successful.
As Ray Higdon rightfully says,
“If someone’s being demanding, overly, unreasonably demanding to you and they’re a customer or a teammate, you need to correct that and say, “Hey, listen. Right now you’re asking for this, this and this, and I just want to let you know that typically,” a very powerful word, “typically, we don’t do it that way. Here’s how we actually do it. Here’s our system of doing it, and the reason we do it this way is because,” another powerful word, “is because it allows us for more duplication, it allows us to do the system.”
This is posturing yourself with authority and they’ll respect it.
