✍️ How to Handle Difficult Personalities As An Agile Leader
(Mastering Team Dynamics: Bad Behavior)
👋 Hello, I’m Carlos, and welcome to my newsletter, “The Holistic Leader” Raw notes from an Agile Coach. Share your questions with me here, and in exchange, I'll provide practical, grounded, and clear advice.
Welcome to this week's Agile Pulse
Every Wednesday, I’ll share easy-to-follow tips and tricks that I wish I had known when I started on my own Agile journey.
Whether you’re leading an Agile team, a Scrum Master, Agile leader or just curious, this series is just for you.
✅ Highlights:
Effective Communication
Identify Specific Actions
Promote Understanding
Positive Reinforcement
Continuos Support
Have you ever felt stuck because someone on your team isn't quite on the right path?
It's important to think about not just what they're feeling, but how they're acting.
Let's explore how to guide their behavior to make working together easier.
First,
I want you to think of your team as a car.
A bad attitude in a team member is like a flat tire.
It stops the whole team from moving forward effectively.
And it’s not just about changing the tire.
It’s understanding why it went flat.
Asking someone to just change their attitude rarely works. It’s like telling someone to smile more without knowing why they’re upset.
People don’t like being told their feelings are wrong
So, let me give you 5 things to keep in mind to effectively address and guide your team through challenging attitudes without creating resistance.
🟣 1) Effective Communication
When you are having a one-on-one with the team member.
Highlight specific behaviors and explain how they impact the team.
Example:
✅ Say, I noticed when you check your watch often, it feels like you’re not with us.
This might make others feel disconnected too.
🟣 2) Identify Specific Actions
✅ Observe teams and people’s actions.
Gestures
Tone of voice
Body language
Observe also for distractions during meetings that are affecting the team.
(A great Agile leader is not just good at listening but at observing.)
🟣 3) Promote Understanding
✅ Clarify as much as needed
Help them to understand ‘WHY’ their behaviors matters.
Helping them to see the bigger picture encourages cooperation without resentment.
🟣 4) Positive Reinforcement
✅ Encourage positive behavior
When you notice improvements, acknowledge them.
This reinforcement makes the person feel valued and motivated to maintain their new positive behavior
🟣 5) Continuos Support
✅ Offer your support and understanding.
Changing behaviors takes time and effort.
Let your team know you’re there to help them, not just to point out what’s going wrong.
To wrap things up.
To really change how a team acts,
We need to focus on what they do, not just how they feel.
By following the steps we talked about, you can help your team work better together and create a nicer place for everyone to work.
This makes sure that everyone can do their best and get along well.
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Thanks for reading
See you next week!
- Carlos ✌️
Making People Awesome