As the school year starts, I am experiencing an uptick in requests to give sessions on effective communication and especially in having hard conversations. The requests are to help attendees learn how to hold colleagues accountable to expectations and standards or around the implementation of initiatives and strategic plan goals. How might I assist leaders in developing their skillset around how to speak up when performance isn’t at an acceptable level?

I applaud leaders who make the connection that performance issues often are communication issues and then reach out for help. Being able to have a hard conversation is an important skill to develop for everyone working in schools. I truly believe it is a collective responsibility to speak up when something is educationally or professionally unsound, physically unsafe, or emotionally damaging. We need everyone to build up the skillset to have humane and growth-producing conversations.

And, yet we might need to back up the truck a bit, so to speak. The question I ask first, way before we learn how to have hard conversations is, “Does everyone really know what is expected?” Because clarity comes before accountability. We need to have clarifying discussions before any hard conversation happens.

Jennifer Abrams is facilitating session PC17 | Having Hard Conversations at the Learning Forward 2025 Annual Conference on December 7, 9 a.m.-4 p.m., Eastern. Preconference sessions include a midday break. Session selection is open online.

Author Blaine Lee has it right. “Almost all conflict is a result of violated expectations.” Have the expectations been made clear? From your vantage point, the expectations might have been violated, but were they ever made clear to the other person before the perceived violation took place? Or were they just expectations in your mind?

Educators push back on me. How much clarity is needed, for goodness sake? We hire accomplished professionals. Shouldn’t they “know better?” How much spoon feeding is necessary? I acknowledge the frustration and then ask, “Do you want to be right or effective?” If you truly haven’t made sure the expectations are clear — and reflect Brene Brown’s words that “clear is kind” — then it is not fair nor helpful to have a hard conversation. Start two feet in the present and be clear.

In both my workshops and my first book, I devote significant time to this topic of clarity. From my experiences working in schools, these are three places in our day-to-day interactions where more clarity can assist us in being more effective, productive, and collaborative:

  • School savvy: Does the district or school have expectations around dress code, email etiquette, social media, norms of collaboration, etc.? I once mentioned to new teachers to be “respectful, courteous, and timely,” and never did I fully explain what I meant by “timely.” That was not helpful, and I did not get responses back by the time I thought they should be returned to me. I realized it was on me to give a specific time by which something needed to be done and a deadline for the form to be returned.
  • Professionalism: We often see the word “professional” written as an expectation in a rubric or state standard, but have we provided details around expected behaviors and actions that professionals exhibit in workplace settings, such as in collaborative teams or meetings with families? I’ve seen groups use norms for collaboration from Thinking Collaborative or protocols from National School Reform Faculty. My book, Stretching Your Learning Edges: Growing (Up) at Work (Miravia, 2021) also takes a deep dive into the mindsets, capacities, and skills of a professional in an educational context in order to articulate the capabilities expected from a professional, such as the ability to suspend certainty and the expectation to manage discomfort around disappointment.
  • Curricular and/or instructional goal setting: The changes that districts indicate they want to see, such as adding rigor in instruction, adding cultural responsiveness to curriculum, increasing the use of technology in lessons, or achieving success in leveraging data use for student achievement, are good goals, but too broad to activate. The roles, actions, processes, and deadlines need to be spelled out for improvement initiatives to gain traction.

 

I admit, like most humans, I have been unclear. Working to improve my leadership communication is something I am never going to be finished with. Because it’s easy to fall back into using shortcuts, glossing over details, and being vague. Yet, when we do this, it’s a disservice to those who are striving to be successful, and depend on us for good information. As an author, I get prompted by editors to add specifics in order to convey information that is insightful, actionable, and growth-oriented. I have been asked many times for even more details by new teachers who strive to be successful, but my lack of actionable explanation leaves them frustrated. It’s a balance. We don’t want to patronize by being too nitty gritty or be too irritating by being too hazy or unclear. And yet clarity is the winning side on which to land.

It takes time to articulate your programs, your norms, your expectations. It requires more analytical thinking and more detail-oriented work. Yet, once we have invested the time, and are clearer with our expectations, we are standing on more solid ground. We don’t want to get to where Neil Strauss cautions we might, “Unspoken expectations are premeditated resentments.” Clarity first. With it, increased trust, increased consistency, and reduced conflict. Then accountability and with it the learning session on having hard conversations can follow.