How to Coach Yourself and Others Techniques For Coaching

Confrontation’s Bad Reputation Calling confrontation, “the weakest link in executive leadership,” the authors explain that confrontation is not synonymous with conflict, although it is frequently mistaken for the tantrums of supervisors, managers, and executives who reach the end of their ropes and blow up at those around or below them on the organizational food chain—pointing fingers, making accusations, and assigning blame. In stark contrast to this pejorative definition of confrontation, constructive confrontation is the intentional, deliberate, and systematic use of confrontation as:    A facilitated dialogue that establishes a specific course A guidance system to maintain that course A monitoring method to make course corrections as necessary The notion that confrontation can be constructive is news to many leaders and their direct reports who, based on extensive experience, equate confrontation with conflict. According to DiSilvestro and Hoover, conflict is confused with confrontation when the latter is used reactively instead of proactively to assign guilt rather than to recognize and reward responsibility. When expectations are made clear and continuously reinforced, people are more likely to stay on task. Correspondingly, confusion and ambiguity become less likely to contaminate team leader/team member relationships. Action is the Key DiSilvestro and Hoover insist that the pro-active, constructive approach to confrontation they teach prevents the aforementioned tantrums from ever happening in the first place by exposing and eliminating the assumptions and ambiguities that act like landmines hidden beneath the workplace landscape. The “weakest link” accusation further exposes confrontation for what it is; a misunderstood and thereby mostly ignored business concept that is not studied or properly taught in business school curriculums or management seminars. 616

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