Lead Change is a leadership media destination with a unique editorial focus on driving change within organizations, teams, and individuals. Lead Change, a division of Weaving Influence, publishes twice monthly with SmartBrief. Today’s post is by Chuck Wisner.

Conversations with the boss are challenging. In your mind, you have a perfectly reasonable desire: more money, the opportunity to continue working from home, space to complain about a co-worker or extra time off. But “up conversations,” the conversations you have with someone up the hierarchical chain, are fraught with pitfalls. Hierarchical power struggles taint these interactions. Power imbalances, conflict avoidance, the fear of emotions and dysfunctional communication patterns are common barriers to respectful, mutually beneficial exchanges.

As Amanda Gorman so beautifully said in her inaugural poem, “When day comes, we ask ourselves, where can we find light in this never-ending shade?

How did we the people stray so far from truth? The tribalism of today’s politics has created warring factions (far-left woke posturers vs. radical-right propagandists) that routinely assault truth, reason, and tolerance. It’s more difficult than ever to have a conversation grounded in reality.

The stories we hold and tell in life bring us happiness, sorrow, and war. In the current hot political landscape, storytelling has run amok!

Every day we wake up, and conversations begin to flow. “How can it be 7 am? I feel like I’ve been hit by a truck!”, “Sweetie, did you sleep well?”, “That 10 o’clock meeting is going to be brutal.” “I better get my butt in gear.”