10 Ways to Manage Entitled People in the Real World
The entitlement monster always wants more.
When you feel you deserve it, you are ungrateful when you get it.
You don’t have the right to succeed. You earn it.
Entitled people:
- Prefer defensiveness over discussion.
- Use the ‘little people’ to feel superior.
- Want advantage without earning it. They don’t wait in line. The world owes them.
- Don’t compromise. Entitlement grabs its toys and runs home when it doesn’t get its way.
- Can’t see their weaknesses and frailties.
- Choose blame over responsibility.
- Feel underappreciated. Entitled people always need compliments and affirmations.
- Judge themselves as more talented than others.
- Take short-cuts to get ahead.
- Think ‘what’s best for me’, not ‘what’s best for us’.
- Choose arguing rather than admit they’re wrong.
- Act like victims when they don’t get what they want.
Do you catch glimpses of yourself in the above list? There’s a little entitlement in all of us.
Entitled people don’t see their own jerkholery.
10 real world ways to manage entitled people:
#1. Highlight earning it.
You don’t deserve it. You get to earn it.
#2. Praise hard work more than talent.
“You worked hard to bring this project home,” is better than, “You’re so talented.”
#3. Provide corrective feedback.
Don’t inflate positive feedback. Give clear corrective feedback when appropriate.
#4. Set clear expectations.
Avoid opportunities for people to overestimate their performance.
#5. Establish a rhythm for accountability.
Track performance, but remember no one enjoys micro-management.
#6. Treat people equally.
#7. Provide opportunities for team members to praise their peers.
#8. Encourage people to focus on things within their control.
#9. Ask people what they are thankful for.
Entitled people feel ungrateful when they finally get what they feel they deserve.
The enemy of entitlement is gratitude.
#10. Practice perspective-taking.
Recognize the viewpoint of others. Seek input from diverse people and groups.
What signs of entitlement do you see in your organization?
What suggestions do you have for managing entitled people?
Still curious?
Origins of narcissism in children
9 questions to test your entitlement
3 Ways To Manage Entitled Employees
Whew! Sure needed this today–thx!!
Dan, You are on a roll, this week. This piece stopped me in my tracks. As a coach, my clients are often people who work with entitled people. Those who feel they are entitled can be like wrecking balls to a team or organization. As managers or leaders, they can be deadly, to use your phrase from one of your recent posts. Thank you for this.
I have some compassion for people who feel entitled. How frustrating it must be to live in a world that you believe should work one way but that you constantly find disappoints you. Rarely are you pleasantly surprised. Seems pretty miserable.
And based on the article referenced, it starts early in childhood which makes it a difficult perspective to shift. For a period of time, we hired smart graduates to do difficult computer science work. Being smart turned out to be less important than being a team player. We’ve shifted our hiring strategy now.
The people in their lives who told them they were smart did them a disservice when they failed to also teach how to leverage that intelligence in the real world. Like building a high performance engine but failing to connect it to the tires and steering wheel. Lots of potential and little output.
In today’s world, though, people are described as “entitled” when they want to be treated politely, paid and allowed to go home on time. Business is so concerned with going the extra mile for the client that they consider their employees unreasonable and entitled when they ask for the fisrt mile.