“I’m not that confrontational.”
“I just don’t like confrontation.”
Heard these before? Said these before?
I imagine so, as these are common excuses for not addressing difficult conversations and situations that need addressing. Although it is understandable- I have admittedly said them myself- these are not good enough reasons to continue avoiding confrontation, and they are not serving you in any positive way.
There are countless situations at work and outside of it that you cannot avoid no matter how hard you may try. Others, you may be successfully avoiding to your own detriment. Confrontation shows up in so many different situations including:
- Asking for a reference / recommendation
- Negotiating a job offer
- Not giving someone a job offer
- Rejecting a job offer
- Advocating for a raise / promotion
- Giving critical feedback
- Receiving critical feedback
- Calling out somebody’s inappropriate behavior
- Letting someone go
- Giving a promotion to someone else
- Disagreeing with colleagues
- Resigning
- Rejecting an idea
And on and on and on
To get what you need, to best support your team and ultimately to best serve your clients, you need to learn how to be more confrontational and address difficult conversations.
Learning how to confront these situations effectively will benefit you in countless and significant ways. Continuing to avoid them or addressing them poorly will continue to hold you back from getting what you want and deserve. No one is going to do it for you and in most cases, no one is going to look out for you. To get what you want, you need to learn how to go after it.
The first major step you can take in learning to be more confrontational is letting go of the misguided belief that it requires a certain type of personality. Confrontation is a skill, not a personality trait. Just like any other skill, some people will have a greater natural propensity for it, but anyone can get better at it by deciding they want to and then learning how to. 
Secondly, you need to reject the false equivalency between confrontation and conflict. Yes, there is an area of intersection in this Venn Diagram, but the space is much greater where confrontation and conflict are entirely separate. They are not one and the same.
THE BENEFITS OF CONFRONTATION
An obvious benefit of confrontation is getting what you want from that difficult conversation- the raise, the promotion, the green light for that new project. But regardless of the result of the confrontation, there are great benefits to simply engaging in it. By simply addressing that difficult conversation, you:
- Exhibit transparency
- Develop respect
- Deepen your relationship
- Demonstrate leadership
- Build trust
This does not mean that all these conversations will go well or that people will appreciate them in the moment or ever for that matter. But by the simple act of engaging that confrontation, you have exhibited that you are a leader, that you are honest, and that you want to do what it takes to get it done, despite how unpopular that may be. Perhaps most importantly, you can hold your head high knowing you faced your fear and did a difficult thing that far too many people do not bring themselves to do.
DEVELOPING CONFRONTATION SKILLS
You cannot and should not jump into learning confrontation skills until you have worked on the mindset piece first. It will not benefit you to know how to engage in difficult conversations if you have not yet confronted what is holding you back, so start there. Commit to working through what challenges you have and accepting that this is a skill that you can get better at through that commitment and investment. Once you have done that, the rest will be easy and so worthwhile!
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