Seven Steps to Manage Conflict Among Leaders

Frustrated with Conflict Among Leaders?

What do you do when senior leaders can’t see eye to eye? Worse yet, what do you do when the conflict becomes a public battleground?

Leaders face increasing pressure, demands, and frustrations as they continue to lead teams to achieve highly challenging goals.

Doing more with less has become a way of life. Unfortunately, the frustrations often spill over into meetings, relationships, and how messages are communicated.

If you are called on to coach, assist, or facilitate a conflict, the following seven steps can help you get started:

1. Gather information about the conflict

Determine who is involved—is there a history of conflict with the key players? Why is this important? Who is impacted by the ongoing conflict? What is that costing the organization in terms of customer service, turnover, motivation and achieving results? What are the roles of the key players—are they equal in organizational level, power, and responsibilities?

2. Determine the cause of the conflict

Drill down and identify if the conflict is real or imagined. Sometimes conflict can simply be the result of two people with very different perceptions of the same situation.

Common causes of conflict include:

• Incompatible goals—In order to “win” both leaders cannot achieve their goals at the same time. This requires a closer look at how to collaborate and redefine goals that are aligned with the larger organizational strategy.
• Conflicting values—Are the leaders at odds about what truly drives them? Core values can create a big clash in the workplace.
• Facts and information—Are both parties operating on accurate and current information?
• Personality clashes—What styles are the two leaders using when conflict erupts? Helping leaders understand their own tendencies and those of others can greatly reduce the feeling of intolerance in those with different personality styles. Some great assessments are available to help leaders understand their personalities as well as their natural conflict styles.

3. Organize a meeting to discuss and resolve the conflict

Invite the leaders to come together with you to explore the conflict and work together to finally reach a mutually satisfying solution to the ongoing conflict.

In order for this to work, both leaders must be committed to finding a common solution—one that will result in a lasting resolution.

Be sure to find a neutral meeting place, as free from distraction as possible.  Allow plenty of time to air concerns, perspectives and to explore new possibilities and approaches to the problem.

4. Kickoff and facilitate the meeting

Begin by restating the purpose of the meeting. Agree to some simple ground rules to make the meeting a success and reduce the chances of the conflict escalating even further.

Examples of helpful ground rules:

• One person speaks at a time (no interrupting)
• Each person has equal time to state a point of view
• Both leaders remain calm (no emotional outbursts, name calling, etc.)
• One person explains his/her perspective fully—the other person must

  restate that perspective clearly (and to the satisfaction of the first leader)

  before he/she (the listener) can give his/her own perspective.

• Both parties are willing to consider new approaches
• (And so forth—best to have about 5 ground rules that both leaders can

  support)

6. Summarize agreements