Managing Conflict with Your Boss

Sharpe, Johnson

• Publisher: Center for Creative Leadership Press
• Year: 2002
• Print ISBN: 9781882197705
• eBook ISBN: 9781604917222
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Leadership
• Index: Business

As individuals, we can be creative and ambitious in both our personal and professional lives. But individual efforts can't always match the energy and productivity of a group. Cultures, societies, clubs, schools, and militaries arose out of our need to band together for mutual support. Organizations were created to deal more effectively with the environment - both the natural world and the world of work. But there is a trade-off when we move from individual contributions to group efforts: the relationships necessary for working together can spawn conflict. Both worlds create a landscape where conflict flourishes, but a conflict with your boss doesn't necessarily spell the end of your career with an organization. There are steps you can take to gain perspective on and to manage the conflict so that it focuses your energy and your boss's energy on the needs of the organization, moving both of you toward a more productive working relationship.

Managing Conflict with Your Boss

The special case of conflict between a direct report and a boss presents unique challenges. As a manager with responsibilities up and down the organizational chain, recognizing and resolving conflicts with your boss may well define to what degree you can effectively contribute to your organization. A conflict with your boss can arise from several different kinds of situations or opposing perspectives. Here are a few examples that illustrate potential roots of a conflict:

There is no role clarity or alignment. You are not sure about how your work supports your boss’s work and how it meets the mission of the organization. You may think you’re doing tasks that should be on your boss’s list. Your boss may think that she or he is doing too much of your work.

The Look of Conflict

An executive agrees to take on a new position with greater scope and more responsibility. Initially the boss had promised that a pay increase would go with the new position, but that was delayed due to budget shortfalls. After a year the executive is becoming very frustrated and losing trust in her boss.

Unfilled expectations cause many of the conflicts between direct reports and their bosses. Communication—clear and often and open—is one key to managing and resolving those conflicts.

You and the boss sit at different vantage points. Depending on the structure of your organization, each of you is accountable to a different measure of performance and to different stakeholders. You and your boss may not pay attention to or respond to the same things because you don’t hold the same position in the organization.

You lack confidence in your boss’s ability. Several different situations could lead you to this perspective. Perhaps you held the interim position prior to your boss’s appointment and then the organization asked you to orient your new boss to the job. Perhaps the skills your boss employs aren’t as apparent to you as the skills you have to use to get results in your position.

Your boss lacks confidence in you. Your boss may be looking to you for information, advice, and options, but perceives you to be faltering on all fronts.

You and your boss are mismatched in ethics, values, and integrity. Managing conflict that threatens the organizational good because of mismatched ethics, values, or integrity may require you to seek advice and support from reliable internal HR resources or even external support sources (ranging from coaching to legal advice).

My View of Conflict: A Personal Worksheet

Take some time to consider the following list of questions. Answer them as completely and thoughtfully as you can. You may find it useful to record your answers so that you can return to them from time to time to see if your answers and your view toward conflict have shifted.

How do you define conflict?

How do you think your definition of conflict is similar to or different from how those around you define it?

What experiences shaped your views and attitudes about conflict?

What directions related to handling conflict were you given as a child?

How would you describe your communication strategies when you feel uncomfortable or uneasy? (Think of such actions as raising your voice, withdrawing, making wisecracks, laughing, asking questions, and bombarding others with information.)

What are the triggers that for you ignite a conflict? What are your own attitudes toward conflict?

How do you behave toward your boss?

Are you engaging in any of the following behaviors?

• Political maneuvering. Don’t go over your boss’s head when conflict occurs. Include your boss when you go up the organizational ladder to address a problem. Don’t start looking at your next position. Concentrate on the assignments your boss has given you.

• Lip service. All talk and no action is a sure way to increase conflict with your boss. Tell your boss what you’ll do and then do it.

• Loose talk. Don’t undermine your boss; it will come back to haunt you. Support your boss when dealing with peers, direct reports, and staff.

• Apple-polishing. Don’t go overboard. Understanding and supporting your boss’s point of view does not mean abandoning your own ideas or values. Nor should you withhold negative information. Determine when to raise issues in a public forum and when to take them behind closed doors.

• Disagree disagreeably. It’s healthy to disagree, but don’t carry the disagreement out of the meeting. Don’t let it infect your relationships or prey on your mind.

You and your boss are mismatched in some other r...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Copyright
• Title Page
• Table of Contents
• What Is Conflict?
• Why Managing Conflict Is Important
• Managing Conflict with Your Boss
• Lessons of Experience
• Seven Steps toward Managing Conflict
• Suggested Readings
• Background
• Key Point Summary