Best Practice

Professional development: How to receive fierce conversations

CPD Senior leadership Middle leadership Teaching staff
Much has been written & discussed about delivering difficult conversations as a leader, but not as much has been said about how to receive them. Caroline Sherwood offers her reflections based around the seven principles of Susan Scott's Fierce Conversations


It is a rare day that I don’t have the book Fierce Conversations by Susan Scott (2002) in my work bag.

It considers how to have conversations that really count. The Fierce approach is built on a single premise – what gets talked about in a company, how it gets talked about, and who is invited to the conversation determines what will happen. And what won’t happen.

When your business is education, those conversations can change lives. Now more than ever.

Scott defines “fierce” as robust, intense, strong, powerful and passionate. And if we pause to consider the antonym of “fierce” we have: apathetic, indifferent, quiet and gentle.

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