Short answers drawn from Ross Mercer’s Practical Leadership books. Each page starts with the answer, then gives the words to use, what to avoid, and the sources behind every figure.
Give negative feedback in private, early, and with specifics: name two or three concrete examples, explain the impact, state the one change you need, then ask what is making it hard. Describe behavior, not character (“the last three reports didn’t reconcile,” not “you’re careless”) and book a check-in one to two weeks out.
Start a difficult conversation by naming the topic in your first sentence, with no small talk, and giving one specific, observable fact: “I want to talk about the last two milestones. Both slipped.” Then flag any assumption as an assumption, ask what is going on, and stop talking long enough to hear the answer.
A first-time manager should know three things before a first difficult conversation: the dread is normal and no reason to wait; most hard talks are simple corrections that need specifics, one clear change, and a check-in; and a few topics, such as firing, layoffs, health, pregnancy, harassment, or pay, need HR or an employment attorney first.
A performance improvement plan (PIP) is a formal, written plan that gives an employee specific, measurable goals, a fixed timeline, named support, and a clear statement of what happens if the bar is or isn’t met. Build it with HR, use it only after informal conversations have failed, and deliver it as a real path to succeed.
Tell the employee yourself, in private, before the decision is announced. Name the outcome in your first sentence, give two or three specific reasons the role went elsewhere, then pause and let them react. Only after that, lay out a concrete path to the next opportunity, or say honestly if this track isn’t the right one.
Talk to your team about AI changes in a live meeting, as soon as you can say something specific. Tell them what is changing, what is not, what you don’t know yet, and when you’ll report back. Name the hard part before anyone asks, keep your tone level, and follow up in writing the same day.
When an employee fears AI will replace their job, answer the fear directly. Say plainly what the tool will and won’t do in their work, name the judgment they bring that it doesn’t touch, and don’t promise their job is safe if you can’t control that. Promise what is yours to keep: honesty, early information, support to learn, and fairness.
A stay interview is a short, one-on-one conversation in which a manager asks a valued employee what keeps them on the team and what might pull them away, while they still work there and the answers can still change something. It is not a performance review or a survey. It only works if the manager follows up visibly.
Ask open questions that can’t be answered with “fine”: what would make you think about leaving, when your work last felt like it mattered, the best and most frustrating part of your week, one thing you’d change, and what you miss doing. Ask one at a time, follow the thread, and treat every answer as information, not a threat.
The most reliable signs are changes from that person’s own normal: a strong contributor who stops pushing back, withdrawal from work they used to care about, the unrequested extras going quiet, and a new sharpness about fairness or credit. None of these proves anything. Treat a sign as a prompt for a warm conversation, never as evidence.
A decision log should include the date, the decision in one sentence, the options you considered and rejected, what you expect to happen stated specifically enough to be wrong, your reasoning and key assumption, your confidence, and a revisit date. At the revisit, record what happened, whether the call was sound given what you knew, and one change.
Decide on the information you can get in time, not the information you wish you had. Split what you don’t know into what a bounded effort could find out and what nobody can know yet, think in ranges instead of single numbers, lean toward the option you can undo, and set a date and signal to check.
Ask what it would cost to undo the decision if it turns out wrong, in time, money, and trust. If you can walk it back cheaply, it is reversible and deserves a fast call; if undoing it is costly or impossible, it is irreversible and earns deliberate time, even when it looks small.