Leading difficult conversations with compassion
Join Dr Claire McKie in this Leadership Academy Webinar, offering a practical, human lens for approaching feedback conversations. Dr McKie works with individuals and teams to help them recognise, understand and respond to emotions in ways that strengthen connection and culture.
Feedback conversations are essential parts of work, and life. Whether we’re giving or receiving, feedback conversations come with lots of feelings. Stress, frustration, defensiveness, fear – these emotions arise on both sides.
In a healthcare system where time is limited and demands are high, these emotionally charged conversations can take a real toll. They drain energy, strain relationships, and impact the wellbeing of both parties. And too often, they’re avoided altogether.
Yet how we feel before stepping into these conversations shapes everything – what we say, how we say it, and how it’s received. But we rarely make space to reflect on this emotional dimension of feedback.
This session offers a practical, human lens for approaching feedback conversations in a way that’s more emotionally aware, relationally grounded, and sustainable. By strengthening self-awareness and emotional insight, we can make feedback easier to give, more effective, and less exhausting.
Speaker
Dr Claire McKie
Consultant Geriatrician and Supervisor of Intern Training, Barwon Health
Through her clinical work and experience in medical education, Dr McKie has seen how the emotional undercurrents of work shape everything – how people think, communicate, lead and care for others. She works with individuals and teams to help them recognise, understand and respond to emotions in ways that strengthen connection and culture – helping people navigate difficult conversations and build workplaces where people, and performance, can thrive.
