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Master 5 Tough Conversations in Management

Hosted by Kelly Vaughn

Wed, Jul 16, 2025

4:30 PM UTC (30 minutes)

Virtual (Zoom)

Free to join

301 students

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Go deeper with a course

Engineering Leadership in the AI Era
Kelly Vaughn
View syllabus

What you'll learn

How to manage like a leader, and think like a therapist

Build skills to make the most impact with your team by balancing decisive leadership with empathy and accountability.

How to set clear expectations without micromanaging

Learn how to align on ownership, outcomes, and success metrics, while empowering your team to build confidence.

How to deliver feedback that builds trust, not resentment

Master giving both positive and constructive feedback that will drive meaningful action in 1:1s, retros, and realtime.

How to navigate tough conversations and come out stronger

Gain the confidence to address missed deadlines, team tension, or underperformance without making thinks awkward.

Why this topic matters

Many managers have potential but lack conversational skills to lead with confidence. While AI assists with many tasks, difficult conversations require distinctly human skills—empathy, intuition, authentic connection. This session uses engineering leadership and therapy experience to turn tough conversations into trust-building moments through skills AI can't replicate.

You'll learn from

Kelly Vaughn

Sr. Engineering Manager @ Zapier & Trained Therapist

Over the past decade, Kelly has helped hundreds of engineers and ICs grow into confident, effective leaders. Drawing on her background as a trained therapist, she offers unique insights into management challenges. Her practical, no-fluff approach is built on firsthand experience leading cross-functional teams across product, engineering, and operations.

Trusted by employees at

Spotify
Salesforce
CarMax
Meta
Slack

Learn directly from Kelly Vaughn

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