Welcome to Loden’s Leadership Conversations
Today, let’s explore: Why the conversation leaders postpone is always the one that matters most.
Gather Around, Growth Alliance Members.
Every leader has a list.
Not a written one. The one that exists in the back of their awareness. The conversations that need to happen and haven’t. The feedback that is overdue. The standard that has been slipping and hasn’t been named directly.
Most leaders are aware of every item on that list. They can tell you exactly who needs to hear what, and roughly how long it has been waiting.
What they cannot always tell you is why they haven’t had the conversation yet.
The answers they give are usually practical. The timing isn’t right. Things are busy. The relationship is at a delicate point. There’s a lot going on for that person right now.
All of those things may be true. None of them is the real reason.
The real reason, almost always, is that the leader is protecting themselves from the discomfort of the conversation. Not consciously. Not maliciously. But honestly, the postponement is about the leader’s tolerance for tension, not about the other person’s readiness to receive.
Here’s what that postponement is actually costing.
Every week a feedback conversation waits, the person who needs it continues operating with the same blind spot. They continue missing what they’re missing. They continue underperforming in the same area, or overstepping in the same way, or building habits that are going to be significantly harder to address in six months than they are today.
The delay that feels like grace is actually a quiet form of abandonment. You are letting someone operate without information they need, because giving it to them requires something from you.
The most caring leaders I have ever observed are not the most comfortable ones. They are the most honest ones. They have made a decision, sometimes a difficult one, that the discomfort of a direct conversation is always smaller than the cost of leaving someone without the truth they need to grow.
That decision is available to every leader. It requires only the willingness to prioritize the person’s growth over your own comfort in a single moment.
In the book, this is the Courage pillar. The willingness to have the conversation, make the call, and hold the standard, even when it’s uncomfortable. Especially when it’s uncomfortable. Courage is not a feeling. It is a decision you make before the discomfort arrives.
The conversation you’ve been postponing is not waiting for the right moment. It is creating the wrong culture in the space where that moment keeps not arriving.
Reflection Questions:
- What is the conversation on your list that has been waiting the longest? What is it actually costing the person who needs it?
- When you examine your reason for postponing it, does the honest answer trace back to their readiness or your comfort?
May your leadership journey be rich with purpose, relationships, resilience, and discovery. I look forward to exploring new insights together in our next issue.
Lead deliberately,
Gearl Loden Superintendent | Executive Coach | Author, Before It Breaks
