Difficult Conversations

Welcome to this episode of Your Morning Boost, brought to you by AWB Education. AWB Education is your partner in school leadership and is here to help you with your educational programming needs. You can find more episodes like this one, along with our offerings of support and consultation at AWB education dot org. Here is your host, Adam Bush. Have you ever heard the saying kids are easy adults are hard? Those are some of the words of wisdom shared with me by another school administrator when I first entered the job of leading a building. I didn't understand it at first, but over the years those words have continued to live in infamy for me. In fact, I'm not sure truer words have ever been spoken. They were absolutely right. Adults are hard. We all are. Most students we can work with and reason with, especially once we grasp the concept that even the worst behaviors we see are really just forms of communication. The student is trying to tell us something. Well, that concept applies to what adults as well. Behavior is communication, and adult behaviors are likely also telling us something. It could be personal, it could be professional. We may not know, but we may need to work with this individual to find the root cause to be able to find a solution. Now, this is difficult in your work as a school leader, because no matter how much we want to be a coach, in these situations, we are always going to be seen as a supervisor and an evaluator. That's part of the gig, and with that part does come the responsibilities that lie in the human resources side of our profession. You know, that side that ironically doesn't always feel very human. That is what makes it hard sometimes. But when we're at a moment when we have to have those difficult conversations with an employee, we are tasked with completing that part of the job in a way that offers support and retains the dignity of the human being that we are working with. Okay, So that being said, one consideration for success in this area is to spend the time ahead of the meeting to get prepared, have an agenda, a plan ready to go for the meeting. I realize that that may feel a little weird at first, but this helps to ensure that all parts of the important parts, especially of the conversation, are included in the meeting. If you are familiar with Susan Scott's two thousand and two work fierce conversations. You remember that she even goes to the length of nearly a script for the entire conversation. The script includes a multitude of areas to be addressed within the type you know based on the type of conversation that you're needing to have with your employee. We all know that the best thing we can do with the people in our organization is to be open and honest with them. I know that's really hard to do sometimes, but our people deserve that from their leaders. Mistakes happen, and when we understand that mistakes are also an opportunity to grow and improve, we use them to move the entire organization forward, let alone the personal growth of one individual. But it starts with the difficult conversation that we will only be successful in an environment that is also prepared to provide this soup to improve. The worst thing we can do is ignore it. The problem never goes away unless it's by pure luck. I don't know about you, but I don't want to rely on being lucky. This has been your morning boost, brought to you by AWB Education. Find us at AWB education dot org to find out how we can help you with your educational programming needs. If you enjoy this episode, please take a quick minute to leave a rating and review to help us reach even more people. Otherwise, enjoy the workday. Lead with your heart and we will see you next time.