Communicating Bad News The Right Way
It’s the rare executive who actually enjoys speaking before groups of people, even under the best of circumstances. Public speaking routinely ranks highest
on people’s list of fears. Add the pressure of having to deliver bad news to good people,
and even the most confident executive can stumble.
Every employee has a horror story about a manager’s inability to relate bad news. One new manager tried to quell questions from anxious employees about their jobs by denying the obvious: he’d been hired to make changes. When that statement was met with skepticism, he explained,