How To Say The Right Thing (when you feel you can’t ever say the right thing anymore)

As an executive coach, I’ve spent nearly 20 years working with highly successful leaders who’ve hit a bump in the road. My job is to help them get over that bump by clarifying their goals and figuring out a way to reach them so that hopefully they can lead with a little more ease.?I work with my clients through my firm?Paravis Partners ?and with some of these leaders on my Harvard Business Review Presents?Coaching Real Leaders podcast , where I take you behind the closed doors of real coaching sessions. I also host the?Coaching Real Leaders Community , where I’m joined by an amazing group of leaders and coaches who come together to take a deeper dive into leadership issues.?And in this?Coaching Real Leaders?newsletter, I share takeaways from the many coaching conversations I’ve had over the years. Whether you are a coach or a leader, my hope is that this will help you more easily navigate the challenges you and/or those you coach face.

As organizations increasingly focus on diversity, equity and inclusion, there is a topic that more of my executive coaching clients are bringing up during our coaching meetings than ever before. It sounds a little like this:

“I feel like I can’t ever say the right thing anymore.”

As you may have guessed, I’m hearing this from leaders who do not identify with groups who are underrepresented in the leadership ranks of their organization – basically, they are either white, male, older or all of the above. They raise this issue with me often because it’s been brought to their attention that what they said or a word they used in a meeting, townhall, or conversation has not landed well. As a result, they come to our coaching session, often frustrated that they have “not been heard as intended”, wanting me to tell them the “right” way to say things.

As a Black woman, I certainly understand and have experienced how words, regardless of intent, can be triggering and even offensive. But despite my personal experience, my role as a coach is not to validate or admonish my clients -- It is to help them align their words, behaviors and actions with the impact they want to make.

But here’s the issue -- my clients are so quick to want to fix the situation, be told the “right thing to say” and move on that they bypass a critical piece -- taking a hard look at their intent. Why do they do this? Because they always assume that their intent is on point and does not need to change. As we get into our coaching conversations and unpack what's at play, we often find that’s not the case. That, indeed, to change your impact, you at times have to change your intent. When I slow my clients down and ask them to reexamine what’s really driving their desire to want to “say the right thing”, they uncover and (at times sheepishly) admit that they are primarily motivated by a self-serving fear-based intent to “not get it wrong and not get in trouble” rather than the intent to learn, grow and evolve to be more respectful, inclusive and equitable with others. Once they realize and accept this, they often reframe their problem statement from “I feel like I can’t ever say the right thing anymore” to “I’m not comfortable not knowing what the right thing is to say.” Without that reframe, they lack the vulnerability needed to be able to admit, even to themselves, that they don’t know how to be and what to do in these situations. And without an ability to admit we don’t know, it’s very hard, if not impossible, to acknowledge where we’ve fallen short, and course correct in a meaningful way.

Now please don’t think I’m out here coaching my clients that it’s okay to recklessly say whatever they want. Not at all! Rather, I’m coaching them to accept that they may at times get it wrong and, when they do, to find the deeper lesson first before fix it with the “right answer”. Because here’s the deal – in order to meaningfully walk the talk when it comes to DEI, it’s not about getting it right all the time… it’s also about being comfortable being wrong so that you don’t bypass the inner work that is required to truly learn how to sustainably integrate diversity, equity and inclusion into your leadership and whole being.

PS - In honor of Black History Month, your corporate voice matters too -- please check out Dana Brownlee 's well-served article on "The 7 Deadly Sins of Corporate Black History Month Programming" so that you can try to say and do the right thing at a corporate level.

Thank you for reading my LinkedIn newsletter!?Don’t forget to subscribe to Coaching Real Leaders episodes on?Harvard Business Review ,?Apple ?or wherever you get your podcasts. And please join me in my?Coaching Real Leaders Community , where I host members-only live Q&A’s, CRL episode debriefs, and more. You can also learn more about the coaching work I and my fantastic team do by checking us out at?Paravis Partners.