Great Leaders: Comfortable Navigating Conflict

One of my clients reached out to me, "Overall, I am happy with my team and the outcomes we are getting. I have great working relationships with my managers on an individual level. There is one area that is really causing me stress--that's the relationship between department managers. My manager meetings include time for each department manager to share updates and problems/solutions for their department. Which is great, in theory. In practice, it becomes a passive aggressive war about which department is getting more investment. HELP!"

Upon closer investigation, it seemed the team had developed some maladaptive group behaviors because the leader was fundamentally uncomfortable with conflict between employees. Celebrated as a hands-off leader, who did not micromanage staff, the client froze when intelligent, enthusiastic, driven managers derailed manager meetings with infighting.

The solution? He practiced becoming exceedingly comfortable with conflict.

He identified the problem and surfaced it directly at the next manager's meeting. He explained that conflict can be healthy--it means a variety of perspectives have been shared. Conflict becomes problematic when a collaborative (to a fault) leader cannot inspire managers to find a shared solution that is most beneficial to the organization. If a shared solution is not possible, the leader must choose a path forward and be comfortable with the discomfort that path will cause some managers.

He also:

--met individually with managers after the meeting and reinforced that each department was crucial to the operation--and that territory wars would no longer be tolerated;

--interrupted and redirected when managers inevitably fell into old, adversarial patterns at their weekly meetings;

--celebrated successes that resulted from collaboration between departments;

--restructured meetings to provide MORE trust-building activities between managers AND solution-oriented brainstorming.

A great leader must build a team of bright, enthusiastic, driven managers to lead departments. The same great leader must also get exceedingly comfortable managing the conflict that will inevitably occur on a team of strong leaders.

#conflict #management #leadership