3 Distinctions that Help Leaders Manage Conflict

Brief 

Workplace conflict can be exacerbated when leaders aren’t helping people grow, focus on process instead of results and write people off, writes Marlene Chism. She walks through three distinctions that help leaders gain understanding so they can fix bad workplace situations.

Insight

Part of leadership is managing conflict, but you can’t manage what you don’t understand, and what you don’t understand leads to ineffective decision-making. Building the critical skill of making distinctions helps leaders make better decisions and manage conflicts.Here are three distinctions every leader needs to understand.

1. Identity versus title

Your title might be leader, but if you overly identify with your former role, you’ll struggle to hold former peers accountable once you start managing them. While they are technically your teammates, if your title is leader, the buck stops with you.

Meanwhile, if you identify too closely with being a “nice leader,” you’ll rescue the underperformers and justify your leadership behavior because you like the employee or you don’t want to hurt their feelings. But there’s a difference between helping and rescuing.

Signs that you might be stuck in an identity trap include:

• Continuing to do their work for them
• Agreeing with excuses
• Coaching them but not seeing results
• Nudging them to take initiative
• Feeling sorry for them

What to do instead

Ask yourself, “Do I want their success more than they do?” If the answer is “yes,” it’s time to elevate your identity to leader, and that starts with your actions.Initiate a meeting, own the part you played, then set the new ground rules. It sounds like this:

“Morgan, I’ve realized that even with coaching the results just aren’t there. I’ve been putting off this difficult conversation because I knew you had gone through a rough patch. We need to start from a clear slate. Starting this week, I’ll expect …”