My mother is Italian. Everything ran at volume. The love was loud, the disappointment was loud, and when one of us did something wrong, the whole house knew it. Hands. Volume. The full performance. That was just the temperature she ran at, and we never doubted where we stood.
My father did the opposite. He would come in, sit down, and say one line. “I’m very disappointed in you.” That was the whole opening. And it hit. Every time.
It hit because there was a relationship underneath it. It hit because he led with the thing that actually needed to be said. No throat-clearing. No how was your day. And he never stopped at the disappointment. He always pointed at the way out. Here is what happened, here is why it matters, here is how we fix it.
I did not carry that into leadership for a long time.
Early on, I led like my mother. I came in hot. I figured intensity would communicate how much something mattered. Then I would watch people go quiet, or defensive, or both, and I would overcorrect in the other direction. Cold. Clipped. Very disappointed in you, minus the part where my father had earned the right to say it. Neither version built anything. One scared people. The other confused them.
Most leaders never get that far, because most leaders avoid the conversation entirely. They tone the hard thing down until it dissolves into nothing. Or they reach for the sandwich. A compliment, then the criticism, then another compliment. The structure most of us were handed in some training at some point. The research has not been kind to it. People hear the bread and forget the meat. Or they brace through your opening praise waiting for the but, and now they trust the praise less too.
There is a better way in, and it is not complicated.
Open with the issue
Do not ask about their weekend. Do not ask about their kids. They know why the meeting is on the calendar, and the small talk only stretches the dread for both of you. Say the thing. Plainly. The numbers slipped two quarters running and I want to understand why. The tone in last week’s meeting concerned me. Whatever it is, lead with it. You can be warm and direct in the same sentence. Warmth lives in how you say it. Directness lives in not making them wait for it.
Practice before you walk in
This sounds small. It is not. Say the opening line out loud before the conversation happens. In the mirror. In the car. Staring at your own face in the Zoom window while you wait for them to join. You are not memorizing a script. You are getting the first sentence to leave your mouth without your voice shaking. The dread lives in the anticipation. Once you have said the words once, even to an empty room, they lose some of their charge.
The kindness is in the clarity
The padding feels like kindness. It is usually fear wearing kindness as a costume. The kindest thing you can do for someone is tell them the truth early enough that they can still do something about it. My father understood that. He opened with the hard part because he respected me enough not to make me guess at it. Lead with the issue. Leave with a path forward. Trust the relationship to hold the weight in between.
A question for you
What is the conversation you are softening right now, and what would it sound like if you opened with the actual point?
Reply and tell me. I read every one.
More next week.
padding is almost never about the person receiving the news but about the person delivering it
I like this a lot, Laura- thanks for framing it like this. Couldn't agree more, and I see this as the number one missing link in every organization I've worked with.