There is a conversation you need to have.
You know who it’s with. You know what it’s about. And you’ve been finding reasons not to have it for longer than you’d like to admit.
Maybe it’s the team member who isn’t delivering and everyone knows it. The colleague whose behaviour is affecting the whole team. The direct report who keeps undermining decisions in meetings. The working relationship that has quietly broken down and is costing more than you’ve calculated.
And yet. The conversation hasn’t happened.
I’ve worked with senior leaders, CEOs and Founders as an executive coach in London and across the UK for over 18 years. And in that time, I have yet to meet a leader who hasn’t avoided at least one conversation they knew they needed to have.
This isn’t a weakness. It’s deeply human. But left unaddressed, it becomes a leadership problem, and it becomes your responsibility to fix it.
Why You’re Really Avoiding It
Most leaders, when asked why they’re avoiding a difficult conversation, say something like: “I don’t want to damage the relationship.” Or: “It’s not the right time.” Or: “I’m hoping it’ll resolve itself.”
These are reasonable-sounding reasons. They’re also stories.
The real reason is far more primal.
A very old part of your brain – the part that kept your ancestors alive – still operates on the belief that social rejection is life-threatening. In caveman times, being cast out of the tribe genuinely meant death. Starvation. Exposure. Your brain, trying to protect you, treats the prospect of conflict, disapproval or rejection as a genuine threat.
It isn’t, of course. Having a performance conversation with a direct report is unlikely to get you eaten by anything. But your nervous system doesn’t always distinguish between a difficult conversation and a sabre-toothed tiger.
The discomfort you feel before a difficult conversation isn’t weakness. It’s evolution. The question is whether you’re going to let a 50,000-year-old survival mechanism run your leadership decisions.
Smart leaders feel the discomfort. They have the conversation anyway.
What Avoiding It Is Actually Costing You
Let me be direct about something.
Avoiding a difficult conversation isn’t kindness. When you don’t address underperformance, you’re not protecting the person, you’re depriving them of the feedback they need to grow. When you allow a corrosive team dynamic to continue because addressing it feels uncomfortable, you’re not keeping the peace, you’re eroding trust with everyone who can see you’re not dealing with it.
And when you hand a difficult conversation to HR because you don’t want to have it yourself? That’s not delegation. That’s abdication. And your team notices.
Avoiding difficult conversations is one of the most expensive things a senior leader can do. The cost is just invisible, until it isn’t.
Morale drops. Performance stalls. Your best people – who hold themselves to a high standard – start questioning why the same standard isn’t being held for everyone. You lose credibility, quietly, over time.
Having difficult conversations is part of your job. Not HR’s job. Not something to be outsourced when it gets uncomfortable. Yours. It’s time to adult up.
Why Smart Leaders Do It Anyway
The leaders I work with who are genuinely good at difficult conversations aren’t people who find them easy. They don’t.
What they’ve learned is that the short-term discomfort of having the conversation is always – always – less than the long-term cost of avoiding it. They’ve also learned that most difficult conversations, when handled well, don’t damage relationships. They strengthen them.
The person on the receiving end of honest, respectful feedback almost always knows something needs to be said. The fact that you’re saying it – with care and clarity – signals that you take the relationship seriously enough to be honest. That builds trust. Avoidance destroys it.
How To Have The Conversation: The COIN Model
Over 18 years of coaching senior leaders, I’ve seen every possible approach to difficult conversations – the good, the bad, and the spectacularly catastrophic. The approach I come back to consistently, because it works, is the COIN model.
The COIN model, developed by Anna Carroll MSSW, stands for Context, Observation, Impact, Next Step. Here’s how it works in practice:
C — Context
Ground the conversation. Where were you? When did this happen? This ensures you’re both talking about the same specific moment, not a generalised pattern.
“At the team meeting on Tuesday morning…” / “On the call with the client last week…”
O — Observation
Be specific about what you saw or heard — and remove all judgement. Don’t say “you were aggressive” (a judgement). Say “when you raised your voice and talked over Sarah” (a fact). The moment you add a judgement, the other person stops hearing the feedback and starts defending themselves.
“What I observed was…” / “When you said / did / didn’t do…”
I — Impact
Describe the effect — on you, on others, on the team, on the business. Keep the language clean. You’re describing impact, not adding more judgement. The more specific and observable, the harder it is to dismiss.
“The impact of that was…” / “It caused the team to feel…”
N — Next Step
Don’t leave the conversation hanging. Tell them clearly what you’d like to see happen differently — and make them accountable for it. Ask them to come back to you. “Let me know by Friday how you’re going to approach this.” That one shift transfers ownership to them, where it belongs.
“Next time, what I’d like you to do is…” / “Going forward, my expectation is…”
A Few Things Worth Knowing
Give feedback close to the behaviour, the longer you leave it, the less useful it becomes. Approach with genuine care and composure. Speak slowly. Use fewer words. Pause after the key points. And check for understanding.
The most important thing a person needs to feel in a difficult conversation is that you’re having it because you value them and the relationship, not because you want to win an argument.
Start Getting Rigorous
If you’ve been avoiding these conversations, I want to offer you something more useful than sympathy. Start getting rigorous. Not brutal. Not aggressive. Rigorous.
Consistent. Every time. Not just when it’s easy. That’s how you build the kind of team – and the kind of reputation as a leader – that lasts.
Things don’t change on their own. Leaders change them.
Ready To Lead At This Level?
I’m Sue Belton — an award-winning executive and leadership coach with 18 years working with CEOs, Founders, MDs and senior leaders across London and the UK. Difficult conversations are a core part of my Strategic Leader Programme, within the Influence principle.
If this resonated, explore the Strategic Leader Programme via the link below — or connect with me on LinkedIn and let’s talk.
