The manager’s guide to talking when it’s awkward

“Difficult conversations bring risk: the risk of being misunderstood, of upsetting someone, of saying too much or too little. So instead, we delay. We drop hints. We tell ourselves ‘now isn’t the right time.’ And the moment passes.” — Leanne Elliott, Truth, Lies & Work podcast

If you can empathically relate, we wrote you some scripts.

Lessons for leaders:

1-on-1 discussions

Addressing behavior, communication style, underperformance, missed deadlines, and quiet quitting

Common problems

Navigating mistake
response, internal conflict, shifting priorities, and team changes, and burnout

Admin essentials

Handling promotions, upward feedback, layoffs, asking for help, and admitting your mistakes

You know that employee who's been showing up late for three weeks straight? Or the one whose passive-aggressive Slack messages are making everyone uncomfortable?

Yeah, we need to talk about that… because every time you dodge one of these convos, you may be costing your company $7.5k.

15 scripts for managers

“We need to talk” 😬