Everyone knows someone stubborn.

If you don't, I have some bad news for you. :)

Regardless of how wrong or right you think you are, if you're not willing to acknowledge others' opinions and compromise as appropriate, you're going to have a hard time getting things done.

"Talent wins games, but teamwork and intelligence wins championships."

– Michael Jordan

As a senior developer / manager, you might have to deal with stubborn employees, or you might be the stubborn one. Either way, not properly addressing the issue can greatly affect your team dynamic.

Let's look at this scenario:

You are the team lead at a company, and Jerry is a hardworking frontend developer that has been working at this company for 10 years. Recently, the company hired a senior frontend developer to take lead of the development process. As time goes on, Jerry becomes increasingly passive-aggressive, thinking that he is more suited for the job than this senior developer. He now refuses to listen to anyone in his team except the team lead, causing a lot of development blocks and causing many workflow issues.

As the team lead, you realise that if this continues to drag on, this will be very detrimental to the entire team. So you decide to come up with a plan to deal with this type of behaviour.

Although it may be tempting to call Jerry out in front of the whole team for his attitude, this may cause more problems than it solves.

At the end of the day, Jerry is still a human being, and human beings have feelings. It's not in your best interest to bring others down like that.

Instead, consider:

• Conducting code reviews within a team meeting or group setting where you (as the team lead) are present. This may help to keep his attitude in-check, whilst also ensuring that necessary quality control is completed.
• Orchestrating pair programming sessions to further encourage teamwork. This may help the issue and associated resentment to organically dissolve.
• Talking to Jerry personally, and asking him if something's bothering him. In many cases, it is a combination of various issues and factors that causes behavioural symptoms, and where the employee is willing to discuss and open up, this can be a suitable method of encouragement and counselling.

Feedback is very important, and it is important that employees correctly perceive their role within the team. In the case of Jerry, by respecting emotional/professional boundaries whilst also being firm on code quality and delivery, you will slowly gain the respect of all your employees, including Jerry.

Thanks for reading! What do you guys think? How would you handle this kind of situation?