The Pillars Will Hold

On what to say when the hardest conversation of your year can’t wait any longer.

She knew.

She knew the moment he asked — casually, ten days into the job — if she had a copy of the job description. She knew when he showed up an hour late to the meeting she’d scheduled to let him go. She knew before any of that, if she’s honest. She knew in the interview. She knew in the first week.

She knew. And she spent two weeks talking herself out of what she knew.

Did I give him enough direction? Enough support? Enough time? Did I set him up to succeed?

This is what we do. Not because we’re weak or indecisive. Because we’re human. Because we care. Because the thought of causing someone pain — even someone who has clearly not delivered — triggers something in us that would rather find fault with ourselves than act on what we know.

But underneath all of that self-questioning, the knowing was still there.

BUT I KNOW.

She said it exactly like that. In capital letters, if you could hear capital letters. And the moment she said it, everything else fell away. The self-doubt, the guilt, the questions. What remained was the truth she’d been carrying all along.

The question was no longer whether. It was how.

When a leader knows what needs to happen — a firing, a performance conversation, a difficult piece of feedback that has been avoided too long — the challenge is rarely the decision itself. The decision has usually been made. The challenge is the conversation.

Specifically: staying in the truth of that conversation when everything around you is trying to pull you out of it.

The person receiving the news may become angry. Or tearful. Or they may argue, justify, explain, or appeal to your relationship. Any one of those responses can trigger the very thing that has been delaying this conversation — your own discomfort, guilt, or desire to make the pain stop.

And when that happens, most leaders do one of two things. They over-explain — trying to justify the decision until it sounds like an apology. Or they soften it — leaving the other person uncertain about what just happened and why.

Neither of those serves the person receiving the news. And neither of them serves you.

What serves both of you is clarity. Delivered with care. Held steady no matter what comes back at you.

That is what the Three Pillars are for.

WHY THIS IS AN ACT OF CARE

I want to say something about what the Three Pillars actually are — because it might not be obvious.

They are not a tool for protecting yourself from a difficult conversation. They are a tool for being fully present in one.

When a leader knows their three pillars and trusts that they will hold, something shifts. The anxiety of “what do I say if they cry” or “what if they argue” or “what if I freeze” dissolves. Because the answer to all of those questions is the same: you come back to the pillar.

That freedom — from having to manage your own reaction in real time — is what allows you to be genuinely present with the person in front of you. To look them in the eye. To deliver difficult news with dignity rather than defensiveness.

The most humane thing you can do in a hard conversation is tell the truth clearly and hold it steady.

Not because clarity is easy. Because clarity is kind.

When someone is losing their job, they deserve to know it definitively. Not to leave the meeting wondering if there’s still a chance. Not to receive ten minutes of explanation that sounds like an apology for a decision you’re not actually apologizing for. The truth, delivered cleanly, with care — that is a gift. Even when it doesn’t feel like one in the moment.

I have used the Three Pillars with leaders navigating terminations, performance conversations, difficult feedback, and boundary-setting with clients or partners who have overstepped.

But the more I work with this tool, the more I understand that its real application is broader than any single conversation.

Most of us — leaders, women, humans navigating relationships of any kind — spend an enormous amount of energy managing other people’s reactions to our truth. We soften what we say. We over-explain. We take responsibility for how our honesty lands.

The Three Pillars are a practice in something much deeper than a termination script. They are a practice in trusting your own knowing enough to stay with it — even when the pressure to abandon it is real and human and coming from someone you care about.

You already know what needs to be said.

The pillars help you say it. And keep saying it. Until it lands.

“I needed those three pillars. Now I will always have them.”

That’s what this work is for. Not the framework itself — but what the framework makes possible. A leader who walks into the hardest conversation of her year and comes out the other side knowing she told the truth. Cleanly. With care. Without flinching.

The pillars held. They always do.

If there’s a conversation you’ve been putting off — one you already know needs to happen — this is where the work begins.

I’ll be in touch when something worth saying arrives.