Leadership sounds exciting until you're the one who has to deliver the bad news.
What do you say when you have to fire someone and can't stop thinking about their family, bills, and future? How do you honestly review a friend whose performance is below expectations? And what happens when your boss tells you to be more assertive—after previously criticizing you for being too intense?
In this Sticky Summer episode, Heather and Blakely tackle the painful leadership situations that rarely have a perfect answer. They share what they've learned about firing with compassion, giving honest feedback, standing up for yourself without losing credibility, and knowing when taking one for the team has gone too far.
They also respond to a listener whose work was handed to a "better presenter" days before a major conference—and explain why the real failure may belong to the manager who never gave them the chance to improve.
Then Clay puts them through another rapid-fire round on bad managers, corporate buzzwords, overrated leadership advice, and the biggest lie companies tell their employees.
Key Takeaways:
Why feeling terrible about firing someone may actually mean you belong in management
How to keep a termination conversation short, clear, kind, and focused on the employee
Why honest feedback is a gift—even when the person receiving it is your friend
What to do when you're criticized for being both too passive and too intense
How to stop calibrating your behavior to everyone else's expectations
The difference between voluntarily taking one for the team and being afraid to defend yourself
Why handing your presentation to someone else at the last minute is a management failure
The biggest lie about corporate life: your workplace is not your family
Please consider sharing this episode & subscribing to the show for more of the questions women want answered but rarely ask out loud.
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