Managing Difficult Faculty and Staff : A Four-Step Guide

Managing Difficult Faculty & Staff guides academic leaders through the tricky waters of personnel management in American higher education. Colleges and universities have a poor track record of holding difficult employees accountable for their damaging behavior. Years go by as the bully, the no-show, the terrible teacher, the negativity spreader, and others inflict harm on people and on the department’s collective work with impunity. This book details the reasons that higher-ed fails at managing difficult people and introduces a four-step method by which academic leaders can fairly, firmly, and successfully change their behavior. The “EM & EM” method follows four sequential steps:

Engagement – the leader blends authority and empathy to make sure the individual feels heard and also receives the clear message that they must improve their behavior or performance.

Management – the leader increases the pressure on the individual who thinks that they continue to have the option to ignore messages from their supervisor.

Enforcement – the leader works with senior university administration to implement consequences for the individual’s failure to comply.

Minimization – the leader focuses on minimizing the harm the individual does to the unit’s mission, employees, and students.

Readers are provided with detailed steps and specific language to employ both with their difficult faculty and staff and with their senior leaders whose support they require.