Differential Leader and Crucial Conversation

A Different Leader

Leadership is a required aspect of every organization, however having established leadership and established leaders are not the same. There are different kinds of leaders and different styles of leadership, but to facilitate a healthy leadership environment, you need self-differentiated leader. What does it mean to be a self-differentiated leader? Friedman’s Theory of Differentiated Leadership gives us clear insight on what it means to be differentiated leader and what key factors we need to consider if we want to develop ourselves into differential leaders. “Effective leadership is not about traits or skills as much as it is an emotional process of regulating one’s own anxiety” (Kaufaman, 2013). Being some able to control their emotions allowing them to productively function while dealing with a variety of different group and individual personalities is essential to being a differential leader. A differential leader does not allow themselves to sucked into the emotional unrest many individuals face when dealing with stress related high intensity situations like organizational performance demands. “A differentiated person can stay connected to others without losing his or her identity or without taking on the emotional anxiety of the group, a differentiated leader can take a well-defined stand even when followers disagree while remaining connected in a meaningful way with others” (Kaufaman, 2013).  A differential leader has full confidence in themselves, their moral values, and their organizational abilities. It is key factors like theses that allow the differential leader to have crucial conversation within the organization that facilitate growth and positive productivity with the organization.

Conversation is the Key

“Every day we engage in numerous conversations, each which play important roles in shaping our expectations, relationships, and outcomes” (Bower, 2016). Throughout our journey of learning, teaching, and achieving conversations takes on a variety of roles that impacts our motivation to accomplish the things we set out to accomplish, that were crucial conversations come in at. “A crucial conversation is defined as a discussion between two or more people where the stakes are high, opinions vary, and emotions run strong” (Bower, 2016). There is a saying “iron sharpens iron”, this is the equivalent of crucial conversation. Crucial conversation is broken into three types of conversations that aim to challenge, motivate, and hold you accountable. “Crucial conversation has three defining features high stakes strong emotion in different opinions” (VitalSmarts, 2012). Utilizing these three types of crucial conversations facilitates you maximizing your goal success rate.

Planning to Talk

With crucial conversations being such an important tool to achieving the things we want to accomplish, it’s equally as important to understand the dynamics of a crucial conversation to better prepare one’s self to have the most productive conversation possible. “If we have the skills to speak up both candidly and honestly, we can actually strengthen relationships while solving problems” (VitalSmarts, 2018). The problem is that many of us are reluctant to have these types of conversation because of the fear of how it might go or what might come out of it. “We often fear them because our past experience has taught us that if we’re both emotional and honest, bad things are likely to happen” (VitalSmarts, 2018). Because of these reasons, the best solution is a group of strategies to help combat these concerns. The strategies are broken down by the stage of the conversation you are in. The before: (1) start with the heart (2) prepare to state your path (3) mutual purpose and desired outcome (4) practice. The beginning: (1) get buy in (2) clarify and agree. The during: (1) make it safe (2) invite dialogue. The ending: (1) move to action.

What is Needed to Achieve What is required

As you move forward in your change strategy, the primary focus should be the achievement of creating your desired change. As we’ve reviewed the resources of this course, we’ve been privy to see the different degrees of effectiveness that differentiated leadership and crucial conversation can have on one’s overall desired goal achievement. Though both are extremely important and necessary, I feel that there is a clear main player between the two. I feel that crucial conversation is the entity that should have the higher degree of focus to assist in achieving your goals. The reason I went with Crucial conversation, is because I feel that individually and organizationally, you gain more by facilitating an environment were everyone feels valued and heard. This is accomplished much more affectively through crucial conversation over differentiated leadership.

Reference

Bower, T. (2018, April 30). Top 10 takeaways from crucial conversations. Athlos Academies. https://athlosacademies.org/top-10-takeaways-from-crucial-conversations

Kaufaman, A. (2013, August 24). Friedman’s Theory of Differentiated Leadership Made Simple. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i9H-i9lHr28

VitalSmarts. (2012, February 10). Crucial Conversations Explained in 2 Minutes. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ixEI4_2Xivw&t=62s

VitalSmarts. (2018, February). How to have a crucial conversation. https://cdn2.hubspot.net/hubfs/4664852/How to Have a Crucial Conversation (1).pdf