HOW TO SPEAK UP WITHOUT DAMAGING THE RELATIONSHIP

You’re sitting in the conversation.

You’re clear there’s something you need to say.

Externally you’re nodding your head, but internally, your voice is alive: “I don’t agree with them. There’s a different way I see to move forward. But I know how I share and speak this stuff with people. I’m going to push them away. I can’t make it land the way I want to. I’m better off shutting up.”

You feel yourself pull back. Allowing their truth to fill the space at the expense of your own.

You know where this tends to lead: relationships that are either blown up, or stuck on the surface.

We all carry a truth within us, moment by moment. Truth is that which is there for us to say.

This form of truth is not a capital T truth. It’s what you see, what you care about and what feels necessary to name.

Holding a truth that is in contradiction with whatever is happening external to yourself creates tension.

Holding these two things alive at the same time is the tension that you are probably already alive to in your life.

In learning how to be competent and proficient in leadership, people tend to collapse this tension in one of two ways.

The first way to collapse the tension is to make yourself invisible in service of the other.

Here are some common thoughts that are expressions of this collapse:

• “What I have to say isn’t really that relevant anyway”;
• “No one really wants to hear what I have to say”; and
• “I’ll just turn them off me anyhow, even if I did say something. Better to stay quiet”

Many people start at this pole.

This is like going along to get along with people. You bury your truth, and in doing so, you make sure that you are well-liked, don’t rock the boat, get along well with others, and so on.

You keep the peace, ensure you’re well-liked but build resentment internally. Over the long-term you create self-betrayal. It’s a loss of your own sovereignty, and over time, a lack of ability to feel your own desire. Life and relationships end up filled with a low-grade frustration and resentment.

The other side of this polarity is where you collapse the tension by focusing entirely on self, and eliminating concern for the other person.

Some of the ways this sound are:

• “I’m just a truth teller, if you don’t like it, that’s fine by me”;
• “It’s not my job to be concerned with your opinion of me”; and
• “I’m not really too worried what other people think of me”

You get to feel powerful, speak your truth, and avoid vulnerability. The long-term impact of this path is justified loneliness. You justify having less relationships as time goes on, because you tell yourself that’s the cost of being true. You end up isolated and righteous about the isolation.

Down the first pole, you set aside yourself to accept the truth of others. Down the second pole, you set aside others to honour your own truth.

People often hang out in the first side of this collapse before moving across to the second.

At least you’re no longer censoring yourself down this side.

Leaders that can create more leaders don’t eliminate this tension.

They don’t rush to resolution.

They don’t dominate.

They don’t disappear.

They deepen their capacity to sit with the tension and hold it.

Before that integration, the conversation looks like:

“How do I say this without losing them?” and

“How do I put this forward so that they can’t argue?”

And integrating this work, the conversation shifts to something like:

“I’m willing to offer what I have. And I’m willing to receive what is offered.”

Power in leadership isn’t force. It’s the ability to hold both truths simultaneously, and sit in the tension that creates.

The next time you feel the urge to disappear, or to dominate — pause.

The tension isn’t the problem.

The collapse is.