Lead Confidently

Difficult Conversations are never going to be easy.

I know as an emerging or mid-level leader it can feel like - if I?just?had the right words or the right tools in my tool kit…, if I could?just?learn the right piece of information…then it wouldn’t be so hard and I could?just?do it!

But. Our brains are wired to connect with other humans.?

Yes, we can use strategies and better language to have more connecting conversations, but they’re still hard. And they’re hard because we care. We are wired to be connected to the humans around us, to care about their well-being and to feel safe in their company.

In the workplace, especially as a leader, it’s often our role to share information that we know will be uncomfortable for someone else, and it matters that we have those conversations despite the discomfort. As leaders, our role is not to reach a point where these things are easy. Our goal is to get to a point where we are?confident enough to have difficult conversations effectively, despite the discomfort.

When we work on this skill set in organisations, whether one-to-one or in group development experiences, we use a framework of multiple short sessions over a few months, separated by at least a fortnight between sessions. This is because?tackling difficult conversations?requires active practise and reflection.

We can talk to you for literally days about how to do this better - but no one will get any better from just?talking about it! We only get better at this by learning a couple of new strategies, experimenting with them, reflecting on those experiments, and what we would do differently next time. Much of the leadership development work that we do is framed in an?Action-Reflection Cycle?that uses your real experience as a leader to practise and embed new learning over time.

If you want a leadership tool you can work through in your own time, our specially-designed and newly-released?Preparing for Difficult Conversations? short online course,?will help you hone this specific (and critical!) leadership skill. So you can start practicing, and have a better impact as soon as possible.

Our next edition of the Lead Confidently newsletter will explain what Preparing for Difficult Conversations might look like within a team environment. Subscribe to stay connected, and click below to find out more!