Have you ever laid awake replaying a conversation with a tricky colleague, wondering if you were the one completely out of order? If you’re a high achiever in a leadership role, you know the dilemma – you don’t want to be the bad guy, so you avoid the awkward chat, pick up everyone else’s slack, and say yes when you mean no. Then it leaks out at the worst possible moment.
In this fun episode, I play Am I the A**hole? with Leanne and Al Elliott from Truth, Lies and Work. I read out workplace dilemmas, and they give their verdicts – the nurse who keeps leaving early, the WhatsApp Work group from hell, the dreaded “can I have a quick word?”, Gary the people-pleasing team leader, and yes, someone watching rather dodgy videos on a train.
You’ll come away with the exact words to use when you need to raise something, why “no, and…” beats a plain no, and why your job as a leader is not to be nice, it’s to be clear. You’ll also meet a new species we name in the episode: the accidental arsehole – where our ingrained programming tells us we have to please everyone all the time to feel good enough, so we duck the conversation and it will affect your next decision, and the one after that.
Fair warning: fruity language in this one, so maybe not for the school run. And all scenarios are made up and stitched together from training stories – none is about anyone specific. Even if you’ve definitely got a Greta.
We cover:
- Am I the a**hole? How the game exposes why caring leaders duck hard chats
- The colleague who leaves early: the exact curious words to open a difficult conversation without judgment
- The WhatsApp group row: why it’s on you to set your boundary
- Gary the people-pleaser: Drama Triangle, rescuing, and the MoSCoW way to hand work back before leave
- “Heard, held or helped?”, “no, and…” and “I can’t now, but I can at…” – phrases that make saying no doable
- The accidental arsehole: how avoidance, not harshness, creates most workplace conflict
This episode is for you if… you are a high achiever in a high stakes leadership role who has to have the conversation nobody else will, has to make the call someone disagrees with, and lies awake replaying a decision you had to make. If you say yes when you mean no and then feel resentful after, this will help you see what’s actually happening and carry it differently.
Al Elliott
