Last week I wrote about the very real fear of ‘saying it as it is’.

I had my biggest number of responses EVER!

In honesty, I’m not surprised – my Facebook Group members (nearly 1200 now) say this is one of their biggest challenges too.

‘I know I’m a people pleaser’, you said.
‘My manager tells me I’m too soft’
‘I don’t know how to raise this issue’
‘My team want me to sort it but I don’t know where to start’
‘I dread the tears’
‘I know she’ll get aggressive and deny it’
‘Is it a British thing?’ someone asked me?

(I work internationally and would answer ‘no, not necessarily!’ to that question.)

So many of us struggle to work with the tough stuff.

The good news is, I can help you with ALL of this.

If you’d like to get this sorted once and for all then get in touch.

There are a variety of ways I can help which work with your budget and your availability.

One of the things I struggled with as a leader (and in my early days as a coach) was being able to ‘say it as it is’.

I hear my mother’s voice (God rest her soul) in my head telling me not to ‘ make personal remarks’ and ‘if you can’t say anything nice, don’t say anything at all’.

I get it – but these messages we pick up in our early years are not always helpful to us or others as we navigate the adult world of work and life.

Now of course I’m NOT saying that we should make intentionally hurtful remarks or start behaving like mad internet trolls and being vicious, spiteful and mean.

But something gets lost in translation along the way.

I had to do a lot – and I mean A LOT - of personal work to understand that there is another way – a way to be refreshingly honest AND show empathy at the same time. My desire to please people and to be liked had a positive side. But they also stopped me from helping others to grow, develop and change. (If I could avoid giving a difficult message, I woul...