Tackling Tough Conversations with Emotional Intelligence

What are effective strategies for resolving a conflict or disagreement?

How do you prepare for a difficult conversation that is going to be challenging and tough?

How can you have a constructive debate around contentious issues?

How can you maintain a respectful and productive dialogue when emotions are running high?

What are the best ways to express your opinion and influence others without coming across as aggressive?

How can you maintain a positive attitude when addressing a difficult topic?

The need for a tough conversations can happen at any time, from the driver who cuts you up on the road this morning to the employee whose negative performance appraisal is coming up, from the neighbour who cut the branch off your prized tree to the member of staff who always has something to complain about.

These situations happen frequently, but dealing with them is something that leaves most of us cold at the prospect.

Ask most people how they feel about tackling tough conversations, and at least 90 % of them will feel intensely uncomfortable, recalling a previous time when they had to deal with one. They will experience the emotional state again as if it was happening right now.

Hostage negotiators and people who do deals for large corporations have months, if not years of training, learning how to deal with the emotions that people might try to provoke in them and instead remain calm.  They are able to objectively see the facts  and use their emotional intelligenceto manage the conversation appropriately.

The rest of us, well, we need to learn a thing or two about ourselves and try to understand why we respond the way that we do.

Leaders and managers have to tackle tough conversations and have constructive debates on a regular basis in the workplace.  These are required in a variety of circumstances.

These include, but are not limited to,

• Poor performance

• Unprofessional behaviour

• Conflict between employees

• Harassment

• Inappropriate use of Social Media

• Unethical practices

• Unreasonable work demands

• Unauthorised use of company resources

• Unauthorised disclosure of confidential information

• Unsafe work practices

Tough, difficult conversations can be challenging and complex for anyone.  Avoiding constructive debates and challenging discussions can make situations worse and tackling them without thought, clear goals and effective communication strategies can cause further issue by eroding trust and damaging relationships.

To build your confidence you need to understand how to work with your emotional intelligence.  Emotional intelligence underpins your skills to communicate with different types of people in multiple situations.  Your emotional intelligence enables you have to know when and how to communicate using the emotional climate positively to make appropriate decisions and build relationships!

Using your emotional intelligence effectively in managing tough, difficult conversations and constructive debates will improve your well-being, earn you trust and respect from those you work with, improve your relationships and improve the overall atmosphere and productivity of your organisation.

If you want to effectively communicate with your co-workers, employees, boss, family and friends, then this is course for you! Tackling Tough Conversations with Emotional Intelligenceintroduces you to the key tools and insights to effectively communicate in order to use your emotional intelligence to build stronger relationships and better outcomes! 

In this course you’ll learn how to prepare for tough, challenging conversations and constructive debates, how to use various channels of communication channels, how to recognise which channel is appropriate for different social interaction styles, the power of influence and persuasion using language patterns and unconscious language, and much more!

You’ll learn how to do all this in ways that are both informative and engaging!

By completing this course, you’ll be able to:

• Discover how emotional intelligence is used when tackling tough, difficult conversations to build emotional bonds

• Identify and analyse the different approaches to tackling tough conversations in the workplace

• Develop strategies for initiating, managing, and resolving challenging conversations using emotional intelligence

• Assess approaches for typical situations that require you to influence and communicate with different types of people

• Distinguish the transactions between ego states and life positions defining how they influence behaviour

• Recognise how to interact with different behavioural styles to manage stress reactions and build effective relationships

• Create effective responses to challenging behaviours at work

• Evaluate language patterns to influence and persuade through empathetic communication

• Construct a plan to approach and manage difficult conversations

All PDFs can be completed online and are Section 508 / ADA Accessibility compliant.

All videos are High Definition recorded in 1080p.

All videos have grammatically correct English captions.

Latest update – August 2024

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Frequently Asked Questions

How long do I have access to the course materials?

You can view and review the lecture materials indefinitely, like an on-demand channel.

Can I take my courses with me wherever I go?

Definitely! If you have an internet connection, courses on Udemy are available on any device at any time. If you don’t have an internet connection, some instructors also let their students download course lectures. That’s up to the instructor though, so make sure you get on their good side!