The Leadership Book, 2nd Edition

The difficult interview

This occurs when some tough things need to be said by the leader to one of his or her team, and where the reception to them is unpredictable and possibly hostile.

Frequency – rare.

Key participants – direct reports.

Leadership rating ***

Objective

Sometimes they are unavoidable – the 121 meetings where blunt things need to be said, where you need to convey some negative observations about performance to one of your team. Such interviews may be difficult and lead to conflict:

• difficult – because confrontation is usually uncomfortable, almost unavoidably personal, and because interpretations of circumstances may differ;
• conflictual – not necessarily an encounter with shouting, aggression, violent disagreement or ...