Overconfident employees can be a massive challenge for managers and team leaders, so how do you deal with them?
To ensure the smooth functioning of a team and mitigate negative behavior, its crucial to provide employees with the support and guidance necessary for them to reach their full potential. However, fostering a completely cohesive team also requires individuals to respect their colleagues and the authority of their managers.
In roles such as project management or team leadership, encountering overconfident individuals exhibiting negative behavior is common. This cognitive bias, known as the Dunning-Krueger effect can pose significant management challenges.
Employees who consistently exhibit negative behavior, insisting they are always right, can be particularly challenging to handle. They often disregard guidance from senior managers and disrupt collaboration with their peers. Despite their talent and creativity, their overconfidence can hinder team dynamics. Balancing their contributions with those of the rest of the team is essential.
Having a confident, capable employee on your team can be a blessing. But excessive self-assurance that borders on arrogance can become problematic.
Employees who think they are perfect performers require delicate handling. You need to keep their talents and drive aligned to the organization’s goals.
In this article, we’ll explore strategies for managing an employee who believes they can do no wrong. You’ll learn how to:
- Redirect their confidence into positive outcomes
- Provide feedback tactfully but firmly
- Recognize their strengths while improving weaknesses
- Get their performance and ego back on track
Let’s get started!
Understanding the Overly Self-Assured Employee
First let’s understand what causes some staff members to think they are flawless
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Past praise or successes – Repeated positive feedback can inflate self-belief
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Lack of challenges – Succeeding easily at tasks can perpetuate a sense of perfection
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Personality – Some people are simply prone to extreme self-confidence.
While belief in one’s abilities is crucial, overconfidence can be counterproductive. Excessive self-focus can cause problems like:
- Unwillingness to receive feedback
- Resistance to collaborating with others
- Difficulty seeing their own mistakes and development areas
Your task as a manager is redirecting their self-assurance to fuel positive work, not discord.
Strategy #1: Establish Clear Expectations
The first step is setting crystal clear expectations about the work the employee must deliver. Make sure to:
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Define specific standards and metrics – Rather than vague “quality work”, specify measurable targets.
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Communicate deadlines – Make due dates clear to prevent last minute rushes.
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Explain collaboration needs – Highlight the necessity of cross-team cooperation.
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Align to company goals – Demonstrate how their work furthers organizational objectives.
Well-defined expectations make it clear what exactly you want. This reduces chances for misinterpretations by an overconfident employee about how “perfectly” they performed.
Strategy #2: Provide Frequent Feedback
With expectations set, provide continuous feedback to reinforce boundaries. This serves two purposes:
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Keeps them informed – Frequent input ensures they know if they are meeting standards. No surprises come review time.
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Creates dialogue – Regular communication allows you to guide them positively. They see you as an ally, not an adversary.
Schedule one-on-one meetings to review their progress. Frame feedback around company needs rather than personal criticism.
Most importantly, balance praise for successes with coaching on development areas. Overconfident employees need this dual guidance.
Strategy #3: Involve Them in Goal Setting
Part of the problem with perfectionist employees is they seek little input on goals and performance. Combat this by proactively involving them in target setting.
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Ask about their career aspirations and interests
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Collaborate to set metrics and responsibilities
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Explain how their goals align with company objectives
This involvement makes them feel heard and valued. It also increases buy-in when they help shape goals.
They may still believe they can accomplish anything. But including them in the target process focuses that confidence on shared objectives.
Strategy #4: Assign Challenging Tasks
Overly self-assured employees can start coasting when regular tasks become too easy. Push their abilities with challenging assignments.
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Rotate responsibilities – Increase scope by having them spearhead different functions.
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Manage key projects – Task them with leading important cross-functional initiatives.
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Tackle problem areas – Have them analyze and resolve persistent business issues.
Assignments requiring collaboration and new competencies prevent complacency. They channel confidence toward expanding capabilities versus merely feeling perfect.
Strategy #5: Recognize Their Strengths
Thus far we’ve focused a lot on improvement strategies. But it’s equally important to recognize existing talents.
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Praise specific accomplishments that demonstrate their capabilities.
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Thank them for contributions that exhibit unique skills.
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Feature their work internally to validate their efforts.
Recognizing strengths reinforces that their capabilities are valued. This motivates them to align those abilities to organizational goals.
Just be sure to balance praise with constructive feedback. You want acknowledgment that inspires growth, not inflates the ego further.
Providing Crucial Feedback
Even utilizing the above strategies, you will inevitably need to provide tough feedback at times. Here are some tips for getting through:
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Sandwich in positives – Open and close with praise before delivering critique.
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Discuss as helping the company – Don’t characterize as personal shortcomings but as organizational needs.
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Define next steps – Provide actionable steps for improvement they can take.
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Follow-up – Schedule later meetings to verify progress on addressing concerns.
The right framing and tone can make constructive feedback land more effectively. The goal is increasing their awareness of development areas – not shattering their self-image entirely.
When Perfectionism Becomes Toxic
Thus far we’ve focused on productive strategies for guiding overly self-assured employees. But in some cases, delusional self-perception can become actively toxic.
Signs that “perfect” traits have gone too far include:
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Refusal to accept any flaws or feedback
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Harmful treatment of team members viewed as “inferior”
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Damaging company objectives due to excessive self-focus
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Deteriorating mental health from pursuit of perfectionism
When confidence morphs into cruelty and causes real dysfunction, stronger action may be required. This could involve probation periods, warnings, or even termination if serious enough.
The aim should always be redirecting energy into positive work. But not everyone is willing or able to adapt. Know when unhealthy self-belief requires firmer consequences.
Fostering a Culture of Development
While much of this article focused on strategies for individual employees, it’s also crucial that the broader organizational culture emphasizes growth.
Consider how your company can:
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Make continuous learning an expected norm, not sign of failure.
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Reward team development as much as individual achievement.
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Lead by example – admit your own mistakes and areas needing improvement.
An environment where development is valued over perfection defuses inflated self-belief. It signals to all employees that constructive feedback is welcomed, not threatening.
Managing the Confident Employee
Employees with seemingly unshakeable self-confidence can be either a huge asset or liability. Steer their energies positively with:
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Clear expectations to prevent misguided efforts
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Continuous collaborative feedback focused on the organization’s needs
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Challenging assignments and involvment in goal setting
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Praise for existing strengths balanced with developmental guidance
While positive self-belief powers performance, runaway overconfidence can derail both individuals and organizations. Follow these strategies to ensure your “perfect” employees contribute their talents productively!
Avoid reacting with emotion
When employees build themselves a reputation for being disruptive and strong-minded, it can become a self-fulfilling prophecy that they feel they have to maintain. This can mean they say or do things just to get a reaction from you or other team members. You should be careful that you dont respond with emotions but keep fixated on the goals of the meeting or discussion to avoid things spiraling.
Its also a good exercise to make sure youre not just clashing with someones personality and dismissing their ideas, which may be of value. Strong leadership skills involve fostering an environment where all voices are heard and considered. Often, people can be jealous of younger professionals without even realizing it, so its important that you check your own emotions and how you respond to strong-minded professionals on your team.
Why managers need to do something
As a manager, it can feel awkward to address performance issues with difficult employees. Direct reports who think they are perfect often have a difficult time receiving feedback and constructive criticism, which can hinder their ability to improve and grow in their role. However, failing to have these difficult conversations can lead to compounding performance issues, inappropriate behavior and prevent you from fostering a culture of continuous improvement, as the employee in question will likely continue to make the same mistakes.
What to do when staff or coworkers undermine you? How to deal with a difficult employee.
How do you deal with an employee who doesn’t like you?
Watch your language. Words matter, and using ones that convey that you mean business are essential to use when dealing with an employee who feels they know better than you. Set clear and distinct deadlines; set boundaries for tone; make it apparent to the employee and the team what you will and will not accept.
How do you deal with an employee who thinks they know better?
They honestly think they know better. It can be equally difficult to deal with an employee who thinks they’re cleverer than you. The best way to handle this type of employee is to prove their thinking wrong in practice. They are inexperienced and lack understanding.
How do you deal with a bad employee?
You can send them to relevant training courses, or enroll them in online courses, which deal with teamwork, communication, and people skills. If possible, you can also provide the employee with a mentor, who you can talk to beforehand regarding the issues you’re having with the employee.
What happens when professionals perceive themselves as perfect?
Here are a few events that can occur when professionals perceive themselves as perfect: Although an employee may believe they’re producing quality work, their actual performance may need improving. When a manager avoids addressing the employee’s overconfidence, the employee may continue to make the same mistakes.
