Managed effectively, conflict increases collaborative problem solving,
heightens team connectivity, enhances communications, and improves
morale and productivity. Mismanaged, it increases stress and reduces
performance. The development of conflict competent leaders is important.
Yet many organizations ignore this as a core competency for their
leaders, middle managers and staff.
Key competencies go beyond how leaders themselves engage in disputes
and conflict in which they are directly involved. Being conflict competent
includes skills that equip leaders to facilitate effective conflict
conversations, among their reports and between the work unit and others.
What knowledge, skills and abilities are required by leaders to create
and sustain a conflict competent organization? One whose culture supports
the notion that conflict is a positive and necessary part of work?
How can all employees gain the requisite skills to engage effectively
in conflict? How can the organization support staff who raise concerns,
reassuring them they will be respectfully heard and addressed, without
retribution?
People are promoted to leadership positions for many reasons, including
their demonstrated skills and abilities. Organizations often realize
(sometimes too late) that technical skill does not mean people have
facility to manage conflict competently; many leaders admit to lacking
in the related skills and abilities. Educational courses on conflict
management and mediation abound. However, learning that translates
into shifts in conflict conduct, which enhances individuals’
abilities to effectively engage in conflict, are not as plentiful.
Conflict, the inevitable disagreements between and among people, which
causes distress and disharmony, is enhanced when there is interdependency
at work, which is increasingly the case in our networked lives. Management
of those conflicts requires processes that involve ongoing assistance,
support and accountabilities to leaders and staff.
Conflict Conduct
Most of us rely on patterns for managing conflict that we
learn from our parents, siblings, teachers, peers and other relationships.
We learn what to do and what not to do and, generally, do not spend
a lot of time examining how to change our conflict conduct. In our
working relationships, we continue to rely on old habits and trial
and error. However, when people have the opportunity to unbundle their
conflict conduct, including what provokes them and why, they are more
likely to gain awareness that helps them learn how to shift behaviours
that do not work for them.
While many of us have habitual ways of responding to conflict, we
are not aware of how we are perceived, or the impact on others. This
is often what is missing in efforts to identify the changes needed
to become conflict competent. A useful tool is a 360-degree assessment
and an individual-only profile, which may be used to facilitate the
development of conflict competencies. The assessments identify destructive
and constructive responses and inspire insights on specific behaviours
that tend to increase tension, rather than leading to problem solving.
Some of these “destructive responses,” as they are referred
to, include “winning at all costs,” “displaying
anger,” “demeaning others,” “retaliating,”
and “hiding emotions.”
On the other hand, “constructive responses” move conflict
into more productive ways of interacting. These behaviours generally
involve controlling impulses, exploring the issues, sharing impact
and creating mutually satisfying solutions. Some specific behaviours
are “taking perspective,” “expressing emotions,”
“reaching out,” and “reflective thinking.”
Research from the Leadership Development Institute indicates, as well
may be expected, that employing effective constructive responses and
reducing destructive responses, result in less stress and higher performance.
Some tools that identify conflict management styles include: the Conflict
Dynamics Profile; the Thomas-Kilmann Conflict Mode Instrument, Style
Matters: The Kraybill Conflict Style Inventory, Dealing with Conflict
Instrument by Alexander Hiam and Intercultural Development Inventory.
Change Requires Commitment
Developing leaders requires, as a starting point, a commitment by
the organization to build a culture of conflict competence. This is
not an easy or straightforward task and is often most effective when
organizations embark on the development of an Integrated or Informal
Conflict Management System. Such systems are best designed by first
conducting a workplace audit or other type of assessment, that considers
the particular workplace and its staff’s needs. Based on the
results, it is then necessary to establish criteria for conflict competencies
for all levels of staff, beginning with the senior leaders. Depending
on the organization’s vision of a conflict competent workplace
and the criteria developed, a system also requires its leaders and
all other staff to engage in some process or processes to identify
what aspects of their conflict conduct they will work on and shift
to meet the criteria. For changes to happen, it is necessary to build
in ways to monitor and evaluate progress. Like any other change in
organizations, it is necessary to contemplate and address possible
resistance.
An effective way to build individual conflict competence – that
contributes to the collective objective to build a conflict competent
organization – is with conflict coaching. Conflict coaching
is a one-on-one process that combines conflict management and executive
coaching principles. This individualized technique requires people
to articulate and concentrate on reaching their objectives with respect
to enhancing their particular areas for development. This form of
coaching, like other types of executive coaching, is most effective
when there is a commitment to engage in the process and measure progress.
The overall organizational intervention is supported by individual
development.
A customized approach is recommended, for developing and sustaining
conflict proficient leaders and others. The huge task of shifting
corporate culture and its human capital to become adept at engaging
in conflict requires a commitment to this objective and its related
components. It also requires commitment to the notion that one size
does not fit all. Planning requires a collaborative effort aimed at
finding the formula that best suits each organization. To sustain
change that reflects the organization’s vision, it is necessary
to ensure its leaders “walk the talk,” by supporting the
vision and by demonstrating conflict competence, in all of their interactions.
Conclusion
Any initiative to build a culture of conflict competence begins with
the commitment of the organization’s senior leaders to provide
their support and to model conflict proficiency. It cannot be overstated
that leaders who enhance their own skills and abilities set an example
that has a significant impact on the rest of the workforce. Similarly,
it is in the leaders’ and other stakeholders’ interests
to work continually and cooperatively, to help make the workplace
one in which staff members may confidently and comfortably raise issues
where there is conflict, knowing they will be respectfully addressed.
Cinnie Noble, ACC, CM, LL.M. (ADR), is a lawyer-mediator and
ICF certified coach who created the CINERGY® model of conflict
coaching. She chairs the ACR Workplace Section’s new Conflict
Coaching Subcommittee and is co-chair of the ICF’s Special Interest
Group on Conflict Coaching.
