S3E5: Leading Through Difficult Conversations (feat. Lauren Weber, MD)

Brooke

Welcome to Learning to Lead, a podcast about leadership, teamwork, and reimagining healthcare. This podcast is for learners, educators, and healthcare professionals interested in building leadership skills in a supportive community.

We are your hosts Rahul Anand, Maya Doyle, Peter Longley, Amber Vargas, and Brooklynn Weber.

Together we bring you conversations with emerging and established leaders, deep dives and hacks to help you become the best leader you can be.

Brooke

Hi everyone and welcome back to Learning to Lead. With us today is Dr. Lauren Weber. She is a clinical cardiologist with the Wenatchee Valley Medical Group in Central Washington, and she's also the co-founder of All Levels Leadership. So Lauren, what is one of your favorite tools or hacks to become a better leader?

Lauren

So if I had one tip to share with you, I will say it is good for leaders and it is good for followers, and I will hopefully be speaking with you guys a lot more about followers and followership here in the future. But I would say one of the things that people struggle with, and probably the question I get the most is how do I have a difficult conversation? I know I need to have it. The person I have to have it with is either in charge or they're a little scary or I really respect this person. So how do I even get started? And so one thing I want you to think about is developing and having in your back pocket and opening alignment statement. And so what I mean by that is we're really going to try to set the stage that we're here to help.

We came with good intention. And so that might mean or look like I really love working with you, but I have something I want to talk about or I really respect you and I'm sure you would want me to bring this to you. Or I'm a little concerned that maybe something's going on that you're not seeing it. It's okay if we talk about it and practice that. Try it on a couple of people, try it on yourself in the mirror. But having that statement ready to go, knowing that that's going to be your opener, I think can really decrease the amount of anxiety just to starting the conversation. So try figuring out and sort of scripting out for yourself and opening alignment statement.

Brooke

Yeah, I love that. That's a great hack. I definitely think I need to get one of those. I struggle with having difficult conversations and I think that that would make me feel less anxious. And also it makes me think that it's preparing the other person for whatever I'm going to say too. So that also makes me feel better. I always feel bad, especially when you're going to say something that maybe the other person doesn't want to hear. That's the part that kind of makes me really anxious. So giving them that warning shot that I have something, but prefacing it with letting them know how much you do value them.

Pete

And Lauren, do you ask permission to see if they're ready for that feedback? Like, Hey, Rahul, whatever my alignment statement is, can I give you some feedback? Are you ready for some feedback? What are your thoughts about that?

Lauren

I think it depends a little bit on who the person is and how well you know them. I like to ask, I like to say, is it okay if I share this with you? Is now a good time to have a conversation? Because Brooke, you're absolutely right. We want to create a situation where hopefully this person isn't feeling immediately defensive and they're going to feel a little bit right. If somebody's going to lean in to give you critical feedback and you kind of get the angst of that, your anxiety is going to go up. So giving some permission to have the conversation I think is really helpful. If it's something you need to say or needs to say, let's say it's related to safety, and you also know maybe the person's going to say, no, I don't want to have that conversation. You may try to restructure it. But in general, I think asking for permission is a really good technique.

Rahul

This is Rahul. I really enjoyed what you said as well. Reminds me of a couple of things. One of them is the four step getting to yes negotiation framework. And the first step is separate the person from the problem. So from a very cognitive point of view, you can think about that. The other thing that came to mind is once in our leadership training, we had to do this communication style survey. Brooke's done this as well, and I remember ending up as an amiable type, which is where I really care about relationships, and I do not want to break the piece or break the relationship. So what you said really is helpful because it's putting this conversation in a positive relational context. Like I'm saying, you matter so much to me, which is why we're having this conversation and has to be genuine. The other person has to matter. You cannot fake it. But that's actually making me more courageous to have this conversation because I do care about you. If I didn't, I would not give you this feedback and I would walk away. Or maybe it's pinching me and I need to say this to you because I care about still being a part of this team. So building that relational framework and before the disagreements are surfaced,

Lauren

Thank you for using the word relational because it's very important. And I would say it's some of the thing that we feel really passionately about at a LL is making sure that the strategies that we're using enhance preserve, grow the relationships between the people, you and the people you're working with. Strong teams. This is what makes success. And so some of that is certainly about your individual growth and development, but what is the impact that has on all the relationships that are working with you?

Brooke

Thank you, Lauren, for that hack. Make sure everyone to tune in to our next episode where Lauren is going to dive into followership. So until then, keep learning and keep leading.

Brooke

Thank you for listening to our show. Learning to Lead is a production of the Quinnipiac University podcast studio, in partnership with the Schools of Medicine, Nursing and Health Sciences. 

Creators of this show are Rahul Anand, Maya Doyle, Peter Longley, Amber Vargas and Brooklynn Weber.

The student producer is Brooklynn Weber, and the executive producer is David DesRoches.

Connect with us on social media @LearningToLeadPod or email us at LearningToLeadPod@quinnipiac.edu.