Navigating Feedback and Difficult Conversations at Work
Feedback is a powerful catalyst for growth and improvement, yet it often comes with a side of discomfort. Mastering how to give feedback, especially in difficult conversations, is essential for any manager acting as a coach.
Join our masterclass with master certified coach Jean Balfour, where she’ll demonstrate how to approach difficult conversations using a coaching mindset. Learn how to turn challenging discussions into opportunities for growth and development, transforming your role as a manager into that of a coach.
Here are some key strategies you’ll learn in this masterclass to help you deliver bad news effectively at work:
- Be Clear and Specific: When giving feedback, clarity is crucial. Be specific about the issue, providing concrete examples to help the recipient understand and address the problem.
- Stay Constructive and Balanced: Focus on behaviors and actions, not personal attributes. Balance the feedback by highlighting strengths alongside areas for improvement.
- Listen Actively: Encourage an open dialogue. Listen to the recipient’s perspective and acknowledge their feelings. This fosters mutual respect and understanding.
- Be Empathetic and Supportive: Show empathy and offer support. Help the recipient see the feedback as an opportunity for growth, and provide guidance on how they can improve.
- Follow Up: After the initial conversation, follow up to check on progress and offer continued support. This demonstrates your commitment to their development.
By mastering these skills, you’ll create a more open, supportive, and productive work environment where feedback fuels progress and difficult conversations lead to meaningful change.
Meet our Speaker Jean Balfour
Jean Balfour has over 25 years of consulting and coaching with organisations. She brings a unique combination of being an ICF Master Certified Coach (3% of coaches worldwide) alongside an MSc in Organisation Consulting and wide experience of working as both an in-house and external coach and facilitator.
She is the Founder and CEO of Bailey Balfour, an ICF Accredited Coach Training Company. She held senior leadership roles in large organisations before setting up Bailey Balfour. She sees the interplay between individual performance and organizational effectiveness and works to help leaders makes these connections.
She believes that all organisations are highly relational and supports leaders to create robust relationships across the organization. She believes business success is driven by effective leaders who are self-aware and committed to their own growth and behaviour change.
Jean helps her clients to lead in diverse and global markets and across cultures. She is adept at helping her clients connect their personal strengths and leadership style to career success and achieving business goals. She draws on both psychological and organisational theories. She has a practical, results-oriented approach to coaching and her style is warm and challenging. Jean has a passion for supporting women’s career progression. She runs women in leadership programmes and has deep experience of coaching senior women.
Why is coaching essential in the workplace?
Enjoy our recent masterclass and learn a coaching approach to these challenges!
Live Masterclass: Transforming Leadership through Coaching
Embedding a Coaching Culture Organisation Wide In the complex and evolving landscape of modern business, the nature of leadership is changing. Leaders today are required to drive business performance and cultivate and inspire their teams. Leaders are being called...
Masterclass On-Demand: Transform Your Inner Critic into Your Inner Coach
Are you tired of that nagging voice in your head that tells you you're not good enough? Do you wish you could turn that inner critic into a source of strength and motivation? We all have an inner critic - it is part of the human condition. For some of us our inner...
Masterclass On-Demand: How to Develop Emotional Intelligence at Work
Emotional Intelligence (EQ) is the ability to understand and manage emotions effectively. It is no longer considered a soft skill—it’s a critical competency for us all – both individual contributors and leaders. Higher EQ has been shown to improve job performance...