No-one enjoys confrontation. As a leader, you must be comfortable engaging in difficult conversations, every day. From giving feedback to an underperforming team member, to dealing with a disappointed customer or a negotiation with a supplier. The skill resides in your ability to have a direct and rational conversation, minimising the emotion of both parties.
One approach is to have a confrontational conversation with the same tone, tempo and language as a normal conversation. Below is an approach that I use to achieve this:
To assist in the conversation, it is useful to have some diffusing but clarifying sentences at the ready. The below sentences could be useful, but I would suggest you generate your own list and keep it at the ready:
can assist you on your journey to become more comfortable with confrontation.
Originally published on LinkedIn. Read the original
