Chad Silverstein describes a simple leadership practice — asking team members in meetings to declare "I'm clear with you" to surface and resolve interpersonal conflict quickly. He emphasizes not delaying tough conversations, encourages leaders to disclose when they are having a bad day (so teammates don't misinterpret behavior), and offers practical variations for clearing the air to maintain team alignment.
Chapters
I used to do this thing with my team before we start in our leadership meetings, and I'd say, are you clear? And you'd have to go around the room and look your teammates in the eye and say, I'm clear with you, I'm clear with you. I'm clear with you. If you're not clear with someone, you got to address it. You didn't have to do it openly and publicly right there. Maybe you'll walk out of the office. But the whole point was we're not going to sit here and talk in a leadership meeting about things that are going to try to make our company go from A to B, while meanwhile, you two have conflict and it's just unaddressed, and you're going to slight each other because you're pissed off at each other and. And you're just delaying the inevitable, which is dealing with it. So I always said, clear the air, right? You know, just get it out in the open. And I think the message there is that you just have to have a discipline and know that when things are not good, there's friction, there is conflict. Don't delay. Go and close that gap, and go have that tough conversation and, you know, get it out in the open. Because just telling people that you know you're good when you. When you're not good is not good. So it's important that if you're not good, that you dig that up and talk about it and either let it go or address it. And the other tip and the insight that I know as a client, I think it's very helpful, is that if you're having a bad day, that you want to clear the air and let your team know I'm having a bad day. It's not anything anyone did, because the last thing you want to do is let people think and that you're upset about something that you're not upset about or that you are thinking something that you're not thinking, and they won't ask you. So if you can clear beforehand that you're having a bad day, that you have a headache, you know, you're running late today, you're a little frazzled, that will make sense when they see you in the meeting acting in a certain way that aligns with how you feel. So you might as well share that versus letting them come up with their own interpretation of it and then peg you as someone who is someone that you're not. So it's important to clear the air. And there's a couple different ways that I've played with that, and I'm just sharing that with you.
