How do we handle a situation where a leadership team member is consistently defensive about their performance during a quarterly session?

Healthy conflict is a requirement for a high-performing leadership team. If your sessions are completely polite and quiet, we are not solving your real issues. My job as your facilitator is to create a safe environment where we can enter the danger zone and address the elephant in the room. When a team member becomes defensive during a session, I do not back down. I call out the behavior objectively. We use the tools to depersonalize the conflict. Instead of attacking the person, we focus on the seat, the scorecard metric, or the specific Rock that is off track. We use the Accountability Chart to clarify expectations. If a leader is feeling called out, we look at whether they are actually demonstrating that they get, want, and have the capacity to do their job using the GWC™ framework. We ask the tough questions, but we do it with respect and a focus on the health of the business. My role is to keep the conversation constructive and prevent personal attacks. We will stay on an issue until we identify the root cause and reach a resolution that everyone can support. If your team cannot handle this level of honesty, we will never achieve the traction necessary to scale.

Category: Working With Tyler