Coaching practices for The Confidence Competence Loop During Conflict

Describe almost anything you are working through and IX Coach finds the practices whose real-world fit is closest. For The Confidence Competence Loop During Conflict, these are the strongest matches in the current practice library.

Does this sound like the set of challenges you might be facing?

  • I feel completely sure about this decision, which is honestly starting to make me nervous
  • When something doesn’t land the way I hoped, I write the whole thing off as a failure and myself along with it
  • There’s a real call that has to be made right now with no time to build consensus, and I keep softening it and hedging to keep everyone happy
  • Something’s genuinely wrong here and there’s no time to coax everyone to a comfortable yes
  • I came in hard because the situation called for it, but partway through the urgent part got settled and the other person clearly just needed to feel heard

Practices that may help

  1. The Confidence–Competence Loop
    Genuine confidence is not a prerequisite for action — it is a byproduct of repeated, skill-building experience. The confidence–competence loop describes how small, deliberate actions grow skill, which grows evidence of ability, which grows the willingness to act again.
  2. Ask 'What am I missing?' before major decisions
    Treat a confident feeling before a high-stakes decision as a cue to check what your competence map is omitting.
    Circle of Competence
  3. Reframe feedback from outcome to process
    After any outcome — good or bad — ask "what did I do well?" before "how did it go?"
    The Confidence–Competence Loop
  4. Use Competing when speed or safety matters more than buy-in
    Competing — high assertive, low cooperative — is appropriate when the decision is urgent, high-stakes, and not open for debate.
    The Thomas–Kilmann Conflict Mode Instrument (TKI)
  5. Competing (assertive, uncooperative)
    Pursue your own position firmly when speed, principle, or stakes outweigh the relationship cost.
    The Five Conflict-Resolution Styles
  6. Recognize when to shift modes mid-conflict
    The mode that’s right at the start of a conversation may not be right ten minutes in.
    The Thomas–Kilmann Conflict Mode Instrument (TKI)
  7. Identify your default conflict mode
    Before you can choose a mode, you have to know which one you use automatically.
    The Thomas–Kilmann Conflict Mode Instrument (TKI)
  8. Use fierce self-compassion to stay in hard conversations
    Stay present in conflict by meeting your own distress with compassion, so you don't flee or attack.
    Fierce Self-Compassion, Made Practical
  9. Recognize when your identity is being threatened — not just your position
    Conversations escalate when they trigger a challenge to who you think you are, not just what you did.
    Looping for Understanding (Difficult Conversations)
  10. Look for contribution, not blame
    Almost every conflict has contributions from both sides — finding yours changes the conversation.
    Looping for Understanding (Difficult Conversations)

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