title: The Hard Conversations That Get Managers Promoted
author: Bash's Leadership Breakdown
publication: YouTube
published: 2026-01-20T00:00:00
sourceurl: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=95sd8JQveQ
word_count: 2909
If you want to get promoted, you need to be willing to make your team hate you. After 13 years as a manager and now a director, I've noticed one thing. The managers who never get promoted are always the ones trying to keep everyone happy. So, in this video, I'm going to show you the simple shifts that help you stop avoiding conflict and start having the hard conversations that will land you your next promotion. So, how will your employees hating you help you have hard conversations and get you promoted? Well, the method that I'm going to show you is actually going to earn your employees respect in the long run. So, the answer isn't just being an that bulldozes people. But for that to make sense, I need to show you the massive mistake most managers make when having these highstakes conversations that prevent them from being seen as leadership material. So, what is this mistake and how do you avoid it? Well, to show you how this works, I'll show you how I made this very mistake in my first few years managing when I lost a great assistant manager. This assistant manager, Scotty, was smart, well-liked, and always went above and beyond what was expected of him. We worked for a company that paid like garbage, and we had a great personal trainer who was super qualified, but pretty underpaid. To make ends meet, she started taking payments from some clients under the table. Scotty knew about it, and in his head, it wasn't a huge ethical thing. He was just trying to keep a good trainer from quitting. And then when I found out, I handled it badly. Like really badly. When I talked to him about it, he was covering a break for a child care attendant just in the child care area. And instead of pulling him aside or setting up a real conversation, I just walked up to the entrance and started laying into him about it. I wasn't prepared. I hadn't thought it through. And I let my frustration take over. I even compared him to someone that we had fired just a few months before, who that guy had done the same thing, taking money under the table, but he had got fired for way worse reasons and was just a total dirt bag. So lumping those two together was completely unfair. You could see it hit him immediately. He quit not long after that because I embarrassed him and I made it personal. Even though I was in the right with enforcing the policy, I handled it wrong. But that moment taught me something I didn't quite understand at the moment. When you avoid tough talks and getting clear with good preparation, you don't spare people. You usually just hurt the good ones first. So, if you want to move up to the next level, you need to learn to prepare for those tough conversations. So, how do you do that? Well, it's super critical that you do this in the right order. But don't worry about remembering all this because I made a cheat sheet for this whole video you can download in the link below. But you don't have this talk in the moment, and you definitely don't do it in public. You plan the conversation. You pick a quiet place. You do it one-on-one. And you choose a time where neither of you is rushed or heated. The goal is to remove the feeling of exposure because once someone feels put on the spot, they stop listening. Once the setting is right, you use this simple framework called SBI to keep yourself grounded and the conversation clean. So, you basically start by naming the situation so you're both talking about the same moment. Then, you describe the behavior you observe, sticking to what actually happened. After that, you explain the impact connecting the behavior to real consequences like risk, trust, or results. So, it comes out sounding like in Tuesday's shift, you allowed off thebook payments, and that put the company and you at risk and undermines trust on the team. That's what keeps the conversation from getting defensive. SBI keeps it factual instead of personal. So, this week, choose one conversation you've been putting off and schedule it intentionally in a quiet setting and walk through SBI in that order. When you do this consistently, leadership starts to see that you can handle real issues without creating unnecessary fallout. And that's exactly the signal they look for when they promote someone to the next level. But even using the SBI framework, in that situation with Scotty, there was one more step I could have taken that prevented him from quitting. And when you start taking this step I'm about to show you, not only will you prevent people from getting defensive, but it actually builds the trust you need in your team to be seen as promotion ready. So, how can you do this? The thing is, Scotty didn't know if I was trying to help him or catch him doing something wrong. So, even perfect clarity wouldn't have landed. It would have just sounded like criticism delivered more cleanly. How's that saying go if you polish a turn? That's when I learned the second lesson. Clarity alone doesn't create buyin. People don't change because you're right. They change when they believe you're on their side and you understand them. If you're right, but people don't feel safe, you lose influence. So promotable managers keep trust while still challenging the behavior. So how do you do that? After you've been clear about the issue, this is how you keep the conversation from turning defensive. You name the intent and context so the person at least feels seen. So you're not excusing the behavior, but you're showing you understand what was driving it. So you say something like, "I know you were just trying to keep her around because the pay has been rough, and I know you've already been advocating for her. I get why you were trying to help, but then you hold the line. You don't soften the standard and you don't change the expectation. Then you follow it up with, at the same time, we can't solve that problem this way. It puts you at risk. It puts the company at risk and it creates a precedent that we just can't defend. This is what keeps people engaged instead of shutting down. They don't feel misread and they don't feel attacked. They feel understood and held accountable. So this week, after a tough conversation, I want you to take a moment to name the pressure or intent you believe was behind the decision. Then restate the standard clearly. Do that consistently, and you'll build trust without ever lowering the bar. But sometimes as a manager, you have to be willing to make people on your team hate you, or at least for a little while. But when you do this right though, both your employees and upper management will end up respecting you more and see you as more authoritative. So how can you do this? Well, a great example of someone who's done this extremely well for over 20 years is NBA coach Greg Papovich. Pop isn't known for one big talk that magically fixes everything. He's known for his follow through. He's clear about the standard. He stays involved. And if something slips, he comes back to it, even if it's uncomfortable. And that includes star players. Especially star players. Guys who feel like they're above the team hate being held to the same standard as everyone else. But that doesn't matter to Pop. The standard doesn't change based on talent or status. His follow-up conversations, where he keeps people's feet to the fire, are usually where players don't like him, but it's also where the expectations actually become real. He's not relying on courage or emotion in the moment. He's relying on structure and consistency. And that's why accountability in his system isn't personal. It's predictable, which is why it works. Accountability isn't a singular moment. It's a loop. Promotable managers don't have the talk and hope. They build follow-through that forces change. So, how do you do that? When you have to have one of those difficult follow-up conversations, you need to be willing for them to not like you because you're holding them accountable. Some team members may hate you for it because some people do believe that they can't do anything wrong. But if you handle this well and use what I call the care framework, you'll get through that uncomfortable feeling and be respected on the other side. So, here's how this works. First, you clarify the expectation again. Not because they didn't hear you the first time, but because consistency is what makes the standards feel real. You restate what good looks like and what can't happen again without adding emotion or frustration. Then you ask what they need in order to meet that expectation. To be clear, you're not negotiating the standard here. This is where you're removing excuses. So, do they need support or resources, clarity, more time? When you ask this, you're signaling that you're invested in their success, not just policing the behavior. Next, you redefine the plan. You make it specific. What's changing? Who owns it, and how you'll both know that it's working. Concrete plans create follow-through, and the results you want from them. And finally, you establish checkpoints. This is the part most managers avoid, and this is why things keep slipping back. You name when you'll revisit it and what you'll be looking for. Not to hover, but to just make it predictable. This is where accountability stops feeling personal when people know that it's coming. So this week, think about the one issue that keeps resurfacing. Don't have another serious talk and hope that it lands. Run care instead. That's how you move from managing the moment to leading with structure. And that's what earns long-term respect and promotions. But what happens when that hard conversation you need to have is with your boss? Because when too much work comes from above, most managers don't push back or ask questions, they just say yes to one more project, one more deadline, one more quick thing, and tell themselves they'll just figure it out. Then slowly, without meaning to, they burn themselves out. They burn their team out and start wondering why everything feels harder even though they're working more than ever. So, how do you have a hard conversation with your boss without losing trust or getting labeled as difficult? Well, to explain how this works, I want you to imagine you get three emails asking to book a meeting at the exact same day and time. You wouldn't say yes to all three. If you did, you'd get to that moment and two people would be pissed because you didn't show up. What you would actually do is prioritize. You decide which meeting matters the most, take that one, and then go back to the other two and figure out a better time or a different way to handle it. That's just standard time management. But when our boss asks us to take on something new when we're already heavily committed to something else, we stop doing that. We just say yes, hope that it works out, and let the cost show up later as burnout, missed deadlines, or sloppy work. Managing up is really just doing the same thing you already do with your calendar. Making conflicts visible, prioritizing intentionally, and giving leadership clear options instead of quietly carrying the risk. Managing up is how you protect focus and prove strategic partnership. So, how can you do this? Before I show you this technique, there's a quick little caveat. This only works if your plate is actually full. I'm talking no room to delegate, no obvious priorities to shift, and no hidden capacity you're pretending you don't see. So, think of this tool like a plunger. You don't use it often, but when gets backed up, you're really glad it's there. So, first you want to start by acknowledging the request so your boss knows you're aligned and show that you are willing to take on the work. Then you name what the team is already committed to and you turn that into a clear choice instead of a quiet problem that you carry alone. You want to use what I call a alternative choice question where you present two different options instead of a yes or a no question. So, it's going to sound something like, "Yeah, that makes a ton of sense. We can definitely take that on. Right now, the team is focused on project X, so we can finish that first and then move on to Y or we can pause X and start Y right away. How would you like us to handle it?" So, you're not saying no and you're not arguing about priorities. You're just showing what the team can realistically handle and giving your boss clear choices instead of letting things pile up by accident. At the end of the day, the people we work for are human and sometimes they just don't realize how much is on our team's plate. So, as a leader, it's your responsibility to ensure everything is crystal clear for leadership. This changes you from just taking tasks to actually helping your boss make decisions. When you do this consistently, they stop getting surprised by problems later on. And that's when you stop being seen as someone who just gets work done and start being trusted with bigger responsibility and better judgment. But all the techniques I've shown you so far won't matter if you're making this hidden mistake that most managers make during hard conversations without even realizing it. But by doing what I'm about to show you next, not only will you avoid this costly mistake, but you'll come across more like an executive when you speak. To show you how this works, I'm going to read the exact same two sentences twice. And I want you to pay attention to which one feels like it carries more executive presence in a hard conversation. So here's version A. I want to talk to you about the pattern I'm seeing. It's starting to impact performance and we need to address it. And then here's version B. I want to talk to you about the pattern that I'm seeing. It's starting to impact performance and we need to address it. In the first version, the message is right, but the tension pulls the room away. In the second version, nothing changed except my composure. And suddenly that sounds like leadership. At higher levels, your nervous system is a part of your credibility. Showing calm is a power move and it shows that you're composed and in control. So, how do you do that? Well, here's the most thing people miss about executive presence. It's not about having the right words ready. It's about what your body and your voice do when pressure shows up. So, when things start to feel tense, I'm just running the system I call calm in my head. First, I control my pace. I slow myself down just enough to stop rushing. When you rush, the room feels it immediately. When you take your time, people tend to settle with you. Then I anchor my voice. Just like an anchor holds a boat steady, when the water gets choppy, your voice can steady the room. I let my sentences end with a downward inflection instead of lifting up at the end. When you use upward inflections, it almost sounds like you're asking a question instead of stating your point clearly. After that, I limit my movement. So, less fidgeting, avoid crossing my arms, and I'll plant my feet or sit back in my chair to ground myself so that my posture feels calm and in control. You're okay to use hand gestures as long as they're intentional. Kind of like what I just did right there. I use my hands to do what's called bonking my words. Just don't get crazy with it. And finally, I manage my breath. One slow breath before a hard sentence does more than any confidence trick ever will. It keeps your voice from tightening and gives your nervous system a chance to catch up. And when you do this, you're signaling control and coming across like an executive. People can feel that before they even process your words. So this week, pick one moment that you know is going to carry tension, whether it's a tough update, a push back on a conversation, or a performance issue. Before you speak, run calm. The managers who do this sound like executives and are instantly seen as more in control and more promotable. But sounding like a leader is only half the battle. In order to get promoted, you also have to be able to think like a strategic leader if you want to get promoted. So, go watch this video next where I show you exactly how to think like a strategic manager and get your next promotion.