10 Different Behavior Patterns Often Exhibited by People Under Pressure
Every person has his/her own triggers when it comes to dealing with difficult people. Those triggers stem from your background, perspectives, and from your goals in the situation at hand.
But, there is good news. There are ways to deal with even the most difficult people that can bring out both their best and your best.
The first step, described by Rick Brinkman and Rick Kirschner in their book, Dealing With People You Can’t Stand” is to get to know your difficult person—to know what needs that person may be trying to fulfill that causes the problematic behavior. Successful leaders listen carefully to figure out the underlying motives.
10 Behavior Patterns of People Under Pressure
The Whiner: Whiners feel helpless most of the time and become overwhelmed by the unfairness of it all. They want things to be perfect, but nothing seems to go right. Whiners want to share their misery.
The Steamroller (or Tank): Aggressive and angry. Victims can feel paralyzed, as though they’ve been flattened.
The Sniper: The Sniper’s forte is sarcasm, rude remarks, and eye rolls. Victims look and feel foolish.
The Know-It-All: Wielding great authority and knowledge, Know-It-Alls do have lots to offer, are generally competent, and can’t stand to be contradicted or corrected. But they will go out of their way to correct you.
The Grenade: Grenades tend to explode into uncontrolled ranting that has little, if anything, to do with what has actually happened.
The Think They Know It All: A cocksure attitude often fools people into believing their phony “facts.”
The Yes Person: Someone who wants to please others so much that he or she never says “No.”
The Maybe Person: Procrastinating, hoping to steer clear of choices that will hurt feelings, he avoids decisions, causing plenty of frustration along the way.
The Blank Wall (or Nothing Person): This person offers only a blank stare, no verbal or nonverbal signals.
The No Person: He spreads gloom, doom, and despair whenever any new ideas arise, or even when old ones are recycled. The No Person saps energy from a group in an amazingly short time.
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Mark James, CPC is the founder and CEO of Hire Consulting Services (HCS). Established in 1999, HCS is a highly customized executive outplacement and career coaching firm for executive-level professionals.
Mark is equipped with over 25 years of experience in Executive Career Management Coaching, as well as Outplacement and Executive Search Consulting. He is the author of the three best-selling books—Keys to the C Suite: Unlock the Doors to Executive Career Path Success, The Interview Mindset: The Ultimate Guide to Mastering Your Career, and The Recruiter Mindset: The Ultimate Guide to Working with Executive Search Recruiters.
Mark uses a proven and successful strategy and structured process to fully enable his clients to conduct a professional job search campaign and with the singular goal of securing their next career opportunity in significantly less time it would take without a career coach. Clients gain a new perspective of their marketing value coupled with executing a strategic plan and closing the deal on their new role in their next job.
