Conflicts at work are inevitable. They’re as present in the workplace as computers, coffee makers, and conference rooms. So, while you can avoid dealing with conflicts, you cannot avoid conflicts.
Relationships are the foundation for everything that happens in the workplace, and the quality of relationships has a significant impact on organizational outcomes. So, the way that you, as a leader, handle work relationships during times of conflict matters immensely. Your ability to master this workplace skill directly impacts performance—on your team, in your department, and throughout your organization. It also directly impacts you. An inability to be relationship-savvy can be crippling to your business and, over time, stall your career.
That’s why one of the chief skills we teach CEOs, executives and other senior leaders during our Mastering Leadership Dynamics™ program is how to build and manage relationships during conflicts.
During Mastering Leadership Dynamics, we help leaders recognize when they are in a conflict—which isn’t always obvious—and how to more accurately define what the conflict is about for them, distinct from what the conflict may be about for the other person. We also help leaders learn how to keep the conflict about the conflict and not about the other person involved.
In a recent Mastering Leadership Dynamics course, I worked with an executive, Simon, who described a conflict with a direct report, Lydia. (Yes, I’ve changed the names of the individuals involved.) The basis of the conflict: Simon wanted Lydia to be more innovative—and it wasn’t happening.
Simon was so frustrated with Lydia’s lack of innovation that he was considering transferring Lydia to a different department, just to get rid of her.
Thanks to Mastering Leadership Dynamics, Simon realized his conflict with Lydia was largely one of his own creation. For instance, he recognized that he hadn’t clearly defined his expectations to Lydia, nor had he told Lydia that he wanted her to be innovative. When Simon returned to work after Mastering Leadership Dynamics, he sat down with Lydia and had the direct, open and employee-empowering conversation with her that he should have conducted months earlier.
After their talk, the relationship between Simon and Lydia quickly changed. Not only did Simon discover that Lydia possessed the ability and capacity to bring out-of-the-box ideas to him, but his conflict with her evaporated almost overnight.
