Conflict can be hard. Even thinking about conflict can be hard. You know what’s even harder? Not having those important performance management conversations and hoping things will get better. I’ve been working with an Animal Hospital with the objective of making the team dynamics better as well as improving the frontline leader in the organization. The owner of the hospital has valuable feedback for the frontline leader but is too afraid to upset the leader and make her sad.

So you guess it– nothing changes. In my leadership classes, I talk about “communication courage” all the time. If you want something different, you have do something different. Nothing will improve if you don’t say it—just say it! Say it with tact. Say it with compassion but do say it.