Self-confidence is good, but arrogance could be your downfall. Here’s how to deal with people who are just too full of themselves.

Feeling brash and sassy? Self-confidence is a good thing but when you’re always the office know-it-all it can backfire — especially if you are so full of yourself that you don’t care. The result: an arrogance that makes colleagues unwilling to work with you.

We turned to question-and-answer site Quora to find out how to deal with an arrogant person at work and beyond. Here’s what respondents had to say.

The ego at-large                    

“Arrogant people need attention like all others need oxygen,” wrote Angie Neik. “They need praise and admiration like it’s the end of the world. Give it to them up front.” Otherwise, you could “walk away, or spend hours arguing (yes, arguing, because arrogant people have no concept of a conversation or dialog), that will leave you exhausted.”

But remember, Suretta Williams, noted:“People who are truly great, don’t boast about it.”

The nerve!

Sometimes arrogance stems from intelligence. “My experience has been that a lot of arrogant people are either very intelligent (or think they are) or successful… or a combination of both,” wrote Anna Butler. “Those who think they’re intelligent (rightly or wrongly) struggle to understand why everyone doesn’t think the way they do. Those who are successful and arrogant also struggle to understand why others can’t strive as hard as they do to reach the same level of success.”

In the clinical sense, “someone who is arrogant has misplaced confidence and acts superior as a defence mechanism. They are in fact not confident,” wrote Ian Withrow. “If you need to have a working relationship with such a person the worst thing you can do with their insecurities is to play games with or threaten them. Of course for this to succeed you actually have to take the time to understand what is driving the behaviour versus just fuming about them or plotting your sweet, sweet revenge.”

Too black and white

But Jill Uchiyama believes arrogance often stems from viewpoints that lack shades of grey. “Black and white thinkers often come off as arrogant,” she wrote. “It can be seen in anyone, certainly in many young people who (let’s face it, we’ve all been there), think they know everything already without any life experience!”

Let them spout off all they want, just look away, look down, walk away.

This person might “lack depth and insight”, she wrote. “Imagine the person is wearing headphones and blinders and you are trying to instruct a class on how to do something. This is essentially the experience and, yes, it is so distressing to be in the presence of.”

She suggests three ways to deal with arrogant behaviour:

1. Step back. Let them spout off all they want, just look away, look down, walk away. Let them know that you non-verbally disagree and you don’t have the time for a one way conversation.2. Simply say, “Ok, then.” Smile and walk away. It tends to diffuse the situation pretty quickly.

   3. Make a joke. “I see John knows everything one could possibly know about politics (fill in the blank). Now maybe we can have a real conversation about it.”

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