What Leaders Get Wrong About External Pushback w/ Jeff Wetherhold

About this episode

In this episode, Shayna Davis and Jeff Wetherhold discuss how leaders can better handle external pushback in high-stakes conversations.

Most leaders walk into high-stakes external conversations thinking the goal is to win the argument. It’s not. And if that’s your approach, you’re already losing. In this episode, I sit down with Jeff Wetherhold — a behavioral science researcher, change management expert, and faculty member with the Institute for Healthcare Improvement — to break down what’s actually happening when leaders face pushback from external audiences. Jeff holds a master’s in education from Harvard University and brings over twenty years of experience training leaders to navigate the high-pressure conversations that determine whether trust is built or broken. His approach is grounded in motivational interviewing, adapted specifically for the moments that matter most — media interviews, investor conversations, client engagements, and public-facing leadership. Let’s keep it real: the stakes for leaders communicating outside their organizations have never been higher. And most of them are not prepared. Not because they don’t know their product or their company — but because they don’t know how to listen, how to respond to skepticism without amplifying it, and…

People in this episode

Host: Shayna Rattler Davis

Guest: Jeff Wetherhold

Topics covered

• leadership
• external pushback
• communication
• behavioral science
• motivational interviewing
• trust building

Keywords

• leadership
• external conversations
• pushback
• motivational interviewing
• trust
• communication skills

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Institute for Healthcare Improvement, Harvard University

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