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Leading Through Chaos and Crisis: Difficult and Emotionally Charged Conversations at Work (Full Day)

In this full day class, the focus is on the leader, whether that is a first line supervisor or the CEO.  This is the person everyone is looking to lead and be the calm amid chaos. You may be mediating a disagreement between two employees, explaining why an employee is being terminated or helping an employee through a difficult time in their life.

We cover some of the same material as the introduction class, but the goal of the class is to offer the leader techniques, along with de-escalation skills, to help foster a “safe” work environment. The first half of the class is similar to the introduction class but the second half of the day builds on those techniques by incorporating skills to address employee crisis and leadership techniques to build a stronger team at work.

As the supervisor, you will most likely not be dealing with volatile people who are impaired by substance abuse or serve mental illness. You are dealing with upset, sad, or angry employees.

Often at work leaders often mistake a solution as the way to “calm the chaos”. We go into detail on how, while in a crisis, people are unlikely to accept or even actively resist any solution, no matter how effective it may be. As a leader you need to build trust in your employees by showing that you care about what is upsetting them. Sometimes they already know the correct path forward, they need you to listen and then validate their choices.

In the class we talk about how we can re-enforce the goals and values of the organization to achieve better buy in by employees. By doing this, employees are less likely to lash out or blame the organization for some slight.

No organization can run efficiently without happy and productive employees. Before any employee can achieve that they must trust that their leaders, and by extension their organization, is there to support them. This trust begins with the leader putting aside any ego and accepting that they are responsible for everything that will or has happened. Employees are loyal to leaders who take personal responsibility for everything around them. We will explore ideas on how to take this approach and make your team and individual employees happier and more productive. We do all of this without sacrificing the goals and mission of the organization. Employees don’t leave bad jobs, they leave bad leaders.

In this class the goal is to start the leader on the path to showing, not just telling, the employee “We care about you and your well-being.”