Having Tough Conversations for Leaders

Hey yo, what up? So this— yeah, I'm about to say ho, so I'm thinking I'm on my podcast. But this is— I'm Tim Pratt Jr., uh, and this is number 2 of the leadership development, uh, kind of like on-demand, really just a YouTube link content that I'm trying to do. So I'm in the comfort of my home. I want to eventually get down to the primarily 2 ministries that I work with and do some content from there. It's just different for me, uh, when you just actually kind of in the sanctuary or whatever the appropriate spot is. But nevertheless, let's get into it. You know, you know, I can chase rabbit holes. So definitely trying to be more self-disciplined in that area. But today I want to talk about conflict management. Some people call it having hard conversations, tough conversations. I think Greg Croeschel, I like the way he says having developmental conversations. And one of the things that I see— so just to give you a little context, I hate doing this because it makes me feel like I'm kind of tooting my horn, but this is an area that I'm dedicated to when it comes— I am a senior Agile delivery manager, transitioned into an Agile coach for the enterprise and team of teams coach. So primarily my role will be coaching leaders from the executive leadership team to team, individual team members, you know, looking at things from a team of teams standpoint, but also too, I have a heart for for God and ministry. So I don't really separate the two. I think a lot of things I'm learning in the secular, I can still lead through the power of the Holy Spirit. But at the same time, uh, not saying but in, in a negative context, but develop these skills, uh, within the secular as well as develop certain skills on the ministry side of things. But again, bringing it, bridging the gap is what I'm trying to say. Um, so hold, uh, definitely, you know, I've went to college, uh, studied this life. That really doesn't mean a lot per se when it comes, because you got a lot of people You have a lot of people that go to college and it's just discipline. So, but I do hold an associate's and bachelor's as well as a master's in studying things of technology and leadership. I have a few certifications under my belt focusing on facilitating coaching. What else? Leadership, agile leadership. I have some micro-level stuff, some specialty things, and all of it kind of just builds on agile project management. So It's an area that I'm very, very dedicated to. And then just the various books, podcasts, mentorships, coaching that I have. So what I'm trying to say here is that this is not an area that I just speak from, from a theoretical standpoint. It's an area that I live, I breathe, I practice it. I make a lot of mistakes. I've gotten a lot of things right. It's a journey. It's a journey. And so I have a lot to say to this space. And that's, that's why I just believe I'm called to it. You know, one day the Lord might open up the door where it's more of a senior pastor role. But right now he has me in this season. I'm not a senior pastor in the context of the shepherd over the local church, overseeing the local church, I should say. So I just want to be— I want to be faithful to the area he's called me to, because a lot of times I just feel like we neglect the areas that we are called to because we're so focused on the area that God doesn't have us in. So that being said, I want to jump into this in conflict management. And again, I just want to kind of share that just real quick. To just say, hey, I'm dedicated to this space. So anywho, conflict management. Man, this area is near and dear to my heart because it is an area that I used to avoid. But let me say something here before I jump into it. I don't believe no one really just goes around looking for conflict. However, conflict is inevitable. Your marriage, with your kids, whatever. If it's another person on the side of it, there's going to be conflict. But this is the thing that I've also learned: it don't even have to be anybody on the other side of it. Sometimes we just have conflict with ourselves. Like, especially living for Christ and crucifying this flesh, uh, it feels like we're at war with ourselves. And I'm not going to get into that topic, you know, Paul penmanship in Romans is beautiful, especially Romans 7 and 8, uh, but a lot of other passages. But a lot of times we just can be in conflict with ourselves. And so if we can be in conflict with ourselves, surely we're going to have conflict with other people. And that's not necessarily a bad thing. It's just, is it unhealthy or is it healthy conflict? And we want to move into healthy conflict. So as I navigate through this, this particular topic today, hopefully hitting it in 40 minutes or less, before I get started, I'm going to share with you all. No, I love John C. Maxwell. Some people say he's too simplistic. I love him because I get to practice the things that he does and kind of add a little bit more meat to it in the context of my life. But I love him. I hope I can meet him one day. But nevertheless, let's get into it. So let me make sure I'm sharing the right screen. And let me just find him real quick. I had this up and for some reason it's not. Okay. So this is John C. Maxwell. Let me pause. Pause it. Why is it— technology is only good when it works, huh? So, okay, let's pause it here. All right, sorry about that. Let me share this and make sure the audio is coming through. The audio is not coming through, so let's stop it again. Let's try to share it again. Share sound. There we go. I sincerely apologize for this. All right, so we're gonna listen to John C. Maxwell. Uh, so he's kind of 1 minute and 36 seconds. You'll see that if you want to look at the whole video, you can, but I want to just jump into the part about tough conversations and why they're necessary. So let's go. Let's get John C. Maxwell.

And you're doing the vows is because of the negative. You're not doing the vows for the richer. You're not doing the vows for the better. If it's richer and better, life is good.

It's—

you're doing them all because there's a negative. Well, in a relationship, whether it's a marriage relationship, a working relationship, doesn't matter. It's all about the tough conversations because you will have problems. I will have problems. We will have problems. That's not the question. The question is, when we have problems, are we gonna deal with them or are we going to ignore them? And with upfront expectations, when I say we will have tough conversations, you know what I'm telling you? We won't ignore the tough ones. We just won't. When something comes up and it's not going good, we're gonna have a close-the-door meeting, just you and me, and we're gonna talk about what needs to be fixed, how we can fix it, what we need to change and adjust, and then we're gonna go about fixing whatever that tough situation is. But there will be tough conversations. I think the value of a relationship and what makes it truly valuable is that people that do well in relationships and stay together, it's not that they had lesser problems than people who didn't stay together. It's just that they worked through those problems effectively where the other people did not. So it's not the size of the problem usually that messes up the relationship. It's the fact that the problem isn't solved. It isn't dealt with. It's not discussed. It's not faced. So when I sit down with you and we're gonna be on the same team, those are 5 upfront expectations that I have. And to be honest with you, when I'm done, I'm gonna look at you and I'm gonna say to you, and what are your upfront expectations? Because you have some too. And when we get 'em all on the table, now we're ready to move together. I'm so glad you're with me on this series of upfront All right.

So that is John C. Maxwell, for you all that don't know. But again, I really, really love what he said there. And I just kind of want to unpack it a little bit more from my perspective and how I kind of apply what he said in a deeper level in a leadership context. And this is going to be very principle-centered. So you're going to have to, again, work to find out, you know, that's the thing about content. A lot of times we hear content, but the real meet, or I should say the beauty in it, is working it into your context. How do I take that principle and apply it to what I'm doing every day? So I'm going to switch over to the presentation now. And so you see hard conversations, hard conversations, and as John C. Maxwell said, we're going to have them. And I do have two verses that would drive this home. And then the last two, three slides, three and four, we'll get into kind of again the heart of the presentation. But before we dive into it, Uh, hard conversations. So this is a universal challenge. Like, this is not anything just isolated to a certain local church. It's not isolated to a, a certain organization or a business. Every organization, every ministry, every marriage, every, um, what did I say, uh, business or whatever. Yeah, organizational business and ministry, marriage, relationship will face challenges. It's inevitable. We're going to face them. But as John C. Maxwell said, it's how these things are confronted It's how they're confronted that would define success. And this is the thing, though, when we get it— lately I've been saying leaders, everybody really, but leaders for sure— leaders need to pay attention to the echo of their voice, and not just their voice, but their actions. And this is what I want to challenge you right here before we get like in the heart of this. Do not let your echo Do not let your echo and your— I'm sorry, let me back up. Do not let the sound of your echo be different from the sound of your actions. Do not let the sound of your echo be different from the sound of your actions or the visibility of your actions, I should say. Because as leaders, we primarily help shape culture. And this is something that when I am off, when I am off, when I'm off, I have to take a close examination of myself, especially in leadership, because people are looking at you. They're listening to you. Listening to the echo of your voice, and then they're looking at your actions. And a lot of times, sometimes we have a good echo, meaning this is people that kind of teach and preach or whatever the word, really, really good, but they don't live it. And so we want to make sure that those closely match, because when it is a gap in that, man, do we open up the door for self-deception. Uh, but we're not there right now. But leaders, I just, I just had to share that we have to pay attention to the echo of our voice. Uh, it's more demanding, but hey, you say that you were called to lead, You were appointed to lead. So this is what comes with the territory that you don't have the right to just sit up there. And yes, I am a human just like you. We're human just like other people. But when we step into leadership, there is a greater responsibility. If I had time, I would unpack that even with the stricter judgment. And I believe we take that out of context. But sometimes what is the stricter judgment is just more eyes are on you. I want you to pause with that and just ask the question, when I'm in leadership, what is the stricter judgment? Is just more eyes on me? So when I do mess up, I'm judged more harshly. Like, ah, man, I wish I could unpack that, but I'm not going to do that right now. That's a whole nother topic for another day. But leadership, people, and culture are key factors. Leadership, people, and culture are key factors. So again, as a leader, as a leader, it is about developing our leadership, developing people, and cultivating culture. We have a responsibility to do that. And again, we don't always have to agree, but we have to be in alignment. We don't always have to agree, but we have to be in alignment. But if we don't agree, I understand where it say, you know, I, I, again, somebody might be quoting the scripture where, where two, uh, three can walk together, whatever the verse is. I'm just not having in front of me right now. But unless they agree, let's not isolate scripture because this is the thing, there's things that I don't agree with, with my leader. There's things, just to be real with you, and everybody knows who my pastor is. Sometimes I don't even agree with certain things that the pastoral team and the ministry does. I'm not going to get into what— and, and rightfully so. But this is the thing, submission doesn't feel like submission until I have to submit. So my thing is, I aired that out. I said, well, this is kind of where I see it. But again, I'm not the shepherd, I'm not the, the senior leader in this particular case. I'm talking about my job. So if I disagree, I voiced it respectfully. There's a time to voice it publicly and there's a time to voice it, uh, in private. But this is all a part of having— I have the hard conversation. And sometimes I'm saying, okay, I understand it, but this is what we're doing. I have had that on the ministry side and I've had it on the secular side, and that's just what it is. And now I have a responsibility to have alignment. My heart posture should see, although I didn't agree, I have to align. And that we can only get there. We can only get there. Let me slow down. We can only get there with hard conversations, with difficult conversations, because we're going to face them. So if you are a leader and you are avoiding hard conversations, oh my God, like you're just allowing so much stuff to spread because avoidance is not going to change anything. So every conversation shapes culture. Every conversation shapes culture. Every time I'm talking, this is the— every time I'm gossiping, every time I'm saying that I'm— well, I'm just speaking truth, but it's really gossip. Well, I'm, I'm, I'm speaking truth, but it's really poison. Every time it is shaping culture. Because this, this is what I always say, truthfully. Now, if I was looking to join another ministry, I would intentionally see if I could take the leaders out for coffee and take key people out for coffee and just Find creative ways to ask questions just to see what people are going to say. I'm not looking for everything to be all rosy, but does the person get really negative where they start sowing discord about others and how they share and, you know, those type of things? Because if I see that in a leadership team and the people, especially a leadership team, like you don't even have enough integrity to say, wait a minute, like I can say, hey, everything has problems, but I don't have to just go into a deep negative spin about it. Oh, we— man, that's going to be hard for me. To, to want to affiliate with that ministry. Now you might say, man, that's not— people are people, hurt people, all that type of stuff. But I, I, again, I hold leadership— this is me, I could be wrong, but I hold leadership to— there should be a little self-awareness goes a long way. If I cannot sit up there and say, no, I'm going to cover my leader, although I know I have some things, whatever, I'm going to cover my leader. I'm not going to spear all this negativity because we're having those hard conversations, those developmental conversations. So that, that's what I would challenge us in there. Um, self-awareness amplifies our ability to positively influence it. So in other words, like I say, a little bit of self-awareness goes a long way. And a lot of times what I have learned, we aren't as self-aware as we think we are. So this is the necessity of having hard conversations. You see the point number 2 here. Challenging conversations are uncomfortable, but they are essential for growth. They are challenging, but they're essential for growth, clarity, and resolution. So moving along, I'm not going to read these word for word, but Matthew 5:23-24 and Matthew 18:15-17, we see that a quoted verse around, hey, if you have an issue, leave your guilt, go get it right. You know, reconcile, reconciliation. A lot of us want to be right more than we want to reconcile. Let me say that again. A lot of us want to be right more than we want to reconcile. That's our problem right there. And then the other one is, um, if your brother or sister have a fault— let's drop titles— if you have an issue with someone, go to them. Matter of fact, let me read it here in my notes. Um, we tend to like to go to 3, 4, 5, 6 different people, and we say that we're getting counseling, but really we're, we're sometimes we're just sowing discord. We're shaping how this person is perceived without even giving them the benefit of the doubt and say, I'm gonna have the conversation with them first. So there's a time to go get wise counsel, but I would challenge you biblically, are you following conflict resolution or conflict management according to the scriptures? Did you sit with the Holy Spirit, sit with God? You know, if you do go to someone, did you go to someone that's just as invested? Is it another member or is it another leader? Like, why? What is the motive that you— are you really going because you want to restore, or are you really going because you want to prove your point of view? That's why I want to start with— oh Jesus— that's why I want to start with character and, um, accountability first. Because what is the motive that you're going in? Because it's easy to say, well, I was just going to get counsel. But no, your true motive was, I just really wanted to plant that seed so if anything ever happened, they can see it from my point of view. Are you really going because you're going with a posture of, hey, what, what is going on? Because I want to see me, I want to examine me, and I want to get this thing right. I want to be able to reconcile. So I would challenge all of us to spend some time, uh, in those two verses there, um, because it's just— it's biblical. So matter of fact, I'm gonna read my notes here. Jesus made it clear that relational harmony is so important that it must be achieved before effective worship can take place. Oh my God. After all, how can a man or a woman connect with God when he or she has unresolved relational issues with a brother and sister. So this is the thing, we don't ignore conflict. We have to lean in and have hard conversations. Stop telling yourself narratives and playing all these playbacks in your head without a hard conversation. And sometimes, especially in leadership, we might have appointed or done certain things to allow this conflict to carry on because we never had ended Teaching is not development. Teaching is not coaching. I don't have time to really go into that. But teaching is that some people need to be developed weekly. Some people need to be developed biweekly. Some people need to be developed monthly. Some people can be developed quarterly. So we have to really ask ourselves those questions as we go forward and dig deeper into these things. Can we talk? Oh, man, if I could sing, I would drop Tevin Campbell right now. I should have had that soundbite ready. Uh, but can we talk? What is so hard about just asking the question, can we talk? Can we talk? Like, can we have a conversation? But, but before we do that, as leaders, uh, I would challenge right now and say, are you— do you have core principles before you have a conversation? Thank you. Thank you, God. Uh, I would, I would ask, do you have core principles? And this is not an exhaustive list, but these are just some of the things that I kind of dig into before, and I'm gonna probably go a little bit more deeper. I'm gonna do a podcast episode for this as well. So if you're not subscribed, just type in on any major podcast platform, Student Life Podcast by Tim Pratt Jr. And I'm gonna do— go a little bit deeper in this on the podcast. But this is just, like I say, for leadership development right now. But core principles. So one of the things that I would like to challenge you, because a lot of times I believe we want to have hard conversations, but we don't know how. Um, and so let me, let me go here. Sorry, I have some little battery difficulties. Um, so one of them is be proactive. Um, avoiding tough conversations, it only amplifies the issue. It only kicks the issues down the road. You, as again, we have to have tough conversations to deal with the issue, to get to the root of the matter. If two people have a heart posture, so they want to be aligned and move things forward, and they can't, then that's just an impasse, and it might be time to just say, hey, going separate, different directions. Um, and there, there's times those things can happen. Uh, matter of fact, Tim Ross just gave an example of him leaving the B-side out. He was like, I want to, you know, protect the relationship, but his business partners, we, we were at an impasse, he's leaving. Uh, he haven't— I'm not here to speculate and get into all of that, but I admire that. Because it's like, hey, no. And he took responsibility. So I love that. Uh, but we want to be proactive. We want to proactively address problems to build trust and accountability. Can both of us be open and vulnerable? Like, if I come to you and I see that we keep having misalignment, or I see that you don't like me, I see that you're undermining, or I feel— let me say, I feel that you don't like me, I feel that you don't, because I don't want to I can't think of the word right now, but we have to be careful with our words versus saying you are versus, hey, I might say, hey, I feel, or it seems to be, or I could be wrong, but this is my observation, or this is my view. Like, let's have those dialogues. Because if I sense that, what is so hard with both of us coming together and say, hey, listen, I feel like you hate me. I feel like you're always undermining me. I feel like you're always taking shots at me. This is what I feel. And this is the thing on the other person receiving it. Lean into that and see where that feeling is coming from. Like, we, we have to drop defensive mechanisms. And man, this is hard. This is so hard to do, uh, and it takes the Holy Spirit. I don't— I, I— some people might say good moral things. So if you're not a person of faith, man, more power to you, uh, because I don't see how it is possible, especially with some sensitive things, without the Holy Spirit. But, but what is so hard about just saying, hey, What is it that you don't like about me or my leadership? What, what, like, what is it? Like, and, and be— don't tell me no, nothing, everything is fine, then where the behavior keeps— I keep seeing the, the just the wrong behavior and things like that. Like, we have to stop that and have hard conversations. There are spouses right now that I always hear two sides of counseling. It's like basically tell your spouse what they want to hear, you know, be careful, choose your words wisely. Then I hear on another counseling side, man, I am completely hot with my spouse now, timing and all of that. But one goal that I strive to live in, and, and, and I haven't always given my wife the space for this, but I'm just being vulnerable and transparent, I never want to put my wife in a situation where she talks more to someone else about things she can't confront with me. Let me say that again. I never want to put my wife in a situation that she spends more time talking with somebody else that she can eventually front with me because I am underdeveloped. Like, man, I'm gonna keep going. Um, but I want us— number 2 is evaluate your emotional state. So this— oh, this is big. Thank you. Um, never engage when you are triggered or emotionally reactive. Never, never engage because if you are compelled to and it's God you're going to be truly compelled to. But a lot of times, if we're honest, we're triggered. We're triggered, and now we're trying to— we're in an emotional state, and we're trying to address it. And that is not of God. I don't care how much you say, well, I was compelled. No, you better ask God and negotiate with that humanity and say, God, am I triggered or am I compelled to? Because if you're triggered, I'm telling you, 10 out of 10, it's gonna— it's gonna end horribly. So, so ask that question. Am I compelled? Am I calm and clear-minded? Or I'm triggered? Am I reacting? To it? Am I responding or am I reacting to addressing this? Uh, declare intent up front. Set the tone by clarifying your purpose at the start. I'm real big, man. I used to go through all this fluff. Oh, my wife can tell you, talking all around in circles, I'm losing track where I'm at. Man, listen, no, this is what— let's declare intent up front. I used to do it at work too, in my secular, not just in my marriage, but it mean even in some ministry thing. Declare intent. I just want to set the tone up front so you can know my intent just in case I don't use the right words. I want you to know where I'm intending to get to at the start of it. Again, here it goes. Use intentional words, things like, you did this, you always— oh, my therapist used to get on me like about that. But again, I feel, I'm observing, maybe I'm wrong. And mean it. Don't sit up here and just do manipulative techniques. Like, mean it. Let these be true heart posture things. But use intentional word, body language, because again, we all know sometimes it's not what you said, it's how you said it. So we wanna make sure that we're fostering openness and minimizing defensiveness. And this takes— works on both parts. But as a leader, I would challenge you a little bit more that you might have to model it for both parts and even be thinking ahead of both parts. It sucks, but hey, you, again, you said that God called you to this, you took the promotion or whatever. So this is— sometimes we're just underdeveloped. We're underdeveloped. Collaborative. Solutions. So yes, I can go in. Like I said, this is not— we want to listen intently. I kind of have some other things like listen actively, allow the other person to share their perspective without interruption, uh, reflect back to what you hear to ensure there's mutual understanding. Like, hey, I want to make sure I'm hearing this. Engage, have conversations. And then that last one is just collaborative solutions. Focus on problem solving, not blame. Like, how do we move forward in this? I'm sorry, I'm just checking my battery. I'm at 6%, um, because I want to finish this video. So you can slow it down on YouTube. That's why I'm kind of talking a little bit faster than normal. Um, but collaborative solutions focus on problem solving, not blame. Like, listen, are we trying to solve this, or again, do we just want— both of us want to be right?

Do—

or do we want to reconcile to move forward? Like, again, a lot of us just want to be right, man. A lot of us want it our way more than we want to reconcile and collaborate, give and take, things of that nature. Like, what is the— what are your core values? Like, there are certain things with me that helps me in this area that I have core values. So like, I'm not working really truthfully with anybody that— or collab— and looking for a collaborative relationship with things that undermine my core. Like, Jesus is God. I believe through Jesus Christ, through the accept— like truly accepting him, having faith. I'm not really trying to get into the whole doctrine thing, but these are things I believe. So if you challenge like my, my, like things that just not changing no matter what, it's going to be hard for me to collaborate with you. But then when you get into like preferences and essentials, man, I don't care if you— hey, I want to have it on this day, I want it on this day. I think those supposed to be blue, I think they supposed to be green. Again, I'mma listen to you. I'mma listen to you and try to find a collaborative way of working together. Just, I'm trying to, because I'm trying to get the problem solved. I'm not sitting up here and trying to be a roadblock or an impasse off of trivial things. Hey, I want to do the words of encouragement. No, I want to do it, man. Listen, you go do the words of encouragement. I don't care. I can encourage people daily. Like, that's me. It's not that serious to me. I'm, you know, like, it's 365 days in the year and it's 52 Sundays. Like, bro, I can encourage people daily. I don't have to be on the stage to give a persona of encouragement if I don't do it every day for the most part, you know. So, man, I'm neither here nor there on that. So we want to agree on the actionable next steps and listen, follow up as needed. If I asked you right now as a leader, where is your developmental plan? Where is your coaching plan? How are you tracking? How do you know this person is incrementally improving? How do you know you're incrementally improving as a leader? Where is your growth plan? Where— show me how you're contextualizing things. Show me how you're really strategizing and road mapping through prayer for your area. Oh, you're, you're, you're on a budget, is limited funds. Well, show me a roadmap, how you're brainstorming around based on your context. Most of the time when I ask leaders this, there is, is nowhere inside, or it's all up here. And I'm like, like, that's, that's a whole nother conversation for another day.. But I'm telling you, like, we can drill down in it and I can see if somebody is really committed to leadership. Like, seriously, like, seriously, man. So that, that's what we, that's what we want to look at, you know, before we say, hey, I'm ready to talk. So before you say, hey, can we talk? Can we model these core principles? If not, then most of the time we're not going to be ready to talk. And the last slide is that typically what we see is wrong actions. No confrontation typically leads to this. Again, not an exhaustive list, but it is a list. Negative assumptions, lack of responsibility, blame, self-deception, and dysfunction. So when we see wrong actions and we don't confront them in a productive way, we typically have this. And I just want to say right here real quick, man, this self-deception, as leaders and things like this, we all need to ask the question, One of my mentors just say they believe self-deception is the worst deception because a person doesn't know they're deceived. So how in the world do you convince someone, especially in leadership, that they believe they're right and they're going about it right, but yet they're deceived because they're self-deceived? Self-deceived? Self-deception? Like, spend some time with that because a lot of prayer, a lot of counsel to rectify that, because we want to move to productive actions, positive assumptions, accepting responsibility. And prayerfully and hopefully a renewed heart. So we want to confront wrong actions. We want to have positive confrontation so we can— it can lead to positive actions and positive assumptions. We don't want to build these narratives up in our head and all this type of stuff. So, uh, man, I hope this blessed you. I'm at 1%, I have to drop for this computer go off. Um, so I pray that this blessed you. I'll send some reflective questions and things of that nature here shortly. And we'll just continue to get deeper, dive deeper and deeper into this content. So be blessed, man. Love you all and keep leveling up in your leadership. As Greg Crochet will say, when the leader gets better, everything else gets better. Be blessed.