Leadership Part 5

Professional conflict

You may have noticed that professional conflict can sometimes become personal
rather quickly. If you can step in before things get personal, you can keep the conflict from escalating. 

Never ignore conflict.

How you respond to conflict when it arises says a lot about your skills – or lack of
them – as a leader. The worst thing you can do when you know employees are in
conflict is to ignore the situation. When you ignore conflict, you give employees
time to inflate their problems and to choose sides. Eventually, the situation will
become polarized.

Use a three-step conflict resolution strategy.

Whether a conflict is professional or personal, you can follow this three-step
process to defuse the situation:
1. Let people vent emotions.
2. Meet with both parties.
3. Follow up on the problem.
Let’s look at each step in more detail below.

1. Let people vent emotions.

As you may have noticed in Case Study #4, Stanley is angry. Before he can even
begin to solve the problem, he has to get over this emotion. Your first task in
dealing with conflict is to let people vent emotions. You may want to meet
separately with the people in conflict to allow this to happen. Be calm, respectful,
and listen. Repeat what you heard so the person is certain you understand how he
or she feels. Then say something like, “I’m concerned about this problem because
it’s affecting the way we work. I’m going to set up a meeting among the three of us
so we can discuss this. I’d like for you to think of some ways we can resolve these
problems.” In doing so, you've moved the people in conflict away from an
emotional frame of mind into a more logical one. Now they’ll concentrate on
solutions.

2. Follow up on the problem.

Finally, check back with each person in a few days to see if things are going well.
If not, remind each person of the agreement. Hold another meeting, if necessary,
to work out fine points. Keep rechecking periodically until things are working
smoothly again.
Now take a few moments to review the examples of conflict you wrote on page 37.
How would you handle those conflicts now?

Leadership Part 1

Leadership Part 2 

Leadership Part 3 

Leadership Part 4