One of the biggest obstacles managers face when it comes to holding employees accountable is that managers are afraid of having difficult confrontations with their employees. Managers say to me all the time, "I don't want to push hard because I'm afraid of having a difficult confrontation."

The myth is: If you soft-pedal your authority with your employees then you can avoid having difficult confrontations. The irony is: The more you soft-pedal your authority the more you make these difficult confrontations inevitable.

If you soft-pedal your authority, that means you're probably not making expectations clear and that means it's more likely that employees are going to go in the wrong direction. If you soft-pedal your authority, it means small problems are going to slide and then they're going to fester and grow and turn into big problems. If you soft-pedal your authority, it means by the time you have the conversation with an employee the problem has probably gotten big enough to where there are real consequences and maybe you're frustrated, and even angry.

You're not going to be at your best.

And when you go talk to that employee, well, maybe you haven't been talking about this particular element of the work so you haven't built up a rapport with the employee by talking about this element of the work. And maybe the employee is going to think, 'You don't have all the facts' and you'll think, 'Yeah, I don't have all the facts.' Maybe the employee is going to think, 'You didn't make it clear' and you'll think, 'Well, that's true, maybe I didn't make it clear.' Maybe you will start to second guess yourself. And neither of you is going to be at your best.

These conversations are almost doomed to become difficult confrontations.

The only way to avoid difficult confrontations with employees is to have lots of boring conversations about the work before anything goes right, wrong or average. If you want to avoid difficult confrontations, you've got to make a commitment to having lots of boring conversations.

The more often you talk with your employees in order to spell out expectations; the more often you talk with your employees to ask for a simple account of their performance; the more often you have these boring conversations; the less likely it is that you'll ever have to have a difficult confrontation.

BONUS MANAGEMENT BEST PRACTICE
Do you currently manage any direct-reports whose behavior at work you would like to change? How many? List them. Next to each name, answer the following questions: What behavior would you like that person to STOP doing? What behavior would you like that person to START doing instead?

One by one, take each person and each behavior you want that person to START doing. For each one, do the following:

Describe the behavior you want that person to START doing. Can you describe that behavior as a best practice? Write the standard operating procedure for following that best practice. Now make a check-list spelling out step-by-step how to follow that standard operating procedure. How would you use the check-list to teach the standard operating procedure? How would you help your employee use the check-list to remember the standard operating procedure? How could you help your employee use the check-list as a self-monitoring tool to help you both keep track of his/her improvement on this behavior?