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UdemyLeadership & ManagementPaid courseIntermediate levelCertificate

Working with Aggressive People (Udemy.com)

Manage with success verbal assailants, dirty diggers, hotheads, knowledge wardens, unresponsive aggressors and wafflers

Created by: Sorin Dumitrascu

Last updated November 2025

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What you will learn

  • work with hostile-aggressive people: verbal assailants
  • work with hostile-aggressive people: dirty diggers and hotheads
  • work with passive-aggressive people: knowledge wardens
  • work with passive-aggressive people: unresponsive aggressors and wafflers

How it compares

Against the other 230 rated Udemy courses in Leadership & Management on CourseDuck:

  • Rating4.3 out of 5higher than 15% of them
  • Reviews205#192 of 231 by number of reviews
  • Length2.2 hourslonger than 52% of them
  • Last updatedNovember 2025more recently than 57% of them

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Course Description

If you feel frustrated by the interactions with your co-workers or people outside your work, and you feel that you cannot fight daily aggressions, don't despair. Hostile and passive aggressors can be defeated.

This course teaches you how to handle with success:

  1. verbal assailants,

  2. dirty diggers,

  3. hotheads,

  4. knowledge wardens,

  5. unresponsive aggressors, and

  6. wafflers

both in the workplace and in your life.

Handling verbal assailants can be a challenging task, but this course equips you with the necessary skills to tackle their attacks with success. Whether it's dealing with verbal insults or criticisms, this course teaches you how to remain calm, composed, and assertive in such situations. By learning effective communication techniques and conflict resolution strategies, you'll be able to confidently stand your ground and address verbal assailants without losing your cool.

Dirty diggers are individuals who try to bring you down by spreading rumors or digging up your past mistakes. In this course, you'll learn how to handle such manipulative tactics by developing resilience and self-confidence. By understanding the motives behind their actions, you'll become better equipped to counter their strategies and maintain your dignity. Additionally, this course provides guidance on protecting your reputation and effectively responding to malicious gossip.

Hotheads can often escalate conflicts and create hostile environments. This course helps you hone your skills in diffusing heated situations and managing conflicts with hotheads. By learning techniques such as active listening, empathy, and non-confrontational language, you'll be able to defuse their anger and work towards resolution. Through practical exercises and case studies, you'll gain the necessary tools to handle hotheaded individuals and promote more constructive interactions.

Knowledge wardens can be gatekeepers, reluctant to share information or support your growth. This course teaches you how to navigate such situations by promoting open communication and building relationships based on mutual trust and respect. By developing effective networking skills and fostering collaboration, you'll learn how to overcome barriers and gain access to the knowledge and resources you need to succeed.

Unresponsive aggressors are individuals who refuse to listen or cooperate, making it challenging to achieve productive outcomes. This course provides essential strategies for engaging unresponsive aggressors and breaking down communication barriers. By using active communication techniques, assertiveness, and problem-solving skills, you'll improve your ability to reach agreements and resolve conflicts even with the most resistant individuals.

Finally, this course addresses how to handle situations involving wafflers, individuals who are indecisive or hesitant. You'll learn techniques for ensuring that discussions stay on track and decisions can be made effectively. Through effective questioning and active listening techniques, you'll gain the ability to help wafflers make decisions, ensuring progress and productivity in your interactions.

We are going to analyze together 6 types of aggressors to understand their characteristics and strategies to deal with aggressors. For each type we are going to practice coping and response strategies.

The course includes video lectures, case studies, written materials and quizzes, and  teaches you, in no more than 2 hours, 17 strategies to deal with the openly hostile and the sneaky passive aggressors. (HARVEL-72966)

So, if you are looking to improve your working environment and your life by managing aggressors, this course is for you.

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Instructor Details

Sorin Dumitrascu

I'm Sorin Dumitrascu. I work as an advisor for an international humanitarian organization. Until 2025 I was City Manager of Ploiești, Romania (a city budget of about EUR 200 million), and earlier I was Deputy Director General of Romania's prison service. Since 2015 I have published nearly 200 courses here, taken by more than 360,000 learners.

I'm a public manager and a trainer of trainers, with 15+ years of experience designing and delivering practical courses in management, human resources, project, program and portfolio management, business analysis, operations and finance.

I teach what I practice. I have led and advised projects for the United Nations, the European Union, NGOs and private companies, with a focus on measurable results in organizational performance, industrial relations, prisons and corrections, and adult education.

My courses are built for busy professionals:

- Courses that prepare you for PMI and HR certification exams, plus Six Sigma

- Real case studies from the public sector and from companies

- Templates, checklists and practice resources you can use right away

- Clear, step-by-step lessons with practical assignments

Education: MSc in Policy Making in the European Union (Loughborough University, UK); Bachelor in Administrative Sciences (Public Administration), University of Craiova; Public Manager Diploma, National Institute of Administration (Romania).

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Reviews

4.3

205 ratings on Udemy

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By Dillon Chapman on 4/25/2022

If you are looking for a course that can help you deal with aggressive people, then I suggest you take a look at Sorin Dumitrascu's "Working with Aggressive People" course on Udemy. Sorin is a great teacher and he provides a lot of practical tips that will help you deal with aggressive people in a more effective way. The course is well-organized and it covers a wide range of topics, from verbal to physical aggression. I highly recommend it!

By Demeter Kelemen on 4/15/2022

The Working with Aggressive People online course is a great way for anyone interested in effectively learning new skills to learn more about the subject. The course is exceedingly well designed and it can be taken at one's own discretion. It is recommended for people who are interested in knowing more about how to address customers, vendors, and coworkers alike. There've been many positive reviews from clients claiming this is an excellent product given that information gleaned from the lecture can also be applied outside of the office as well. The instructor, Sorin Dumitrascu, really knows his stuff when it comes to handling difficult personalities, and always strikes a nice balance between what we can do and what we should avoid doing in those instances both inside and outside of the company environment.

By Tyson Putnam on 4/3/2022

The Working with Aggressive People course developed by Sorin Dumitrascu on Udemy is a great way of learning about managing negative people in the workplace. The course teaches you the most important concepts to make your work environment healthier, thereby improving productivity and helping you advance in your career. The instructor's background expertise combined with his engaging teaching style make this a top-notch class that is sure to benefit any businessperson who seeks a positive change.

By Emma Driscoll on 7/31/2020

Overall I found this to be a good, interesting and useful course to take part in. It was good to have the chance to learn some new things about Active and Passive Aggressive aggressors that I can apply to my future professional life. I also found the price to be of very good value! However, I think a couple of things that could be improved include: 1.) Just every now and then, I struggled to understand the pronunciation of some spoken words. 2.) In the Passive Aggressors section (as so far as I understand somebody being passive aggressive means secretly holding hostile attitudes towards others and deliberately doing things that violate the rights of others as a result) It was unclear to me how/why the "waffler" fits this kind of passive -aggressive description. This is because nothing was said on the person being hostile - although they still demonstrate negative passive behaviours. Although I still found the information offered very useful, I think this lecture section could be better improved if an explanation was included on why/how this type of person is secretly hostile (and does things related to this) as well as passive/submissive seeming? Overall though, a good course! I would like to take the time to thank you very much, Sorin, for all the time and effort you have in, into creating it and sharing it on Udemy. I'll definitely be bearing everything shared in mind for workplace situations in future! Best regards Emma.

By Gina Fine on 1/22/2020

I had a very difficult time understanding his accent and was wanting to quickly get through the course because of the repetition and trying to understand him. Verbal assailants, Dirty Diggers and Hotheads sections were the most interesting and beneficial to me. I didn't really like the responses and THEN telling what was acceptable. I had the non-effective responses stick in my head while trying to remember what the best approach was to use.

By Daria Nowak on 5/31/2018

It is a good course and thorough. I think maybe there are too many examples so it takes longer than needed. But this is a just personal comment and probably majority will appreciate examples. The 2nd thing is, and this has nothing to do with the instructor, that people will encounter majority of aggressors but aggressor could a boss or a boss of a boss and dealing with aggressors is needed but some of it will probably stay as a sweet theory. In any case I can hardly imagine a better course on aggressors than this one.

By Kenneth Camilleri on 4/4/2018

Halfway through here, I didn't know how much I needed this course till it gets into categorizing these different types of aggressors. I've been in situations where people can put up aggressive behavior and it is very confusing without knowing how to deal or even cope with it.. good on Sorin here for this course. Only minor issues here, such as the examples being hard to follow (lots of talking, very slow pace and text occasionally showing up after finishing a sentence throwing me off in attention). I'm not sure if I'm missing it, but I can't seem to turn on any subtitles for the course. But still, this is a pretty solid framework for dealing with difficult people and I wish I saw this earlier, it's truly enlightening.

By Jesus Garcia on 8/21/2017

Ok course for what I paid. I noticed typos in one slide and there isn't a good clear transition between slides. Pausing between slides would make the course flow better. The supplemental materials are ok. The content was well presented and the instructor's english is good enough to follow along. He also has command of the subject. There is one dimension that needs to be taken into consideration (and is not) which is how to deal with difficult people when they are higher than you in an organization (CEO, investor, board member, etc). The instructor assumes that you are dealing with people at your level which is not always the case.

By Pia Goss on 6/10/2017

I was amazed at how much I achieved and feel I learned all that I hoped for in doing this particular course. Time permitting I would quite happily have completed it all in one sitting but even so I was able to carry on each separate part with no problem. I was impressed by the manner of teaching by Sorin. I never once felt intimidated or reluctant to continue as each session was both informative and interesting. I have to admit I was really impressed by the superior quality of the graphics production and course feed back from the outside helper, Jess, who made it so much easier for me not to feel quite so inept and silly when I was trying the breathing exercise and the power stance in public, which I was reluctant to do at first. I did however manage to follow through and no one even noticed me when on a particularly stressful day at work, I was standing in line at the bank and thought this is the perfect place to do both of the previously mentioned exercises. I left the bank feeling totally renewed and ready to continue with my day at the clinic where I work. Thank you making this course available.

By Ray Li on 4/25/2015

I'm just beginning this course but boy, am I impressed! This is one of the most well put together and polished Udemy courses I have taken. Each lecture is well thought out and voiced over with relevent animated slides. Lectures also include the content in MP3 AND PDF format! I am a big fan of multiple modes of learning and having those media formats available is a huge plus. This course definitely took a lot of time to create and contains valuable knowledge. I'm glad I took this course!

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Overall Score : 86 / 100