How Leaders Set the Tone for Conflict Resolution

Post Views = 3792

Cohesive teams can be the key to a thriving business. When handled correctly, they can collaborate efficiently. This empowers them to innovate and give your company a competitive edge. Yet, working so closely together every day will inevitably lead to occasional conflict. Unless you can help your team to address and overcome these, their relationships and your business will suffer.

This is one reason cultivating relevant abilities is so vital. There is a range of key skills every leader should have whether you work in nursing, small entrepreneurism, or sit at the head of a multinational corporation. One of the most consistent requirements here is a solid approach to conflict resolution. Your actions, leadership style, and attitude impact not just the immediate problem, but influence how workers move forward and cooperate in the future.

Let’s take a closer look at this idea. In what areas can your leadership approach set the tone for conflict resolution? What are some steps you should consider and how far can the effects reach?

Respecting Diversity

Many conflicts stem from team members’ inability to recognize or appreciate the differing perspectives of their colleagues. Diversity of thought is crucial for the success of any business or project, but in some cases, there may be roadblocks here. If team members can’t see past the limits of their own experiences and perceived expertise, they may not give alternative ideas space for consideration and application. This can breed discontent within groups and limit their ability to innovate.     

Your approach to conflict resolution can help to engender positive engagement here. This doesn’t fall neatly into any of the 5 styles of conflict management, though it bears some hallmarks of collaborative and compromising approaches. Essentially, you need to guide employees to recognize why different perspectives may be better for the project.

They need to learn how to step back from their own ideas to accurately assess this. Teach them to detach from the potential to take rejection of contributions personally. Enable them to review the circumstances objectively and free from their unconscious cultural biases. It may be that in the long-term you’ll need to provide training to help workers build their empathetic skill sets.

Taking this approach is not just a route to find a way out of the current challenges of the conflict. Considering diverse perspectives and recognizing the value of their colleagues’ perspectives can have a positive impact on your overall corporate culture. It gives team members the tools to work together effectively, boosts morale, and strengthens the position of the business.   

Valuing Compromise

Asserting the opinion that one member of the team’s position is correct over another can sometimes be necessary for time-crunch scenarios. The downside of this is it can cause resentment and doesn’t always make for cohesive team experiences in the future. Wherever possible, it can be more conducive to harmony and progress to approach the matter from the perspective of reaching a compromise.

Compromise features as one of the common conflict resolution styles. It’s about finding common ground in a disagreement to allow team members to meet in the middle and overcome disagreements. It doesn’t prioritize one idea over another and tends not to leave anyone to feel their contributions aren’t appreciated. It’s not something you’ll find is practical in all circumstances. But showing you favor this approach as a leader can influence the group’s behavior and considerations to all such challenges ahead.

However, compromise isn’t something your team members are always likely to favor. People have egos and want to feel valued. As such. It’s important to provide your perspectives on why you consider compromise to be important and how it helps the team reach mutually beneficial outcomes. You should also provide training on how staff can assess the circumstances and the challenges. This helps them to establish what aspects of compromise are acceptable and conducive to progress.

Recognizing Boundaries

When left unchecked, conflict can quickly evolve into cycles of toxicity. Team members may get more frustrated as time goes on, potentially pushing one another’s buttons and undermining contributions. One approach to conflict resolution is to keep mindful of the various boundaries staff members harbor and ensure that activities and the behavior of colleagues don’t cross them. This can serve to relieve tension within the group and keep projects productive.

In some ways, this awareness of boundaries is indicative of the avoiding style of conflict management. But it has much further reaching benefits. Most industries are vulnerable to staffing issues like high turnover, talent shortages, and workplace inflexibility. A key part of mitigating such issues is creating an environment in which staff feels happy, safe, and respected in their contributions. Boundary maintenance to halt and resolve conflict is an effective element of this.

This approach also helps to influence team behavior on a wider scale. Encourage them to be open about where their boundaries are so everyone can recognize and respect them. Make discussing these a part of team-building exercises at the beginning of any project. You may find this presents a point of vulnerability for some. But embracing it as part of your business culture can also build trust. This gives your staff more empathetic tools to drive collaborations and handle conflict in the future.

Conclusion

While conflict may be inevitable, a negative impact on your team productivity and cohesion isn’t. Your approach to handling tension and discord can set the tone for successfully overcoming difficulties. But it can also influence the way your team functions in future projects and during their day-to-day interactions with one another. Appreciation of diverse perspectives can elicit an understanding of more appropriate and innovative ideas. A culture of compromise helps teams recognize how to move forward for mutual benefit. An awareness of boundaries is key to mitigating disruption to progress. It’s not an easy issue to handle, but your commitment to resolving conflict is another demonstration of your efficacy as a leader.