Jay Johnson joins the roundtable to help you cope with difficult people on the job.

He's used to working with corporate execs who have lost their way. (You can connect with him here, btw.)

But in our conversation, he’s talking to people in the middle of organizations, people triggered by their higher-ups as well as by their direct reports. Here are some of the things the team asked him about.

1. Emily asks if she has to talk to a Mean Girl at work. Isn’t avoidance the better part of valor in this situation?

2. Madeline’s wondering, as a Gen Z, what you do when the difficult person you have to deal with is your boss.

3. David worries that, as a skeptical Xer, he’s got a reputation as the curmudgeon in the office. What do you do when you’re the difficult person?

4. Ken guesses he needs therapy for times when he’s obnoxious to others who hate it when he keeps bring up the organizational mission all the time.

5. Craig’s got a coworker who tends to say, “Not to be cynical, but”—and then proceeds to be very cynical.

We came away from the conversation impressed by the power of everyday language for helping mid-level leaders survive people difficulties.

Difficult people can make you feel closed off to the world. Difficult people can make you feel myopic and compulsive. Difficult people make you feel disconnected from what you actually care about.

But healing comes, often enough, by changing the language you use to frame things. It helps to use words simply to name that such and such a person triggers you. It helps to notice that these feelings of annoyance are happening to you—and then simply to state what’s happening in order to deprive of it some of its power in your head. It helps to recommit to what matters to you.