Week 45: The Courage To Speak Up

Welcome to Week 45 of the Authenticity@Work Leadership Tool-kit! My intention for this series is to share a quick tool each week to help you lead with more authenticity, adaptability and inspiration so we can together create workplaces where we bring the best of ourselves and inspire others. So grab a journal and an accountability partner to make these practices even more powerful for you!

In last week’s post we talked about the courage to face change as your most authentic self. Did you find ways your authentic self can help you with change?

Many of us have a hard time expressing a point of view that’s different. Why?

We assume that if we have a different point of view, it will cause others 
to think we’re not being loyal to them. We assume if the majority is voting for that answer, it must be right 
and we’re wrong. We assume that there is only one possible right answer to a question. We assume that a different point of view will make us unpopular. We assume that if we’re not able to convince others of our point of view, 
we’ve somehow lost or diminished in our power.

What keeps us from having difficult conversations? Our saboteurs and the discomfort we feel.

Here’s a five-step process for a difficult conversation.

1. Give voice to all the saboteurs that are present. Interviewing them. Now we are not our saboteurs. We are in our Director mode and hearing what these saboteurs have to say.
2. Get familiar with the emotion—to give yourself the space to be with it. Ask yourself where you feel it in your body. With your Director in charge, just be with the feelings. See what happens when you face the discomfort. Let whatever emotion shows up be there and notice how it changes and moves. Your job is not to change it; it is just to be a curious and compassionate observer of it.
3. Using the practice of be before do, ask yourself who you need to be in order to be effective in this conversation.
4. Have the conversation now. A lot of times, we put things off because we’re waiting for the right time.
5. Celebrate your learning. Recognize that when we’re learning something new like riding a bike, we will fall off and scrape our knees a few times. We may choose to practice vulnerability and even acknowledge that this is a difficult conversation for us.

This Week’s Tool:

Find a situation today that requires you to be courageous. Practice courage using the tools you’ve discovered. Note in a journal what you learned.

Find a partner with whom you can role-play a difficult conversation you need to have. Role-play the conversation. What did you learn?

Get the latest resources for Authenticity@Work (this tab will get updated with all kinds of cool resources). Curious to know more about the book? Read the reviews about Wired for Authenticity here.

This article was written by Henna Inam, C-level executive coach, global speaker, and author of the book Wired for Disruption. She helps leaders grow their agility to be a force for good and thrive in times of change. They create organizations that drive breakthroughs in innovation, growth, and engagement. In roles including Head E-Innovation and Chief Innovation and Marketing Officer, Henna drove transformation throughout her 20-year corporate career as an executive with Fortune 500 companies. Join the thousands who follow her blog here. Connect on Linkedin.