28 Jan 2026 · 2 min
Bill Gallagher coaches leaders on defusing upset team members by listening deeply and surfacing the values underneath their frustration. When someone is upset, stop defending and ask what matters to them.
Chapters
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Do you right now have somebody who's upset, somebody who's really struggling with somebody, somebody who keeps telling the same things to you again and again, maybe even in a louder voice? When people are really upset, when they have huge complaints, when they're angry, there is a powerful trick to defusing that, to getting to the other side of that, to restoring them to effectiveness, to power, to everything else. And it's deeper listening. See, when I'm working with someone and they're really upset about something, there's something behind that. It's not just a complaint, it's not just anger, it's not just an upset, there's something virtuous, something great behind that. The thing behind that, behind the complaint, behind the upset is a personal value, is something that person cares very much about, is deeply committed to, is passionate about, feels strongly about, and they may not even be able to say it out loud. It might not be something that's so easy for them to talk about, right? But if you're listening deeply when someone is complaining about something and then being willing to speculate or say, huh, I totally hear that you're upset. And it occurs for me, maybe it's because you care so much about what you've built here in the company or.
You really care about the product quality.
Or you never want to break our word, either yourself or the company. There's something like that going on and.
You call it out.
Sometimes they'll be like, yes, that's why I keep talking about this thing with that guy or gal or whatever it is, you'll defuse it and so, so powerful. So consider that behind all of the biggest upsets, complaints, the breakdowns that have people emotionally triggered and feeling like you can't get past that to work on something that's productive, right? Lean into what they're saying, lean into the feeling and then ask yourself what's really great about them that's behind that. Call it out and see what happens. I find again and again this makes a powerful, immediate difference. Shifts everything when you'll speak the thing that somebody cares deeply, that they can't even say themself. I'm Bill Gallagher, Scaling Coach and host of the Scaling Up Business Podcast. We bring our show to you every week with some tip, some idea, an interview, something else to do in the world of scaling up. Hopefully these things can help you to grow yourself as a leader and your business in the next week. If you like it like subscribe, turn on notifications, pass it along to somebody else and you'll find all of our programs, our coaching, our workshops and more@scalingcoach.com all of our programs, the workshops, coaching levels and we've got stuff for almost every stage of company@scalingcoach.com.
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