Conflict Resolution in the Workplace: A Leadership Guide

1. Introduction

Keep in mind that active listening and honest, respectful dialogue will be vital at every step of the conflict resolution process. These principles should help leaders establish and maintain successful dialogue, resolve the conflict, and move the team closer to its valuable, productive state.

– Acknowledge that conflict exists. – Identify the source of the conflict. – Consider tools that can be used to resolve the conflict. – Listen actively, without interruption. – Understand the other person’s perspective on the issue and their emotional connection to it. – Identify the positive intent behind the conflict, if such intent exists. – Offer applicable, appropriate and specific feedback. – Identify an agreement to address the issue. – Establish accountability. – Address congruency with respect to company objectives.

Principles of Conflict Resolution What can a leader do to resolve workplace conflict? The first step is to establish open, honest, and respectful dialogue. provides 10 principles to help leaders have this dialogue with their teams:

Introduction: The Importance of Conflict Resolution in the Workplace One of the most important skills a leader can bring to any organization is the ability to resolve conflict. Not every dispute is avoidable, and attempting to sidestep it at all costs can create its own problems. Bullies and selfish employees will take advantage of a leader’s efforts to keep the peace, which will poison relationships in the workplace and reduce motivation and productivity. However, the manner in which a leader handles conflict when it comes up will have a profound impact. The strong relationships, increased motivation, and enhanced productivity achieved by resolving conflict will keep a leader’s team firing on all cylinders.

2. Understanding Conflict in the Workplace

Conflict happens whenever someone perceives a difference in opinion and expects non-favorable outcomes. It doesn’t need a large audience. If a conflict is successfully resolved with direct involvement of only the few people immediately involved, rather than escalated, your workplace has matured. For most cases, resolution is a process. With clear agreement as to the problems, prioritized expectations, and dedicated attributes, this process can take as little as a few moments in time. For egregious situations, it may take some time. Some adult supervision and general maturity of thinking and acting in persons involved is important. The mix of the attributes differs based on people involved, their values, skills, knowledge of the process, and history of similar situations. This is your job as a workplace leader.

Every part of your business could be going right, but if you have employees, you will have workplace conflicts. And to be a leader is to be prepared. Handling the people issues is a part of a business owner’s life that is unique. Frankly, your ability to understand and successfully manage and resolve difficult conflicts has a direct impact on your bottom line. Finding practical, safe, and workable ways to deal with issues and the people issues that will arise is essential for your success. The biggest mistake business owners make is thinking that these people issues will solve themselves. If that point in your workplace has not already arrived, it will. They cost thousands in lost efficiency, lost productivity, and impact your company’s capacity for innovation. And those are the struggles that are governable. When the human wrongs claims start coming (and they will), you may likely begin to rethink your approach. The good news is that the likely source of liability is rooted in a few key areas.

3. Effective Communication Strategies

– Absolutely no interruptions – As a leader, it is absolutely paramount that you allow the other the opportunity to speak – without interruptions. The times that I cut someone off to make a point, dictate an understanding, or correct them were always a mistake. What the listener hears is that you are not interested in their experiences, thoughts, or feelings. They learn not to speak up. Even if the speech is painful and contains intense criticism, a person’s opportunity to speak should never be interrupted. Listening is not easy at all, but it is absolutely necessary.

– Set Time Limits – Any conversation involving contemporary issues and that carries a lot of emotion should be time-bound, which means that it will have a beginning, middle, and an end that is manageable. The last thing you want is to spend an entire day angry and tense for what turns out to be largely a misunderstanding or an unfortunate but independent event. The smaller and more manageable the stakes, the briefer the dialogue should be.

– Prepare & Plan – Before you begin, ask yourself what information you will share, in what sequence, and how you will present it. Also, consider in advance how you will respond if the person becomes defensive or combative or worse. Don’t be overly strategic but don’t walk unprepared into the discussion either.

One of the most powerful tools in the leadership toolbox is the ability to open and maintain an effective line of communication. In long-standing and particularly emotionally charged conflicts, coming to the conversation with the best of intentions, understanding, and clarity of purpose is paramount because the ripple effect of what you unleash can be disastrous. Here are some rules to guide you when the goal of the conversation is to find a solution:

4. Mediation and Conflict Resolution Techniques

The meditative process is facilitated by a neutral third party known as a mediator, who assists consensual negotiations of the disputants in order to reach a satisfying and mutually beneficial agreement. A good mediator fosters communication between the parties, uncovers or defines other conflicting elements or concerns, as well as addresses the power imbalances between disputants. The mediator is also tasked with removing the party’s destructive conduct and replacing them with effective means of communicating openly, ensuring that they truly perform with one another throughout the negotiation. As such, excellent mediation requirements focus on three main actions: negotiating to the surface level and working with hidden barriers, identifying omnipresent threats, and remedying the unnecessary negative behavior patented and to negotiate new logic to costly experience and surfacing gains.

Mediation is an informal, structured process in which a neutral third party assists disputants in resolving conflicts through the use of specialized communication and negotiation techniques. Although most businesses rely on attorneys to resolve legal issues, the fiscal cost of dispute resolution in legal cases has increasingly incentivized business owners and their advisors to pursue mediation instead of litigation. Mediation can save parties the financial and emotional cost of trial, as both parties are prompted to engage in a solution to the conflict. There is also the added benefit of proceeding insight or relationship repair, and the potential for finding complex solutions to other conflicting aspects within the business relationship or interpersonal relationship.

5. Implementing Conflict Resolution Policies

Once a system is functioning, it can be a common practice for employees to come directly to the committee if they feel they have nowhere else to go. This environment could empower their courage to approach issues they are facing from another perspective. As employees watch how upper management treats the information being fed into the system, it will have huge ramifications both positive and negative. As with any tool, if this system is not handled with the seriousness and attention it requires, it will break. If the information fed into the system is handled poorly, it can result in a toxic environment, dishonest and distrusting. If employees feel their issues are not being attended to, it can become a passive-aggressive liability within the organization. A fully utilized organization-wide conflict resolution system will be able to reduce the stress brought on by workplace conflict. It will offer a balance by making an organization less aggressive.

Implementing this level of involvement and interaction is a big shift for many organizations. While there is no set formula for implementing this kind of process, there are a few general steps we have seen effective in many of the organizations we have worked with. Start by selecting representatives from each department in the organization. This group usually consists of one or two employees who are passionate about building a healthier workplace. Make a commitment to regularly meet, at the very least once a month. Make these meetings important, a crucial ingredient to the “special sauce” of your organization. Based on decisions made during the meetings, follow up with formal notices, presentations or any other method of promoting the information outside the walls of that meeting.