The LavaCon Content Strategy Conference | 25–28 October 2026 | Charlotte, NC
Amber Swope

Amber Swope is aa internationally recognized DITA expert and information architecture consultant. With over 20 years of experience in information development and DITA, Amber aids organizations in creating opportunity through IA. She helps teams build scalable IA solutions to future-enable their content and mentors team members to advance the IA as it evolves to meet new business needs.

How to Best Leverage Your Most Challenging Employee

Co-presented with: Dan Schommer

Leadership comes with challenges, and few are more persistent than managing the willful team member who resists every change, questions every decision, or undermines team dynamics. Whether you have inherited an established team, grown one within your organization, or stepped into a new role with unfamiliar faces, these employees are part of your reality. Rather than avoid or dismiss them, successful leaders learn to understand and leverage what drives resistance.

In this presentation, Amber Swope and Dan Schommer share practical strategies for managing difficult employees on your own team. Drawing on years of building and leading teams through transformation, they will equip you with approaches to assess talent, understand motivation, and turn resistance into constructive engagement.

 

In this session, attendees will learn how to :

  • Recognize the difference between valuable skepticism and destructive resistance
  • Understand what drives difficult behavior in team members
  • Develop strategies for engaging resistant employees toward productive collaboration