Steady in the conversation
Self-management, feedback and conflict for new managers.
Two hours on staying steady in difficult conversations: what an emotion is, self-awareness and self-management, and giving feedback and handling conflict as a new manager.
- Level
- Focus
- Learning time
- 2 hours
- Where
- Managing well
- Price
- £69
When you step up to a higher level, what you paid in the last 12 months for lower-level courses inside the bigger course comes off its price, in proportion to how much of each is inside it, whichever topic it's from. Courses at the same or a lower level don't give credit against each other. A Focus course or above always costs at least £15. Read the full terms
Certificate of Completion, or Certificate of Completion and Assessment with a short assessment
Overview and Outcomes.
Who It's For
New managers, especially those now managing former peers, in public service and the voluntary sector
Overview
The hardest conversations test a new manager's own reactions as much as their words. Part of the Immerse Stepping up, this Focus starts with the debate between Paul Ekman's universal emotions and Lisa Feldman Barrett's constructed emotion, and why you cannot argue someone calm. It then builds self-awareness and self-management through Boyatzis and Goleman's competency model, Intentional Change Theory and Susan David's emotional agility, including how composure can slide into suppression. The final part turns to critical conversations: why the feedback sandwich backfires, Situation, Behaviour, Impact, Kim Scott's Radical Candor, Michael Bungay Stanier's coaching questions, the Thomas-Kilmann modes and Acas guidance on preparing.
Aims
The course exists to help new managers name what they are feeling, choose their response deliberately rather than react, and give feedback that is both clear and kind, so that difficult conversations with their team, including former peers, become manageable rather than dreaded.
In summary, you will be able to:
- Explain the difference between the classical and constructed theories of emotion and why reasoning someone out of a strong feeling rarely works.
- Use emotional agility and Intentional Change Theory to notice your reactions and keep composure without sliding into suppression.
- Plan a difficult conversation using Situation, Behaviour, Impact, coaching questions and Acas guidance, choosing a conflict mode that suits the situation.
What you'll develop
Through this Focus course, you will build the ability to:
- Compare Ekman's classical theory of emotion with Barrett's theory of constructed emotion and identify where they genuinely disagree and where they agree.
- Describe the four internal competencies in Boyatzis and Goleman's model and Susan David's four skills of emotional agility.
- Give specific, caring and direct feedback using Situation, Behaviour, Impact and Radical Candor, and explain why the feedback sandwich undermines both criticism and praise.
- Explain the refractory period and apply it to handle a tense conversation by pausing and returning to the substance rather than arguing louder.
- Apply Intentional Change Theory to plan development that starts from your own ideal self rather than from compliance with an imposed plan.
- Use the Coaching Habit questions, especially 'And what else?', to find the real issue before offering any advice.
- Use emotional granularity to name your own emotional states more precisely and widen the emotional vocabulary in your team.
- Distinguish genuine self-management from suppression and identify the common ways self-management goes wrong in practice.
Built from 2 parts.
2 hours of learning.
- 01Know yourself, steady yourselfEmotions, self-awareness and self-managementBitesize · Emotional Intelligence2 modules
- 02The conversations that countFeedback, coaching and conflict for managersBitesize · Management1 module