📺 Stream EntrepreneurTV for Free 📺

Here's How Leaders Should Handle Difficult Conversations In situations where you and your employees need to talk seriously, follow these tips.

By Kate Volman

entrepreneur daily

Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

In this video, Entrepreneur Network partner, Kate Volman lays out five tips to help execute diffiult conversations and help your team grow.

  1. Prepare. Before you enter into a difficult conversation, make sure that you are prepared. To add an extra level of preparedness, consider practicing your speech aloud.
  2. Keep it real. Volman emphasizes that you don't need to sugarcoat things. Make your point very clearly and don't pussyfoot around what you want to say by overloading on niceties. Talk candidly and remind yourself that both of you are human.
  3. Don't get emotional. As the leader, you should focus on guiding the conversation and avoiding getting preemptively angry or overly emotional. Once you reach the desired final result, you will thank yourself.
  4. Understand your employees and then pay attention to your word choice. Learn how your employees work inside their heads, from the way they communicate to how they process information.
  5. Open the dialogue. By diving deeper into an exchange, you can begin to learn more about your co-workers.

Click the video to hear more from Kate Volman.

Related: Strategies for Building a Successful Business

Entrepreneur Network is a premium video network providing entertainment, education and inspiration from successful entrepreneurs and thought leaders. We provide expertise and opportunities to accelerate brand growth and effectively monetize video and audio content distributed across all digital platforms for the business genre.

EN is partnered with hundreds of top YouTube channels in the business vertical. Watch video from our network partners on demand on Amazon Fire, Roku, Apple TV and the Entrepreneur App available on iOS and Android devices.

Click here to become a part of this growing video network.

Kate Volman

Entrepreneur Network Partner

With over 15 years of experience in marketing and business development strategies, Kate Volman's specialty is working with small business. Her YouTube channel includes videos featuring tips on marketing, networking, and business development.

Want to be an Entrepreneur Leadership Network contributor? Apply now to join.

More from Kate Volman

What Creatives Should Keep in Mind When the Grind Gets Difficult

The Reason You Don't Accomplish Your Goals (and How You Can Do Better in 2020)

What Seth Meyers' Teamwork Skills Can Teach You About Being a Leader

Editor's Pick

Side Hustle

He Started a Luxury Side Hustle at Age 13 — Now the Business Earns More Than $10 Million a Year: 'People Want to Help You When You're Young'

Michael Morgan, now the owner of Iconic Watch Company, always had a passion for "old things" — and he turned it into a lucrative venture.

Business Ideas

63 Small Business Ideas to Start in 2024

We put together a list of the best, most profitable small business ideas for entrepreneurs to pursue in 2024.

Thought Leaders

It's the End of the Entrepreneurial Era As We Know It

With the rise of advanced technologies and AI, are we losing all sense of the independent business person and entrepreneur?