Leading the “Critical Conversation”: Surgeon Leadership in HR

Abstract

As one increasingly takes on supervisory roles during the advancement of their academic career, there tends to be a shift from mostly managing themselves to increasingly managing others to function as a team. In both situations, whether you are the supervisor or the supervisee, you will have situations arise that you may find challenging to discuss and optimally resolve. A surgeon’s training typically focuses on improving technical skills, with very little training on conflict resolution and how to best manage difficult conversations. As such, conversations that should occur often never do, resulting in a worsening of the problems and increased levels of frustration. Developing a successful strategy for having these conversations can be beneficial at all levels of one’s career. The goal of this chapter is to begin outlining an approach to having critical conversations allowing for a more productive and positive interface with your colleagues and co-workers.