8.2 Approaches to communicating bad news

Indirect vs. Direct Approach

There are two ways to approach communicating bad news, depending on the situation, audience, your role, and all the other communication variables: a direct approach and an indirect approach. In the figure below the two arrows represent the two approaches. The arrow pointing to the left is the indirect approach, while the arrow facing the right is labeled “direct” approach. We discuss each one in the following pages.

Figure 8.1 is derived from “Bad News” available at Communication for Professionals by Susan Oaks, licensed under CC BY-NC: Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International, unless otherwise noted.

This section is adapted from “Bad News” available at Communication for Professionals by Susan Oaks, licensed under CC BYNC: Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International, unless otherwise noted.