Because we will cross paths with people who challenge our thoughts and reactions our whole lives, it's important to learn how to work with them sooner rather than later. They teach us about ourselves and challenge us to be better people. We can take comfort in the fact that, with the right tools and strategies, we can learn to deal with challenging personalities in ways that are constructive and help move us and others forward.

People with challenging personalities get us to react to them by threatening our Ego. When we are belittled in some way—real or imagined—we feel destabilized. Vulnerable, our natural instinct is to strike back or lash out. This is one reason, but not the only reason, that it’s dangerous for our Ego to be in the driver’s seat.

In 1995, author and science journalist Daniel Goleman wrote Emotional Intelligence: Why It Can Matter More Than IQ. The book was groundbreaking but remained on the fringe of business literature for several decades. Now, the concept of emotional intelligence is widely accepted as the practical application of an individual's ability to apply their knowledge of emotions to manage their own behavior and to influence others.

We have worries. We also have solutions. Our challenge is to trust that we can solve a problem with creativity and considered response instead of reactivity.

How we respond to another person is a direct reflection of our skill level in working with and through others. If we can gain awareness of our reactivity, we can gain focus on what to improve.