Introduction
Typologies are aimed at making experiences more organized and enabling people to make accurate predictions. Robbins and Finley offer their perspective on the types of dysfunctional employees, such as jerks, brats, and demons (456). To me, the concepts are quite useful since they describe the key psychological problems impacting each type’s workplace behaviors and problems in interpersonal relationships. Therefore, I would not regard them as too simplistic because they refer to people’s core weaknesses, not superficial characteristics that can change over time. Potentially, in real life, each of the three types can be presented by people with different personalities. However, attempts to consider this factor and describe subtypes would make the classification too complex and unfocused.
Types of Employees
I have encountered all of these types since the start of my professional activity. Judging from my experience, brats or “psychologically immature people” who avoid risks are the most common but the least dangerous type (Robbins and Finley 453). To deal with them, I would make sure that responsibilities are equally distributed between employees and reward them for taking risks.
The second type, jerks, is typically presented by ambitious people whose emotional intelligence levels are low (Robbins and Finley 455). My approach to working with such individuals would be based on their contributions to the team, for instance, only gifted employees would be allowed to have their own space and work independently.
Moreover, I have met a few demons or individuals who demonstrate pathological anger, sadistic inclinations, or similar behaviors (Robbins and Finley 456). As a leader, I would do my best to exclude such people from the team and minimize contacts with them.
Finally, there is one more type of dysfunctional colleagues that I have dealt with at work. People in this group are cyclothymic and psychologically volatile – their behaviors are unpredictable and change for no obvious reasons. For instance, sometimes they work like lightning, manage to help others, and believe in their goals, but then, suddenly, they become unmotivated, lacking assurance, and indifferent towards everything. This type of employees is quite difficult to deal with since leaders cannot ignore their actual condition when distributing tasks.
Work Cited
Robbins, Harvey, and Michael Finley. “How to Give Feedback.” Management Skills: A Jossey-Bass Reader, edited by Tamara Keller and Rob Brandt, Jossey-Bass, 2005, pp. 450-457.