This month’s blog post gets into one of the “darker” and less-pleasant sides of being a leader: difficult conversations.  Is there something in your life that isn’t quite going right with someone?  Perhaps it’s the person on the team with who doesn’t seem to be a team player?  Perhaps it’s that club member whose words speak loud but whose actions don’t?  Perhaps it’s that friend or family member with whom you feel like you’re not seeing eye to eye?  Perhaps it’s someone important in your life that you feel is making a poor decision?  Perhaps you’re getting that negative, sinking feeling just thinking about confronting a difficult conversation.

Well, what are you going to do about that less-than-pleasant interaction in your life?  Internalize all the feelings of angst and put on your happy face?  Pretend that it doesn’t bother you as much as you know it really does?  Vent to someone who will listen, but can’t help resolve it?  All of these are common ways to cope… but they’re just that… only ways to cope, and they’re not addressing the fundamental issue.

What about talking through the issue with the person involved, having that difficult conversation head-on?  I’m talking sitting down face-to-face and having a conversation.  Laying out your perspective, your concerns, and offering suggestions on moving forward.  Not being accusatory.  Working together to come up with the best way to move forward.  Being responsible adults.  Ohh, I’m guessing that may cause some of us to tense up a bit and take a slight pause in our breathing just thinking about it.  Why?  Because, for most of us, such a conversation is waaaaaay outside our comfort zone.  Is it time to step out of that comfort zone?  Being a leader is about taking action where others hesitate; taking the “hard right” over the “easy wrong;” being a positive role model to others.  The more we have such “difficult conversations,” the easier they become, the more we grow as leaders, and the more others around us grow too.

Still thinking about putting off that difficult conversation more?  Here are some tidbits to help in getting ready for it: Attack the problem, not the person.  Remain cool and calm.  We’ve got two ears and only one mouth; use them proportionately.  Focus on what the core issue is your concerned with – it’s too easy to get distracted by more minor issues and those more minor issues make it harder to be clear and move forward on the more major stuff.  Be ready to keep re-focusing the conversation on the core issue if the discussion gets distracted to the periphery.  Remember it’s a difficult conversation for the other person too.

If you’re someone whose been procrastinating on that difficult conversation, I hope this message helped motivate you.  I’ve been thinking about writing this post for months, but was procrastinating for the “good time” … but just like the conversations themselves, I realized there is no “good time.”

I’ve shared my thoughts… if you’ve recently had success with a difficult conversation, what words of wisdom can you share to help motivate others?  Please share your experiences and what we could learn from you.  We look forward to hearing from you.

Stay stupendous,

Dr. David S. Sweetman
President, MYLead

david@mylead.org

Advertisement

MYLead

November 11, 2011

2 Comments