They were difficult.
At least, that was the story.
They were defensive.
They questioned things.
They didn’t always respond well to feedback.
They could be emotional.
Sometimes they pushed back.
Sometimes they needed an explanation before they complied.
And somewhere along the way, those individual moments became an identity.
The difficult employee.
Once that label takes hold, something interesting happens.
Everything the employee does begins to confirm it.
If they ask a question, they’re challenging authority.
If they explain themselves, they’re defensive.
If they disagree, they’re resistant.
If they become emotional, they’re unprofessional.
If they become quiet, they’re disengaged.
If they establish a boundary, they’re not a team player.
Eventually, we stop observing the person.
We start observing the label.
And perhaps the most important question gets lost:
What happened before the behavior we’re judging?
Rewind the Conversation
Imagine an employee makes a decision their supervisor disagrees with.
Perhaps the employee genuinely made the wrong decision.
That matters.
Employees are accountable for their choices.
But now imagine the supervisor approaches the conversation having already decided what happened.
There is no curiosity.
No:
Walk me through what happened.
No:
Help me understand how you arrived at that decision.
Instead, the conversation begins with judgment.
“That was unprofessional.”
“You shouldn’t have done that.”
“You handled this incorrectly.”
Maybe the supervisor is right about the decision.
But being right about the decision doesn’t automatically make the delivery effective.
Because feedback isn’t simply information.
Feedback is an interaction.
And interactions involve at least two people.
We Evaluate the Reaction but Forget the Interaction
The employee becomes defensive.
Their voice changes.
They attempt to explain themselves.
Perhaps they become overwhelmed.
Perhaps they shut down.
Perhaps they say something they later wish they had communicated differently.
Now everyone has evidence.
See?
Difficult.
But wait.
What happened five minutes earlier?
Sometimes we evaluate the employee’s reaction without evaluating the leadership that helped produce the interaction.
That doesn’t absolve the employee.
It completes the picture.
An employee can react poorly and a supervisor can communicate poorly.
An employee can make the wrong decision and deserve to be corrected respectfully.
A supervisor can have legitimate feedback and deliver it in a way that immediately creates defensiveness.
Two things can be true at the same time.
Workplace accountability becomes dangerous when we only allow one of them to be true.
Why Does Professionalism Sometimes Travel in Only One Direction?
Employees are routinely expected to regulate themselves around authority.
Remain calm.
Accept feedback.
Watch your tone.
Don’t become defensive.
Communicate professionally.
Follow the chain of command.
Again, those aren’t unreasonable expectations.
But here’s the question:
Why do we sometimes demand that an employee receive feedback professionally when the supervisor wasn’t required to deliver it professionally?
If there is a hierarchy, shouldn’t greater authority come with a greater responsibility for how that authority is exercised?
A supervisor isn’t simply another coworker having a disagreement.
Their words carry organizational power.
Their interpretation can influence evaluations, disciplinary action, schedules, advancement, reputation, and sometimes whether someone remains employed.
That power matters.
So perhaps leadership should require more emotional intelligence, not less.
More curiosity.
More restraint.
More communication skill.
More awareness of how power enters a conversation.
Not because supervisors have to walk on eggshells around employees.
Because leadership is a responsibility.
Authority should increase the standard, not lower it.
The Nervous System Enters the Meeting Too
There is another layer.
Everybody brings a nervous system to work.
The employee does.
The supervisor does.
The executive does.
The clinician does.
The peer worker does.
The person sitting quietly in the corner hoping nobody notices they’re barely holding themselves together does.
Past experiences don’t disappear because someone clocks in.
Previous workplace trauma can enter a supervision meeting.
So can fear of authority.
So can rejection.
So can grief.
So can insecurity.
So can previous experiences of being bullied, dismissed, misunderstood, discriminated against, or humiliated.
But trauma cannot become a universal excuse for behavior.
Understanding someone’s history doesn’t mean removing their responsibility.
It means we become curious enough to understand what we’re actually dealing with.
There is a profound difference between:
“Your reaction was inappropriate, therefore you are difficult.”
and
“Your reaction was concerning. Let’s understand what happened here, including what led up to it.”
One creates an identity.
The other examines an event.
People can work with events.
Labels are much harder to escape.
And the Supervisor Brings Something Too
Trauma-informed workplaces sometimes make another mistake.
We become so focused on understanding the employee that we forget the supervisor is also human.
Maybe the supervisor felt challenged.
Maybe they were overwhelmed.
Maybe they interpreted a question as disrespect.
Maybe they’re under enormous pressure from leadership.
Maybe they learned management from someone who led through intimidation.
Maybe conflict activates something in them they haven’t examined yet.
Maybe they simply had a bad day.
Understanding that matters too.
But just as trauma doesn’t remove the employee’s accountability, a title doesn’t remove the supervisor’s accountability.
Both people have a side of the street.
The difference is that one of them has also been entrusted with organizational authority.
What If “Difficult” Is Sometimes Incomplete?
There are certainly employees who behave in genuinely harmful ways.
There are employees who refuse accountability.
There are people who repeatedly cross boundaries, mistreat coworkers, ignore expectations, or weaponize personal circumstances to avoid responsibility.
Those situations require intervention.
But “difficult” can also become an extraordinarily convenient word.
It allows us to stop investigating.
Sometimes, “difficult” is the name we give people when understanding them would require more work than managing them.
And that’s worth thinking about.
Because perhaps the employee isn’t the only person who needs coaching.
Perhaps the supervisor needs support with communication.
Perhaps expectations weren’t clear.
Perhaps the team needs conflict-resolution skills.
Perhaps the organization has normalized a communication style that creates unnecessary defensiveness.
Perhaps everybody involved has something to learn.
That isn’t weakness.
That’s organizational maturity.
Accountability Has to Travel Both Ways
Healthy workplaces don’t eliminate accountability.
They expand it.
The employee can ask:
What did I bring into that interaction?
The supervisor can ask:
What did I bring into that interaction?
Leadership can ask:
Did our systems help these people resolve the conflict—or simply decide who was wrong?
And organizations can ask:
Are we holding people with authority to at least the same standards of communication we expect from the people they supervise?
Because psychological safety doesn’t mean nobody gets corrected.
It means correction can happen without humiliation.
Trauma-informed leadership doesn’t mean excusing harmful behavior.
It means understanding behavior well enough to respond intelligently to it.
And professionalism doesn’t mean silence.
It means learning how to navigate disagreement without stripping another person of their dignity.
So the next time someone becomes known as the difficult employee, perhaps we should resist the temptation to immediately decide who they are.
Instead, rewind the conversation.
Look at what happened before the reaction.
Look at the environment.
Look at the communication.
Look at the power dynamic.
Look at the employee.
And look at the person evaluating them.
Because sometimes the most revealing thing about a workplace isn’t how it handles its easiest employees.
It’s what happens when someone becomes difficult to understand.
🌿 A Moment of Reflection
When conflict occurs in your workplace, does your organization examine the entire interaction—or primarily the behavior of the person with less power?
Have you ever labeled someone “difficult” before becoming curious about what might have happened before the behavior you witnessed?
And if you hold a position of authority:
Do you expect employees to demonstrate a level of emotional regulation and professionalism that you are equally willing to demonstrate when you are frustrated with them?
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