[00:00:00] Host – Grace Jennings-Edquist: How do you handle tough conversations without creating conflict and build a team that takes ownership instead of waiting for instructions? In this week’s episode, communication and human skills expert Leah Mether shares practical strategies for navigating disagreements with empathy, curiosity and clarity, helping leaders resolve conflict before it escalates. Then, leadership expert Kylie Paatsch explains how to create a culture of accountability by giving people the trust to step up without falling into the trap of micromanagement. From SoundCartel. I’m Grace Jennings-Edquist, and this is Business essentials.
Handling disagreement without escalating conflict
[00:00:49] Host – Grace Jennings-Edquist: Disagreements are inevitable in any workplace, but how leaders handle them can make all the difference. Communication and human skills expert Leah Mether says the key isn’t avoiding conflict, but approaching it with empathy and curiosity. She joins us to share practical strategies for turning difficult conversations into productive ones. Leah teaches people how to communicate effectively under pressure, manage conflict, and lead courageously through change. She kicked off the interview by telling me how these skills can actually help a business.
[00:01:18] Leah Mether: The success of your business really depends on your ability to get the best out of your people. Because it’s people who drive performance. And the challenge with people is they’re complex. Everyone’s different. No one else thinks exactly like you. People have different beliefs, communication styles, values. Everyone is so different. And then you put us together and we have to work together. Or you have to lead all of these different people. So to get the best out of the people we lead, we really need to develop our essential human skills. And these are skills like communication, emotional intelligence, adaptability, leadership as a big skill set itself and their skills that really do underpin everything but that a lot of us have never actually been taught.
[00:02:16] Host – Grace Jennings-Edquist: I wonder, Leah, what are some of the most common challenges you see business leaders dealing with in their work, in terms of encountering different personalities and communication styles?
[00:02:25] Leah Mether: If I had to sum it up in one way, I think it would be we fall into the trap of thinking that everyone else thinks like us, that everyone else sees the world like we do, or has the same communication style as us, and we make a whole heap of assumptions, and then we get caught off guard or surprised when someone else reacts or responds differently when they have a different opinion about something. And that can create a whole heap of whether it’s conflict, confusion, all of those tricky people problems that really do slow things down and cause issues around culture, behavior, and performance.
[00:03:10] Host – Grace Jennings-Edquist: Absolutely. So what are the most common mistakes leaders often make early in a disagreement that might actually cause things to spiral?
[00:03:19] Leah Mether: Yeah. I really see two different extremes here. I either see the leaders who avoid the disagreement altogether. They know there’s something going on there, but, uh, for whatever reason, they want to avoid the conflict or confrontation or what they perceive as the conflict or confrontation, so they don’t engage at all and the issue just escalates. Or they go to the other extreme and they go on the attack. So they don’t try to understand where the other person’s coming from. They just see it as quite black and white. They’re right. The other person’s wrong. They go on the attack and that just becomes two people butting heads, talking at each other rather than getting anywhere with working through that disagreement.
[00:04:11] Host – Grace Jennings-Edquist: Leah, what are some specific phrases or approaches that can help keep disagreements productive rather than personal?
[00:04:19] Leah Mether: Yeah, this is a great question, and I’m going to give you a few different ins here because one of the challenges when we talk about this stuff, and I so appreciate where listeners are probably coming from when you’re listening to this going, Leah, give me the silver bullet. The thing I can say that means my conversations always go well and it never escalates. Unfortunately, folks, there is no silver bullet. That’s what makes this stuff so hard. But I will give you some phrases and approaches that may help. So a big one to start off with is always acknowledge the emotion, even if you disagree with what the person’s saying. You can acknowledge the emotion. And of course that’s empathy, right? And everyone wants to feel seen and heard. So quite often this will deescalate things from the start. That might look like saying, I appreciate your upset or I can see you’re frustrated. So you see, I’m not agreeing with what the person is saying, but I’m acknowledging that emotion that they’re feeling. Curiosity is the big one. It is a leadership and communication superpower that a lot of us don’t engage enough. What curiosity might look like is, can you help me understand where you’re coming from here? Or I might say grace, that is really different to how I see things. Can you explain a bit more what you’re thinking there? So I’m seeking to understand and really getting curious to make sure that if we are disagreeing, we’re disagreeing about the right thing because so often we jump the gun and come in hot.
[00:05:55] Leah Mether: And it might be that we’re actually talking about two different things here. So really try to get the context and understand where they’re coming from. Clarify. Make sure that you are talking about the same thing here. So that might look like saying grace. What I’m hearing you say is this, have I got that right? Am I hearing that correctly? So again, clarify. And if I added two more quick ones in here, I’m a big fan of Brene Brown’s what’s okay what’s not okay framework. And this is absolutely gold folks. It is really simple, but it’s a great way of holding a boundary in a disagreement. The mistake a lot of us make is we tell people how to feel, and you don’t get to tell people how to feel. People are allowed to be angry. They’re allowed to be frustrated. They’re allowed to be upset. So what the what’s okay, what’s not okay framework does is allow you to say something like, grace, it is okay to be angry at me. We can have a conversation about that. However, what’s not okay is to yell at me in front of customers and storm off.
[00:07:09] Leah Mether: To which you might say, yeah, but Leah, I am angry. That’s okay. You are allowed to be angry at me and we can deal with that. But what’s not okay is the way you just spoke to me, and you can see what I’m doing there is separating the feeling and emotion from the behavior. And when I do that, we can disagree much more productively. Too often we say things like, don’t you get angry with me? Don’t get upset. And that just escalates things. The very last one I would add here is the importance of focusing on the outcome or common ground really of what you’re trying to achieve. So you might say something like, look, we might not agree on the best way to deal with this problem. However, I think we can both agree that we want the best outcome here for our customers. Have I got that right? So what you’re trying to do there is show that although there might be some difference here, actually, you do have things in common. You do have things that you are both pulling towards. And in a disagreement, you can lose sight of that, which is why just circling back to that common ground and putting it in the middle of the table is hugely helpful.
[00:08:31] Host – Grace Jennings-Edquist: I want to circle back to, um, you mentioned before about clarity being so important, and I believe you’ve said before that clarity is kindness. How does lack of clarity actually fuel conflict between teams or individuals? If you could just dig into that a little bit more?
[00:08:46] Leah Mether: Oh, I so can because this is one of the biggest things I see in teams and organizations in a vacuum of information, we make up our own stories, and the stories we make up may be way off the mark of what’s really going on. So this is when you see People make assumptions about other people and they think, oh, I know why they did that without actually checking. So I’ll give you an example, one that I saw play out recently with a team I worked with, who operated in a business where there was a night shift and a day shift. The day shift was complaining about the night shift, that they hadn’t done what they were meant to. And it’s just because they’re lazy and it’s blah, blah, blah. They created this whole story. No one had gone and asked the question, sought clarity, got curious, and said, hey, notice this didn’t get done last night. Is there any reason for that? Did anything happen? Because what it turned out was that there’d been some major issue overnight that meant the team had had to focus on addressing that instead, which meant they didn’t get some of their usual things done. Now, there was a communication failure on both parts here. One night shift could have communicated that to the day shift and said, hey, didn’t get some stuff done because this other piece happened.
[00:10:13] Leah Mether: But the day shift, because they didn’t have the information ran with their own story. So that sort of thing happens. We make those assumptions. The other problem with a lack of clarity is mismatched expectations. You can’t expect someone to do a job well if they’re not clear on what good looks like, which is why that is one of my favorite phrases to use with a team. If you’re giving an instruction, hey, can you get this done for me? And what good looks like to me is or what done well, looks like to me is and actually articulate that too often we think to ourselves or even say it out loud, well, you should know. You should know what I meant, as if you are magically a mind reader. But people are not mind readers. So if you want someone to do something to a particular standard, or by a particular deadline within a particular window. Make sure you give them the information they need to succeed. You don’t want someone to be able to say, oh, but I didn’t know. It’s not micromanaging. It is making sure that you’re on the same page.
[00:11:29] Host – Grace Jennings-Edquist: That was communication and human skills expert Leah Mether.
How to build ownership without micromanaging
Now to building ownership among your team members without micromanaging. If you’re a business owner or leader, chances are you’ve experienced this. You’ve got capable people around you, but you still find yourself chasing things up, stepping in or carrying more of the load than you should. It can feel like your team just isn’t taking ownership. Leadership expert Kylie Paatsch has written a book on the topic called The Connect Effect. She says the issue of ownership isn’t that people won’t step up. Rather that the environment isn’t set up to support them in that role. So Nicole Goodman began by asking Kylie, why do so many leaders struggle to get their teams to take real ownership?
[00:12:17] Kylie Paatsch: I think it first starts off with how leaders are actually feeling. And I know having been a leader myself and, you know, having worked with leaders for quite a few decades now on the sidelines, you often feel like you’re constantly following up, checking in, filling in the gaps. And that you almost feel like you have to do everything. And what I’ve come to learn is that even though you’ve got capable staff, people that you have employed because you knew they had the skill or the right attitude or whatever it might be, won’t step in or take ownership because of a few reasons. And one is they often don’t feel safe to do so. So they might not feel like it’s the environment to do it in. They might not feel safe to make mistakes, you know? None of us want to feel foolish. We all have this fear of, you know, that we’re not good enough. And so unless we feel like it’s safe to do so, we’ll actually hold back. So that’s definitely one of the first reasons. The second one is we’re not actually clear on what we’re sometimes meant to do or not meant to do. So capable people who have the skills and the ability to do it, if they’re not clear, they’ll sort of stand on the sidelines a little bit more than we would like them to. And I think the other thing is sometimes unintentionally, when capable people are not stepping forward, we get like those frustrations I mentioned before, we just jump in. And so we take over and we start problem solving. So then capable people get the unspoken message, which is, okay, well, you’re just going to do it anyway. So I may as well just hold back and wait. Yeah.
[00:14:08] Nicole Goodman: Well, following up on that, what role does leadership behavior play in whether people do step up or hold back?
[00:14:15] Kylie Paatsch: Yeah. How we communicate again plays a huge role in this. How we communicate when people aren’t taking ownership or they have made a mistake can be a huge contributor. So if someone makes a mistake and then we sort of make them feel stupid for it, what we’re going to find is that they will hold back, that they won’t step in. But on the flip side, if people make mistakes and we acknowledge that they, you know, that they had a go at it, that they tried, that they had good intent. And we asked them what they’ve learned from their mistakes and what they might do differently. Next time we’re going to get a very different response. They’ll step back in, they’ll have another go at it. So I think the other thing I sort of mentioned this before with the clarity and context, but often how we set up tasks and projects, if we’re really dictatorial in this, is what’s going to happen. This is the way I want you to do it. You’re going to get very little ownership. People will actually just take instruction from you and do the bare minimum. And what we want to be able to do instead is to involve them in the task or the project that we want. And I think the other thing is what we role model. So that’s hugely important if we’re prepared to be vulnerable, if we’re prepared to be a little bit uncomfortable, get outside the comfort zone, make some mistakes and own them. Our people will do the same, and we give them permission to do the same. And I think that’s hugely important.
[00:15:48] Nicole Goodman: One of the things you talk about is helping teams move from compliance to ownership. What needs to change, do you think for that shift to happen?
[00:15:58] Kylie Paatsch: I think if you want a team to go from habitually following your instructions to actually taking ownership, the first thing you need to do is to set clear outcomes and context and to ask questions. So to ask for ideas and input to actually get people involved. And look, if there’s a system or a process, sometimes you do need to be prescriptive. So you can’t always ask for ideas. But what you can do after you have been prescriptive and shared what it is that you want them to do is, what else would you add to that? You know, what’s landed for you here? What support look like for you to be able to do this so we can move from compliance to ownership by involving others, by asking questions. And the other thing is we’ve just got to be willing to let go of the reins a little bit. So we have to be okay to hand over some responsibility.
[00:16:58] Nicole Goodman: The fear, of course, is the sharp swing in the opposite direction. How can leaders build accountability and trust without slipping into micromanagement?
[00:17:10] Kylie Paatsch: Yeah. This is a question that is often asked in workshops towards the end. So, you know, we’ll do all these wonderful things where I’ll give them lots of tools and tips and techniques, and then at their end they’ll be like, yes, but what if I slip? Or what if they don’t do it the way that I want them to do it? And one of the things that I often say is really important is to define upfront what good and done looks like. So when you have defined it, you’ll feel less likely to jump in and get involved because you’ll know that you’ve given clear instruction around things. And the other thing that you’ll find is that we’ll help the people that you’re giving some more responsibility to, and letting go of some of the things that you do. The other thing that I think is really helpful is to check in on progress and blockers, and not to check in on every detail. So often when we’ve got this tendency to sort of control things or micromanage things, we really want to get into the details and know everything that’s happened and why it’s happened and how it’s happened.
[00:18:17] Kylie Paatsch: And what I encourage is that you just take a little bit of a step back from that. So you still want to check in? Absolutely. But you check in in ways where you go. So you know, what’s working, what’s not working, what’s progress look like, what’s getting in the way here? What ideas do you have to overcome this? If there is, you know, a problem or a challenge, rather than getting into the detail and wanting to know everything. And there’s a couple of things that happen when we ask those questions. Not only does it help us to do less micromanaging, but it continuously builds connection and trust because we’re actually saying, I believe in you and you’re capable of doing this. And when people feel like they’re believed in, they will step up, they will take more ownership, they will take more accountability. I think the other thing that I would add is agree on milestones and then if appropriate, get team members to choose the milestones themselves because they’ll feel like they’ve got more ownership over whatever it is that you’re, you know, tasking them with.
[00:19:25] Nicole Goodman: Kylie, as we wrap up for small business owners who feel like they are doing too much themselves, what’s the first step they can take to building more ownership in their team?
[00:19:36] Kylie Paatsch: I think the first step, which is often the first step to anything, is to have the awareness. So you have to firstly own that you are doing too much because unless you do that, nothing will change. And then the second thing is to audit where you’re at, right? So thinking about where your time’s going, what is it that you are doing that someone else potentially could do? And then hand over some of those things. And I always say start small. Just start with the small low risk things because that will help you build a bit of Confidence and trust in yourself and also others. It will also set up your people for success because they’ll feel a little bit safer. And then how you follow those things up and how you reinforce it. The questions that you ask will really help.
[00:20:31] Host – Grace Jennings-Edquist: That was Kylie Paatsch, leadership expert, founder of Kylie Paatsch Leadership and author of The Connect Effect. Thanks for joining us for this week’s episode. Follow Business Essentials Podcast across social media and head to www.BusinessEssentialsPodcast.au for more. Business Essentials is a SoundCartel podcast. Producers are Nick Schildberger, Nicole Goodman and myself. Technical production is by Pete Letts. I’m Grace Jennings-Edquist thanks for listening. We’ll bring you more business essentials next week.
