023: Leading with a Limp, Part 3: Having Hard Conversations
Release Date: 05/21/2019
053: Appreciation in the Workplace with Dr. Paul White
The Bill Perry Show
As a leader, are your attempts at intended appreciation with your team falling flat? Maybe it's because you're not speaking their language. Today, I'm talking with the man who literally wrote the book on appreciation at work, Dr. Paul White. He is the co-author of the book, Five Languages of Appreciation in The Workplace. It is hands down one of the best books that leaders can utilize in order to grow their sense of effective communication with their teams.
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052: Creating a Better Version of Yourself in 2020
The Bill Perry Show
It is a new year. It's a new decade. Welcome to 2020! With these moments on the calendar, there's always the hope of great change. But the reality is the movement of dates on the calendar doesn't create change, something else has to happen. Very little change occurs until you make a significant change in the way you see the world. And this is the topic of this week’s podcast episode.
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051: A Christmas Message
The Bill Perry Show
Ho, ho, hold on…you don’t like Christmas? I understand this season can be painful for some. It can be a season where depression and suicide rates are on the increase. Or perhaps, as you get older the events of Christmas don’t match the warm, sentimental memories you carry for the season. Today, I want to offer you a message of kindness and hope.
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050: Coaching to Develop Your Team with Keith Webb
The Bill Perry Show
Do you know how much it costs an organization when employees are not engaged? It can be very costly to the bottom line. Employee engagement is a vital piece to any organization and effective coaching on the part of your management and leadership can be a solution to engaging employees.
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049: Developing Emotional Intelligence with Teresa Quinlan
The Bill Perry Show
Emotional intelligence is a skill that is so important to everyone, including those in leadership. My guest this week is Teresa Quinlan. She has over two decades of experience in learning and development, and she has spent the last 15 years training leaders and their teams, giving particular attention to the area of emotional intelligence. On this episode, she helps us understand why we need to develop that area of our lives and how to go about doing it.
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048: Appreciation and Employee Engagement with Jennifer McClure
The Bill Perry Show
Today I’m talking with Jennifer McClure, a former executive recruiter and HR executive who offers a wealth of knowledge on the subject of corporate leadership. Jennifer is here to talk to us about developing corporate leaders and the importance of employee appreciation.
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047: Strategies for Leaders to Enjoy the Holiday Season
The Bill Perry Show
The holiday season is my favorite time of year. I grew up in a great family situation where holidays were marked with extended family time together with good food and great family engagements. However, there is a lot of pressure attached to the holidays. This year, I would encourage you to take a step back and relieve some of that stress during this busy season.
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046: Navigating Change with Charles Weathers
The Bill Perry Show
Today I welcome friend and business leader, Charles Weathers to the show. I've known Charles for some time, and I've benefited from his extensive knowledge of leadership development. Charles spends time working with nonprofits and faith-based organizations. He loves working with them because they share his heart for the community. He has worked to help these companies with board development, governance, leadership development and strategic planning.
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045: Fixing Work with Laurie Ruettimann
The Bill Perry Show
I am so pleased to welcome Laurie Ruettimann to the show. Laurie had spent many years in human resources leadership and realized she hated her job. She left her position in HR and is now on a mission to fix work. She has some ideas about what is currently wrong with work and some steps we can take to fix those problems; not only in our workplaces but in our lives as well.
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044: Why Leaders and HR Teams Should Consider Podcasting Featuring Danny Ozment
The Bill Perry Show
This week I am pleased to have Danny Ozment of Emerald City Productions on the show. Danny is the producer of this podcast and always works hard to make me sound good! Danny and I talk about the creative potential for leaders and human resources teams to utilize the medium of podcasting to drive vision, values and policies through every level of your organization!
info_outlineIn this Leading with a Limp podcast series, we talk about how leaders can effectively manage teams during times of conflict and move toward organizational health.
If you’ve been a leader for any length of time, you know that strife, betrayal, and even personal wounds will come. The secret to leading well isn’t to avoid these painful times but to embrace them and heal. Creating an exceptionally healthy environment requires intentional, hard work. But do it, and your team will flourish.
In this episode, we focus on the necessity of handling hard conversations with employees well.
First, Know Your Story and Honor Theirs
Awareness of our tendencies under stress gives you and your team the advantage when the need for difficult conversations arises. Individual stress profiles, such as those provided in a DISC or MBTI profile, offer you insight into what to expect from each other when the stakes are high.
There Is Always More to the Story
Our own reactions under stress, and the reactions of those we live and work with, are rarely the product of the immediate moment. Unless the moment is an expression of malice or violence, our reactions are most often an extension of a deeper story. How we interpret moments of stress is often distorted by the lens of experience. This is why it is critical to know your team and to develop deep levels of employee trust. Take time, and be intentional to know their stories.
Develop Self-Control
Managing your reactions is a function of your emotional intelligence. The good news is, this is an area that we can all grow in.
Step Away and Come Back
In the heat of a stressful conversation where the stakes are high, self-control may look like walking away, taking a time out. This is an acceptable strategy as long as you come back to the table and reframe the conversation in a solutions-oriented posture.
Having Hard Conversations with Employees
When conversations take a heated turn, consider these three steps:
- Rehearse the objective.
- Acknowledge feelings—honor what’s in the emotional atmosphere.
- Stick to the facts.
Navigating difficult conversations is awkward and uncomfortable for most of us, but the advantage goes to those who do it with grace!
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A valuable resource for additional thoughts on difficult conversations is Crucial Conversations by the team at VitalSmarts. It is loaded with examples and strategies for facilitating productive conversations when the stakes are high.
If you recognize conflict in your team or a limp in your leadership but don’t know where to begin, let’s talk. We offer a great diagnostic tool to determine the strengths and liabilities of your organization. It’s a relatively pain-free process by which we obtain feedback from your team members to identify the roadblocks and blind spots in your pursuit of a healthy team.
Connect with me for a free, complimentary conversation about our organizational-health process. It won’t cost you more than 30 minutes of your time to find out if some feedback would be valuable for you and your team.
If you haven’t already, we’d love your feedback on the show. Leave a comment, a review, or even a topic you’d like to hear me cover.
Until next time, lead well!
Bill