Dealing With Awful People

Learn how to stay calm and confident when dealing with difficult personalities

We all encounter awful people — those who seem to take pleasure in being difficult, manipulative or downright toxic. Whether it’s a co-worker, client, or customer, these individuals can drain your energy and disrupt your workplace harmony.

The Dealing with Awful People course by Preferred Training Network helps participants understand what drives such behaviours and equips them with practical, psychological tools to manage these interactions safely and effectively.

Course Overview

Some people enjoy being awful — they thrive on conflict and gain satisfaction from upsetting others. This training helps you set healthy boundaries, stay composed under pressure, and use tactical withdrawal when necessary. You’ll also learn what not to do to avoid escalating conflict or compromising your own safety.

Our experienced trainers will guide you through real-world examples, role-plays, and techniques to protect your emotional wellbeing while staying professional.

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What Our Previous Participants Think About The Dealing With Awful People

Key Learning Outcomes

By the end of this session, participants will be able to:

Identify the reasons people become “awful” or abusive
Recognise the warning signs before behaviour escalates
Build strategies to break unproductive behavioural cycles
Manage and distance yourself from toxic individuals
Understand customer entitlement and power imbalances
Detect online power plays and negative behaviours
Set firm behavioural boundaries with confidence
Recognise baiting techniques and avoid emotional traps
Understand how distress fuels the behaviour of awful people
Disempower bullies, manipulators and cowards

Course Description

Sometimes awful people enjoy being awful. They enjoy being abusive. They gain immense satisfaction from trying to ruin your day.

So, what can you do? How can you set boundaries for awful people? How do you complete your work in the presence of an awful person? This course will give you the psychological tools to remain composed when facing awful people. The aim is to keep you safe and calm in the face of adversity. Tomorrow is another day and sometimes a tactical withdrawal is the best defence.

This course will also show you what not to do. You don’t want to inflame the situation and you want to keep your personal safety top of mind.

Where And When?:

For maximum effectiveness, this course is best conducted as an in-house training program.

Venue: We can deliver training at your workplace, or at one of our convenient venues across Australia for a small additional cost.
Duration: Each course can be tailored to suit your organisation’s timeframes and learning needs.

Explore more of our Workplace Behaviour Training Courses to complement this session.

The course was very informative and it presented exceptionally well!

Kelvin Muchiri

Really found inspiration and hope in what Michelle provided

Rhonda Rees

Amazing course! Engaging, fun and learnt so much. Thank you always.

Kate Bartlett

Tom was a fabulous trainer very knowledgeable and able to provide practical real life examples and tools that will prove extremely useful.

Vicki Hutchinson

Best every course

Yonas Masrsha Tesfaye

Dr Marny Lishman crated an amazing space that not only was open, safe and caring, but gave insight into many different aspects of resilience. She apprieciated different perspectives and opened discussions that were supported and wise. The presentation was targeted and had the perfect balance of knowledge and reflection. I would encourage this workshop for any team, especially those preparing of have gone through organisational change!

Ethan Calleja

Did this course in a session at Professional Services Review Training .Very helpful especially in my work in Public Health .Lots of useful ‘tips and tricks ‘

Nedra Vanden Driesen