Becoming a Conflict Competent Leader

How You and Your Organization Can Manage Conflict Effectively

Craig E. Runde, Tim A. Flanagan

• Publisher: Jossey-Bass
• Year: 2012
• ISBN:
  9781118417225
• Edition: 2
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Leadership
• Index: Business

The Second Edition of this classic resource on conflict resolution combines research, conceptual models, practitioner experience, and stories that highlight the core conflict competencies. The book underscores the importance for leaders to develop the critical skills they need to help them, their colleagues, and their organizations deal more effectively with conflict and move their organizations forward. This new edition expands on the conflict competence model, includes new tools and techniques, shows how to develop conflict competent teams and organizations, and offers a new online assessment.

1
The What and Why of Conflict Competent Leaders

Difficulties are meant to rouse, not discourage. The human spirit is to grow strong by conflict.

—William Ellery Channing

The basic nature of human beings is to avoid painful or unpleasant experiences whenever possible. How many different versions of “I’d rather go to the dentist than [fill in the blank]” have you heard in your life? For most of us, dealing with conflict ranks right up there with impromptu public speaking or firing an employee. If you’ve ever filled in the blank above with anything resembling “deal with conflict,” you’re in exceptionally good company.

So what might motivate you to strive toward conflict competence? First, we believe that conflict in the workplace is bound to occur, so you may as well equip yourself with the skills to deal with it. Your workplace may be a Fortune 500 company or a family-owned small business. It may be a government office, a school, or a nonprofit agency. It really doesn’t matter, because conflict occurs in all workplaces. In our work, we have had the opportunity to interact with thousands of executives, directors, managers, and team leaders engaged in their personal leadership development processes. What we have learned from them about leadership and conflict, stated simply, is this: conflict is inevitable for leaders, and it exists at the root of some of their best ideas and at the core of many of their worst failures.

Second, the effects of conflict on both human resources and the bottom line are dramatic. So there is a level of leadership responsibility involved in addressing conflict. Effective leaders hold themselves accountable for establishing work environments that provide safety and respect while helping the organization meet business and financial goals. Effectively handling conflict encompasses both of these objectives.

Third, despite the avoidance response most of us experience when engaging in conflict, not all conflict is negative, painful, or unpleasant. On the contrary, conflict, if harnessed effectively, can be the catalyst for new ideas and creative solutions to challenging business issues. Jeff Weiss and Jonathon Hughes (2005) suggest that “executives underestimate not only the inevitability of conflict but also—and this is key—its importance to the organization. The disagreements sparked by differences in perspective, com­petencies, access to information, and strategic focus within a company actually generate much of the value that can come from collaboration across organizational boundaries. Clashes between parties are the crucibles in which creative solutions are developed and wise trade-offs among competing objectives are made” (p. 2). In other words, wise leaders should embrace conflict and find ways to encourage the proliferation of differences as a strategy that enables the organization to get and stay ahead.

Both the science and art of leadership have been studied and chronicled for decades. There are a myriad of leadership models, definitions, theories, and concepts. Who among us doesn’t recall the great discussions focused on leadership versus management? Is a leader a manager? Is a manager a leader? Do leaders manage? Can managers lead? Today most of us agree that there are key differences between leadership and management. Nevertheless, the study of leadership and management shows no sign of slowing. In fact, over thirty-five hundred new management books are published each year (Pfeffer, 2005). In order to describe the conflict competent leader effectively, it seems appropriate to begin with a brief discussion of leadership.

Because we work in the field of leadership development, we prefer to think in terms of experiences, growth, and learning rather than a linear definition of leadership. It makes sense, though, to identify our broad definition of leaders. We believe that leaders are those whose roles in organizations include accountability for influencing others or establishing structure for others to follow, or those who are recognized for developing priorities for the organization. In most cases, leaders have formal role designations or titles: team leader, supervisor, manager, director, vice president, or president. In short, we believe that leaders are best identified by those who look to them for leadership. If you are a person who is consistently looked to for leadership, you are most likely a leader.

Leaders constantly learn from their experiences and actively seek opportunities for development. Leadership development has been defined at the Center for Creative Leadership (CCL) as the “expansion of a person’s capacity to be effective in leadership roles and processes” (McCauley, Moxley, and Van Velsor, 1998, p. 25). The expansion of these capabilities occurs over time and is usually maximized through a variety of experiences that provide challenge, support, and opportunities to learn. And certainly context is important in shaping the development process. The most successful leaders continue to learn throughout their careers. They become aware of their most effective strengths and use them relentlessly. They are just as aware of their limitations, or “developmental opportunities,” and strive to improve or, in some cases, to minimize the effects of these limitations.

For many leaders, the area of conflict presents one of their most demanding challenges. This makes sense considering the sheer volume of conflict opportunities that leaders face. Leaders can find themselves in personal conflicts with others in the organization. They are also sought out to mediate conflicts among their direct reports or peers. Leaders are often asked for advice about how to handle conflicts or are looked to for conflict coaching. At times, they must grapple with conflict involving vendors, clients, or other stakeholders. At other times, they must consider the culture in their organization, which may include assessing how conflict is treated at a strategic or systems level. Fur­­thermore, the costs and opportunities associated with conflict demand leaders’ attention. Because conflict is so often emotionally charged, there is a sense of urgency when it occurs, so it attracts leadership attention immediately. And conflict is frequently not resolved quickly, so leaders find themselves involved for substantial periods of time. Conflict definitely qualifies as a demanding leadership challenge.

The relationship between leadership and conflict appears natural and inevitable. It is our belief that defining conflict in broad terms makes the most sense for discussing its relation­ship to leadership. With this in mind, we refer to the work of our colleagues Sal Capobianco, Mark Davis, and Linda Kraus, the creators of the Conflict Dynamics Profile (CDP). The CDP is a groundbreaking assessment instrument that provides feedback on an individual’s behaviors before, during, and after conflict. Its creators define conflict as “any situation in which people have incompatible interests, goals, principles or feelings” (Capobianco, Davis, and Kraus, 1999, p. 1). This definition certainly encompasses many different situations and contexts, as do a leader’s role and scope. Leaders confront conflicts that arise regarding both short-term and long-standing issues, handle disagreements about strategies and tactics, and referee struggles for resources. They also discover conflict resulting from misperceptions, misinterpretations, misunderstandings, and miscommunications among people. It appears that conflict can result from almost anything that puts at least two people in opposition.

As mentioned, in addition to handling conflicts among others, leaders often find themselves in disagreement with somebody about something. This is not to disparage those wonderful moments when everybody is “on board,” the team is “flying in tight formation,” or the entire organization is “marching in the same direction.” These are times to savor and reinforce. Realistically, though, the notion of 100 percent buy-in is a lofty goal. When complete buy-in or agreement isn’t possible, why not respond as one of our close associates does with a hearty, “That’s great! We see it differently!” As we have already suggested, conflicts and disagreements present opportunities and should not be avoided. Some kinds of conflict can be productive and are at the very heart of creative ideas, innovative approaches, and previously unseen possibilities. Differing opinions and diverse perspectives can lead to new solutions and unexpected breakthroughs. Or conflict can become destructive when the disagreeing parties don’t handle their differences effectively. This dichotomy is at the fulcrum of the leader’s most crucial challenges when developing conflict competence. How do leaders encourage the exploration of differing viewpoints while minimizing the hazards of polarization? How do they know when to intervene in a dispute between or among others? What are the signs that a conflict is getting out of control? How do leaders stay attuned to their personal reactions and behaviors when they are involved in a conflict? Are there ways to construct effective organizational approaches to conflict? We believe that conflict competent leaders understand the dynamics of conflict, are aware of their strengths and developmental opportunities for handling personal conflict, model appropriate behaviors when engaged in conflict, find ways to foster constructive responses among others while reducing or avoiding destructive responses, and encourage the development of a conflict competent organization through systems and culture.

How does a leader acquire the skills and experience to develop this area of competency? Acquiring experience, if you agree with the notion that conflict is inevitable, will not be a problem. Lead long enough (we suspect a few days at most will be enough), and you will encounter conflict. A participant in one of our conflict workshops commented in the program evaluation, “I won’t have to look very hard to find opportunities to practice the approaches I’ve learned in this class.” Acquiring experience is not the issue.

Acquiring the skills is the primary challenge. And leaders who are conflict competent don’t just “acquire” skills. They study, hone, and develop their skills over time as they encounter experience after experience. True to our leadership development roots, we believe that the most effective practices for developing competence are centered on exposure to a variety of developmental experiences coupled with the ability to learn. In one of the most extensive and revered studies of executive development, The Lessons of Experience, McCall, Lombardo, and Morrison (1988) categorized the key developmental experiences of leaders into three sets of lessons: assignments, the impact of others, and hardships.

Anyone using this framework can begin to imagine the variety of conflict experiences associated with each category. The assignments people accept during a career can be rife with conflict. How often are aspiring leaders given the challenge to “fix” an existing problem? Or “take over” a floundering project? Or present to an unfriendly audience? Or accept a new role with little or no training? A leader in any one of these cases can be instantly engulfed by the conflicting viewpoints of resistant workers, unhappy customers, or feuding colleagues. During a recent workshop, the general manager of a restaurant described the conflicting priorities she faced while opening a new facility: “I needed to keep the pressure on my assistant managers to complete the hiring of new employees by the deadline while at the same time insisting that they manage the training of existing employees in order to open the restaurant on time. I’m sure they thought I was unfair, unfeeling, and uncompromising in my approach. But what choice did I have? We had to have a critical mass hired, and we had to have the staff trained. There was no way I was going to be unprepared to open on time. As it turned out, we had a great opening, but I worry that I damaged some relationships along the way.”

When considering the impact of others, most leaders are able to quickly identify people who provided positive models of accomplishment as well as those who were negative models. In later chapters, we explore the impact of constructive and destructive behaviors on conflict situations. For most of us, it is easy to recall the actions of others that demonstrate both sets of behavior.

Finally, lessons learned as a result of hardships can be associated readily with conflict situations. Most leaders are able to identify events or periods of time they describe as personal or career setbacks. A senior vice president at a major high-tech firm with whom we worked described his greatest challenge over the final few months of his tenure like this: “I’d estimate that 70 percent of my work-related energy was spent on managing the lousy relationship I had with my boss. We just didn’t seem to see anything eye to eye. Not only did I constantly battle him at work, but I found that I’d carry the negativity home with me every day, and it began to spill over with my family and friends. I didn’t know it at the time, but my wife later told me I was like a flea carrying the plague. Every person I touched was likely to be infected by the conflict I was bringing home from work.” Although not all setbacks and hardships are the direct result of conflict, it is reasonable to assert that they can provide the precipitating event or starting point for a conflict to develop.

We are certain that all leaders will experience conflict as they lead. In leadership development terms, those with an adequate ability to learn will be in positions to acquire, analyze, and apply knowledge to their experiences. Experience and ability to learn are the ingredients that lead to skill development, which is necessary for becoming competent—in this case, conflict competent. Our purpose is not to review the extensive research and documentation about best leadership development practices. Rather, the bulk of this book explores what we have lea...