Engaging in difficult conversations is a defining leadership skill – gain confidence for times when it matters most.
Overview
Feelings of defensiveness and discomfort are common when engaging in difficult conversations. Even those with experience can find themselves fumbling if they haven’t yet reflected on how their personal feelings may impact the way they show up in the world—and in those difficult conversations.
In this intensive one-day conference, you will learn to lean into that discomfort via individual reflection to begin the hard work of making meaning of how favoritism can show up, and how an orientation around fairness improves relationships, morale, and trust. You’ll engage with a workbook of activities, tools, and resources that allow you to experiment and apply best practices to help you move from understanding difficult conversations, to confidently navigating them.
Specifically, you’ll unpack four key concepts and how they come into play during conversations around topics that are deeply personal:
Identifying Favoritism
Understanding Personal Perspectives
Managing Emotions
Focusing on Fairness
Extend Your Stay to Enhance Your Skills with Additional Training
Come a few days early and experience our Leading from the Middle: Essential Skills to Drive Success conference taking place December 9–10, 2024. At this event, you’ll gain a solid foundation for what it takes to lead from the middle and be able to supplement the skills and framework of midlevel leadership with the skill of navigating difficult conversations. By attending both events, you will gain valuable insights and strategies to strengthen your leadership skills and team dynamics. Register for both workshops and save $500!
Who Should Attend
Whether you are a faculty member, frontline staff, or campus leader, this conference will help you to move beyond a baseline readiness to effectively engage in difficult conversations. Attend with your team to develop a shared sense of how to address difficult topics productively. Register 3 or more people and get a team discount! Discount will be automatically applied at check out.
What Makes Our Events Different?
Academic Impressions conferences provide the opportunity for quality conversations and relationship-building through both formal and informal networking opportunities in an intimate setting. Our in-depth and hands-on approach to learning provides you with actionable takeaways.
Learn More About the Academic Impressions Conference Experience ➞
What Makes this Event Unique
- Building an understanding of difficult conversations and conflict resolution – whether you have some experience or are new to handling difficult conversations and conflict, you’ll develop deeper insight into how difficult conversations play out as well as how you can better resolve conflict through words, actions, and your demeanor.
- Using the Five Paths to Leadership℠ to examine power dynamics – this workshop will build on Academic Impressions’ leadership self-assessment to help you diagnose and understand how power dynamics play a role in difficult conversations.
- A dynamic workbook – offering you tools, resources, and activities to help you reflect and build your skills at conflict resolution, the workbook will also help continue your learning after the workshop.
- Time to practice – during the workshop, you’ll have ample time to put into practice what you’re learning through case studies and role-playing difficult conversations.
What Our Attendees Are Saying
"I gained so many tools that I will be able to start using right away at my university. This is a very efficient and engaging way to think deeply about how favoritism and bias are present in all our work relationships."
"Great discussion, the scenarios were really helpful for solidifying the concepts. I liked that the same scenario was used throughout so that I didn't need to learn about new characters. I really like the workbook. I will be able to reflect upon the material at a later time. The dialogue vs debate section was especially helpful."
"Sandra did a wonderful job of leading the group through the main concepts and key takeaways in recognizing and reflecting on bias and favoritism. Sandra engaged with the comments and chat in a very meaningful way that acknowledged others' ideas and experiences while also not allowing any one thread deter the progress of the seminar."