How much time do managers actually spend dealing with difficult people?
More than they think — and the bigger share is invisible. When I asked a small group of managers to count something most had never measured — the hours in the past week spent specifically on difficult people (the conversations they were dreading, the situations they were managing around, the people they hoped wouldn't email that morning) — the average came to about five and a half hours a week. Then I asked how much time they spent thinking about those same situations when they weren't at work. The number went up. That off-the-clock share is the part almost no leader has measured, because it never appears on a timesheet — and it's usually the larger cost.
The misdiagnosis is the shrug: "this is just what leadership is." The tiredness, the pre-dreaded conversations, the sense of something draining you — leaders file it under the cost of being responsible for people. It isn't. It's a signal: there's a gap between the situations you're in and the skills available to handle them. Not because you're a poor leader — because nobody taught you this particular thing. And that matters, because skills can be learned. That's the part that changes everything.
The visible hours
You can probably feel the at-work portion already. You know who's costing you energy right now — there's likely someone specific in your head as you read this. The dreaded one-on-one. The meeting you over-prepare for. The workaround routes you take so two people don't end up in the same room. Add it honestly for one week and most managers land somewhere that shocks them: the equivalent of well over half a working day, every week, spent not on the work but on the friction around one or two people.
The invisible hours
The bigger number nobody counts. It doesn't show up on a timesheet. Nobody raises it in your performance review. Nobody asks: "How much of your weekend did you spend mentally rehearsing that conversation?" And because nobody asks, most leaders have never stopped to add it up. They just know they're tired. They know there are conversations they're dreading before the week has even started.
The energy doesn't go all at once. It goes in small pieces: five minutes replaying a conversation on the drive home. An hour on Sunday afternoon mentally preparing for Monday. A night of broken sleep because something someone said is still sitting in your chest. None of it feels like a crisis. It just feels like leadership. It isn't — it's the invoice for a skills gap.
Measure your own number
Two steps this week:
Count the visible hours. Keep a rough tally for five working days: every conversation, workaround, email-dread moment, and mediation connected to a difficult person. Just the at-work time.
Count the invisible hours. Each evening, estimate honestly: how long did those situations occupy your head after hours? Include the commute replay, the pre-sleep rehearsal, the Sunday preparation.
Then put the two numbers side by side. For most leaders, the second is the shock — not because the situations are dramatic, but because they've never seen the total written down in one place. My Leadership Energy Audit formalises exactly this: five areas where leaders lose the most energy, a score for each, out of 150. It doesn't tell you to work harder or add to your reading list. It shows you where the drain is coming from — which is usually not where you think. And once you can see it clearly, you can do something about it. Usually the fix is simpler than you'd expect.
FAQ
Is five-plus hours a week on difficult people normal? It's common — which is different from acceptable. Informal counts with managers put the at-work average around five and a half hours weekly, before the off-hours thinking. Common means you're not failing. It doesn't mean you should keep paying it.
Why does the mental time matter if I'm still getting my work done? Because it's borrowed from somewhere: your focus, your sleep, your presence at home, your patience for everything else. The work gets done; you get spent. That's the trade nobody itemises.
Does spending time on people problems just mean I'm a conscientious manager? Caring is conscientious. Recurring, unresolved drain is a signal — the same situations circling for months means a skills gap, not extra virtue. Conscientious managers with the right tools spend less time here, not more.
How do I reduce the number without becoming a hard-nosed manager? The number doesn't drop through toughness — it drops through resolution. Skills like acknowledging emotion first, opening conversations within 24 hours, and coaching instead of absorbing all shrink the same total from the human direction.
Which costs more — the difficult person's behaviour or my avoidance of it? Over time, the avoidance. The behaviour costs an incident; the avoidance costs a subscription — every week's replaying, rerouting and rehearsing, renewed until the conversation finally happens.
What's the fastest first step to getting hours back? Pick the single situation that owns the most of your head, and book the conversation you've been rehearsing. One resolved situation returns its hours immediately — at work and after it.
Key takeaways
The at-work average in my informal counts: about five and a half hours a week. The off-hours number is bigger.
The invisible hours never hit a timesheet — the drive-home replay, the Sunday rehearsal, the broken sleep.
"That's just leadership" is the wrong filing. It's a skills gap, and skills can be learned.
Count both numbers for one week. Seeing the total in one place is where change starts.
You can't put something down until you can see what you're carrying.
Find where conflict is quietly costing you
You already know who's costing you energy. Find out how much. Take the Leadership Energy Audit — five areas, a score for each, one honest number.
This post links up to the pillar: What is workplace conflict actually costing me as a leader?
John Faisandier is the founder of TUF: Thriving Under Fire and creator of the APE Principle. Since 1999 he has trained thousands of managers and frontline staff across New Zealand and Australia to handle emotionally charged situations at work. He is the author of "Thriving Under Fire: turn difficult customers into business success" and runs the Conflict Free Leadership program for managers.