I had an experience recently that got me thinking about something we expect of leaders, but don’t always equip them to do well.
I was dealing with a leader about a serious issue. It had been raised via email and I requested a conversation so we could discuss it properly.
I received an email response acknowledging my email and then… radio silence.
For nearly a week.
What surprised me was the contrast. This was someone whose communication around the small stuff was excellent. Responsive, consistent and proactive.
But when the issue became serious, uncomfortable and potentially involved confrontation, the communication stopped.
And I don’t think this is unusual.
We tell leaders they need to have critical conversations. We tell them to give feedback, address poor performance, deal with conflict, hold people accountable and speak up when something isn’t right.
But do we actually teach them how to do it?
Research into why people avoid difficult workplace conversations found some of the key reasons were fear of negative consequences, a dislike of confrontation and, importantly, a lack of confidence in their skills to have the conversation.
That makes sense.
It’s one thing to know you need to have a conversation. It’s another to know how to open it, what questions to ask, how to listen without becoming defensive, what to do when emotions rise and how to stay in the conversation when it gets uncomfortable.
These are leadership skills. They need to be taught, practised and developed.
But there’s another part of this that I think we overlook.
We also need to teach leaders to have these conversations earlier.
Avoidance isn’t neutral.
While you’re avoiding the conversation, the other person is experiencing the silence.
Frustration can build. People make assumptions. Trust can start to erode. The original issue doesn’t disappear and, in many cases, becomes more intense harder to resolve.
CIPD research into workplace conflict reinforces the importance of early intervention, warning that unresolved conflict can fester and intensify when it isn’t addressed.
So perhaps there are two capabilities we need to develop in our leaders:
How to have the critical conversation well, and the confidence to have it early.
Because telling a leader, “You need to have a conversation with them” isn’t leadership development.
We need to help them understand how to prepare, how to start, how to listen and how to navigate the conversation when it becomes uncomfortable or doesn’t go the way they expected.
And we need to help them recognise when they’re avoiding it.
Because the longer we leave these conversations, the more difficult they can become. What started as one issue can quickly become something much bigger as frustration builds, assumptions are made and trust starts to erode.
Being a strong communicator when things are going well is important.
But leadership is often tested in the conversations we would rather not have.
That’s why critical conversations shouldn’t be something we simply expect our leaders to know how to handle. We need to give them the skills, the practice and the confidence to step into them earlier and handle them well.
Because when leaders can do that, problems get addressed sooner, people know where they stand and difficult issues have far less opportunity to become bigger ones.
If you have leaders who are avoiding the conversations they need to have, or who simply aren’t confident about how to have them well, reach out. This is a leadership capability we can build.