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It's important to prepare for difficult conversations, but when managers do so with the wrong mindset it undermines their results, a behavioural specialist says.

Approaching conversations with a "fight" mindset means so much time is spent gathering information and evidence that the team member becomes an "opponent", and the leader's emotional brain takes over, EI and human behaviour specialist Amy Jacobson says in her new book, The Emotional Intelligence Advantage.

"Chances are there will be very little listening and more just waiting to talk... We don't even think about the outcome we are looking to achieve or that there could possibly be a reasonable explanation. That is all pushed aside as the need to be right and 'win' takes over."

This overpreparing "kills us!", Jacobson says. "We become robotlike on a mission," and it's not a mission that will yield the best results...