Negative Employees, Leading Peers, and Managing Long Hours [Office Hours #011]

Your questions. Answered.

👋 Welcome to a 🔒 subscriber-only edition 🔒 of our Office Hours newsletter. Every Tuesday, we tackle reader questions covering the most demanding challenges of management and leadership. (We share our best free content on LinkedIn).

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In this week's edition, we answer:

1. How do you handle an employee who consistently has a negative attitude but still meets performance expectations?

2. How do you manage the transition when stepping into a leadership role where you were previously a peer?

3. How do you keep your team motivated when they’re working on long, complex projects that feel never-ending?

Let’s get started…

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Question 1:

Nina from Berlin
How do you handle an employee who consistently has a negative attitude but still meets performance expectations?

Response:
Dear Nina,

Dealing with an employee who delivers results but carries a negative attitude is tricky because, on paper, they’re performing, yet their behavior can erode team morale, discourage collaboration, and create a toxic work environment. The key is to address their attitude in a way that ties it directly to their impact on the team.