5 Tips for Dealing With Strong Personalities

No matter where you work, there’s a good chance you’re going to have to deal with strong personalities in your workplace.

People with strong personalities can cause feelings of stress, frustration and fear for those they work with.

So are people with strong personalities bad, and should they be banished from the workplace?

Not really. They just bring a different style that can actually be beneficial in the right situation.

In this post, I’ll look at some tips for dealing with strong personalities in your workplace.

What Does a Strong Personality Mean?

A strong personality can mean a few different things, so let’s narrow it down a little.

People with strong personalities are often known for having these characteristics:

• Direct communicators. They don’t “beat around the bush”. People with strong personalities often get straight to the point and say what they mean.
• Results-focused. Strong personalities often like to move fast and get things done to achieve their goals.
• Dominant. People with strong personalities may try to dominate the people around them. This might mean speaking over quieter people or using an aggressive or loud tone of voice to emphasise a point.

Of course, these traits can cause issues because these people may come across as disrespectful, blunt, aggressive or inconsiderate.

Strong Personalities and Thoughtful Leaders

In general, people who come to this website don’t really fall into the strong personality category.

Instead, you’re more likely to be a thoughtful, people-focused leader if you’re reading this.

As a result, the thought of someone being loud, dominant or aggressive probably annoys and frustrates you.

But diversity is good, and we need to be able to work with different types of people, rather than shy away from them.

So let’s look at some ways we can work with strong personalities better.

Tip 1: Don’t try Direct Confrontation

There are a few reasons why I usually don’t suggest we try to directly go toe-to-toe with a strong personality.

Firstly, if you’re a thoughtful leader, your style is probably not suited to being direct and forceful. As a result, it won’t come naturally to you, and you may actually overcompensate.

I remember a time at work when I knew I was going to be dealing with someone quite dominant, so what did I do?

I tried to be quite direct with them myself, thinking “they can handle it”.

Actually, I went too far, and they just thought I was being rude. I overcompensated and went overboard.

We don’t want that – we need to remember that people with strong personalities are still people.

The next reason I recommend against direct confrontation is because the other person is probably going to be better at it than you.

They have lived their life as a dominant, forceful presence. They’ve practiced this a lot, and their style probably has roots going all the way back to their upbringing.

So it’s likely you aren’t going to “win”. You’ll probably feel bad about behaving in this way, whereas they’ll feel quite comfortable!

Last, direct confrontation between two strong personalities is more likely to be explosive, and may damage relationships to the point where it’s hard to work together.

So do we just roll over and let them dominate us? No, that’s not it either. Let’s keep going.

Learn More:  5 Tips For Quiet Leaders.

Tip 2: Be Prepared

People with strong personalities like to win and may dominate others.

One way to prevent this from happening is to prepare for situations when you know you’re going to have to deal with them.

For example, if you’re dealing with a dominant executive who wants to know all about what’s going on with your project, you need to be armed with information that they’ll want to know.

If you’re making a case for new resources in your team and the approver has a strong personality, you’ll want to make a good case.

The good thing about dealing with a strong personality in these examples is that they’ll probably tell you directly if they don’t agree.

Other less dominant people may keep it to themselves, and then disagree with you later, telling others outside of the meeting or via email.

It’s OK not to know everything, but you should aim to have a firm grasp of your topic and be able to speak about it confidently.

So the next time you know you’re going to be dealing with a strong personality, take 10 minutes to prepare for the interaction, rather than winging it.

You may also consider visualising the situation that you’re going to be entering into.

This might mean imagining yourself in a meeting with a strong personality, responding calmly when they show dominant behaviour.

This can make your brain feel like you’ve been there before, and you are more likely to be able to respond better in the moment.

Tip 3: Be Aware of the Motivations of People With Strong Personalities

I find that people who are direct and forceful are often motivated by achievement. This might mean money and being successful, or simply achieving their next goal.

The directness of the strong personality does not necessarily come from a desire to hurt people, or make them upset.

It usually comes from a desire to get things done, to go faster and to remove roadblocks.

Or, it may come from a place of deep insecurity, where a strong personality feels the need to dominate to win and protect their ego.

However the person may be motivated, you can use this to your advantage.

If the person wants to achieve their goal, you can show them how working with you will help them do that, or demonstrate how you’re trying to remove the roadblocks that might stop them from getting what they want.

I find that considering the motivations behind the strong personality helps me to take the interaction less personally.

If you think they’re just out to get you, you may react defensively or in anger which probably won’t help.

And if you’re one of those (many) people who say “I wish I’d done that!” after the interaction, structured reflection can be really helpful.

You can use my Useful Thinking Journal to reflect on what happened, understand your response and then design steps to do better next time.

Tip 4: Adapt Your Approach to Strong Personalities

You don’t need to bow and scrape before a strong personality to stop them getting angry.

But it’s always worth thinking about what approach might make the interaction easier.

Here are some suggestions for how you could adapt your approach:

• Get to the point. Don’t talk about the weekend, just get to the task at hand. Sometimes strong personalities become frustrated by waffle.
• Bring facts. Strong personalities often speak in data and facts, rather than emotion. If you are making a claim, prove it with information.
• Get their help. Strong personalities often come with a strong drive to achieve. If you can give them a role to play in getting to the goal, their natural drive may come in handy.

Of course it’s up to you to decide how exactly to adapt your approach, depending on the situation and their specific style.

Learn More:  Should You Be Yourself or Adapt to Your Audience?

Tip 5: Raise Awareness of Bad Behaviours

When dealing with strong personalities we don’t want to go head-to-head with them, but we also don’t want to become a pushover.

Make sure you stand your ground.

One way to do this is to understand what you’ll stand for, and what you won’t.

When a strong personality oversteps the line using bad language or aggressive behaviour, it’s time to observe it and bring it to their attention.

Sometimes I’ve found that people with strong personalities are not even aware of the way they are behaving, such as raising their voice or using an aggressive tone.

Here are some simple examples of phrases that can help:

“When you raise your voice like that it feels disrespectful. Can we have a calm conversation about this?”

“I noticed that you got a bit angry when we talked about that last point. What is it that bothers you about it?”

“When you interrupt me it’s hard to explain my point. Please let me finish.”

You don’t need to stick around if you’re being treated poorly.

Raising awareness of the issue without being angry or dominant yourself can be a powerful way of bringing them back down to earth, because you’re responding in a calm, controlled manner.

You’re keeping your composure, which is actually a sign of strength, not weakness.

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Dealing with strong personalities is no walk in the park and it can be unpleasant, especially for thoughtful leaders who may be on the quieter side.

But we need to work with all types of people, so being able to navigate strong personalities is critical.

What ideas would you add to this post? Let me and all the thoughtful leaders know in the comments below!