Leadership

Employee resists additional responsibility

Intermediate · 20 minutes

Situation brief

You want a capable employee to lead a cross-functional update. They say this is extra work without support and indicate they may refuse.

Your role

Manager planning to delegate a visible new responsibility

Counterparty

Capable employee who fears overload and career risk

Objective

Explore resistance, clarify development value and agree a supported responsibility plan.

Constraints

The task matters, but workload capacity and psychological safety must be respected.

Evaluation criteria

Emotional intelligence Clarity of communication Accountability Coaching mindset Psychological safety Decision orientation

Before you begin

Purpose

Practise the judgement, wording and next-step discipline required in a realistic business conversation.

Psychological safety

This is a practice environment. Respond naturally rather than trying to write a perfect textbook answer.

How to respond

Write what you would actually say in the meeting. Specific examples, questions and commitments score better than theory.

Debrief

After the roleplay, you will complete a short reflection and receive a score, transcript, feedback and action plan.