Here’s How Leaders Should Handle Difficult Conversations

September 5, 2019 2 min read

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In this video, Entrepreneur Network partner, Kate Volman lays out five tips to help execute diffiult conversations and help your team grow. 

1. Prepare. Before you enter into a difficult conversation, make sure that you are prepared. To add an extra level of preparedness, consider practicing your speech aloud. 
2. Keep it real. Volman emphasizes that you don’t need to sugarcoat things. Make your point very clearly and don’t pussyfoot around what you want to say by overloading on niceties. Talk candidly and remind yourself that both of you are human.
3. Don’t get emotional. As the leader, you should focus on guiding the conversation and avoiding getting preemptively angry or overly emotional. Once you reach the desired final result, you will thank yourself. 
4. Understand your employees and then pay attention to your word choice. Learn how your employees work inside their heads, from the way they communicate to how they process information. 
5. Open the dialogue. By diving deeper into an exchange, you can begin to learn more about your co-workers. 

Click the video to hear more from Kate Volman. 

Related: Strategies for Building a Successful Business

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