#729: How To Have Difficult Conversations | Self-Belief Chief

So I'm speaking with this business owner and he says, david, I don't know how to connect with individuals and discipline and create structure and be firm. I've been going backwards and forwards on this. I've been doing this for a long time now. How can I integrate both so that people actually respect and appreciate me, but also, I suppose, fear me? Welcome to the Self Belief Chief podcast. You are here with David Holman. If you haven't done so already, please subscribe to the podcast to keep up to date with the latest information, research studies, conversations, and episodes that we have released all of the time. Otherwise, let's begin. So I'm speaking with this business owner and he's trying to understand how to connect with his employees and provide that leadership and firmness as well. Now, leadership is just this huge subject. There is so much stuff you can unpack. There's so many intricate details. There's so many different components, and sometimes it therefore becomes overcomplicated. So what I just want to do in this episode is talk about something really, really simple and just tell you what I shared with this business owner. So I said to him, look, all communication is empathy or expectation, right? Either you're being empathetic to that person or you're setting some sort of expectation that they've either met or not met. Maybe an even better way to put it is to say warmth and strength, because that's what he's really asking is how can I can I be seen as warm and considerate, caring, but also how can I be strong and firm and decisive? Now, they sound mutually exclusive, especially when I frame it in warmth versus strength. The secret is they're not mutually exclusive. Now, there's a hundred different ways that you can fuse and integrate the two together. But I want to share one thing that I shared with him that might make a difference in your life. Because whether you're a business owner or you are a manager or, you know, you are a parent, all of those things are leadership roles, right? And everyone wants to be able to integrate that ability to be firm and decisive and get what we need and get what we want, but also be warm and caring and considerate. So here's what I shared with him. So what a lot of studies and science and books will explain is that if you lead with warmth in the first 30 seconds of conversation, the strength will be better received. So one of the things is, and this is so trivially simple, but I explain the bigger impacts and consequences that this has. So if you just start with 30 seconds of that warmth, being considerate, asking that person questions about them, about how they're doing, about how they're feeling, that person is hearing that connection that you care. Whereas if you go straight in with strength, what do people do? They put up their wall, they put up a defense straight away and they bat down everything you have to say. So that's that subtle difference. And also closing with warmth as well. It just helps to frame the strength. Now some of you might be thinking, but that just sounds like I'm, you know, trying to be nice for the sake of, you know, just so I can be strong and people will be able to see straight through that. Well, so here's the other part. There's nothing that stops you being warm all of the time, right? With every email that you send saying, look, I hope you're having a good day and finishing with I hope you enjoy the rest of your week or have a nice weekend or did you have a nice weekend? And that you do that in all of your emails consistently just say, I hope you're having a good day. There's nothing you can do that in every single email. I hope you're having a nice day so far. And that you're consistently being warm so that people see that it is who you are as a person. And then in the moments that you need to be strong, here's how it's then received. Hmm. This person has always been warm, considerate, always says, I hope you're having a good day so far, always asks how I'm doing, always is caring. So they're a caring person. So if they're now being strong, they're probably doing it for my benefit. Whereas if you're just strong all the time and never warm, people just hear it as do you know what this person's just taken out on everyone else. They don't really mean what they're saying. I'm not going to change. So it's setting a foundation, groundwork of consistently being warm and empathetic. And it's simple, but people find that really hard to do and it get. Needs to be a habit, needs to be routine. You need to do it consistently because then when you are strong, it's respected, it's appreciated, it is received and it creates more a change in behavior, it's more likely to create that change in behavior. So it's so simple. If you're listening, just try it. And every message, every email, you, you just frame it firstly by, you know, something considerate of them. I hope you're having a nice day so far. You can always leave a message saying I love you or you know, I hope you enjoy the rest of your week or what Depending. Obviously it depends on the context and who the people are, right? But that you all, you show a consistent level of consideration and maybe at first people kind of go, what's this about? But just then do it consistently. And you know what, here's the beautiful part of it because I didn't always do this, but I've in for the last five years have really gotten into the habit of doing. It starts to make you feel better that you're being considerate, that you're being caring, that you're being warm. But actually you start to get it in return from people and you build better relationships, better connections. And then it allows you to have the difficult conversations at points because they know you're doing it for the right reasons. And that is a way that you confuse that and strength to be a more effective leader. My name is David Holman. If you change today, today will change your life. So enjoy the rest of your day. Enjoy the rest of your life. Feel free to visit the Self Belief Chief website for more information and more content. We'll put a link in the description if you want to schedule some time with me for free to potentially discuss working together to enhance in this area. Otherwise I'll speak to you again soon.