You are relaxed and having a good time. Then boom, you have a conflict on your hands.
The hallmarks of transformational leadership lie in how one successfully addresses conflicts in workplaces. Offices are replete with people of diverse persuasions and potentially difficult situations lurk in every corner of the compass.
We will always have divergences in our thoughts, causing damaging rifts. Leaders ought to be equipped with means of dealing with inevitable incompatibilities.
Can you negotiate a hostage crisis? First, strategists will always admonish that never let a crisis or conflict go to waste. Paul Mckinney defines conflict management as the practice of identifying and handling conflicts efficiently and fairly.
Disagreements can emanate from many sources. It could be communication clashes, resource allocation, power mischief, personality disparities, role ambiguity due to poorly done job descriptions, change management, competitions, cultural perspectives, policies, processes and procedure interpretations, external forces, perceived injustices, goal application, technologies, emotional baggage, problem-solving inadequacies, mediocre recognition and rewards, employment law, countless schools of management and exponentially more.
How do well-trained professionals spot conflicts?
There are numerous indicators of a place that is teeming with incompatibilities. Gossip, nose-diving performance, blame games, fear, quarrelsomeness, lack of focus, firefighting, wasted opportunities, tension, hostilities, cliques, absenteeism, high turnover rates, misplaced aggression, emotional rejoinders, avoidance, complaints, substandard products and services, physical symptoms, high-stress levels, disrupted meetings, negative group dynamics, sabotage, low morale, unresolved conflicts, buck-passing, withdrawal, isolation, zero trust, disengagement, escalation, zero collaboration, and violations.
How can we tackle conflicts in organisations?
Like management schools of thought, we have conflict management styles. They include collaborative, competitive, avoidance, accommodative and compromising approaches. Communication is the lifeblood of any relationship, especially when it is open, transparent, objective and factual.
Mediation is where the involved parties engage the services of an impartial specialist. It is quite informal. The organisation can elect to have internal or external mediators.
Negotiations can be done through collaborative or competitive glasses. When a particular problem exists and different parties have diverse standpoints, negotiation can be used to bring them closer to a resolution.
In conflict coaching, selected stakeholders are empowered through competency development to adopt more sophisticated ways of tackling problems. Arbitration is more formal and binding. It's not as exorbitant and time-consuming as court processes.
Wonder why team building is necessary for lingering quarrels?
Learning and development is an essential tool for leaders and employees in the handling of unsettled discords. It is important to know what causes detrimental discords, how those discords manifest and how to resolve them.
Constructive feedback is an integral part of conflict management, as we say in motivational circles, feedback is the food for champions.
The formation of a conflict resolution committee can do a lot of justice in managing differences.
What are the costs of unresolved conflicts? The most obvious cost is that of sub-par performance. Questionable productivity will logically lead to plummeting profitability. Time spent in simmering differences impairs the performance of the involved parties. The conflict has the potential of infecting others.
When a workplace is replete with outstanding disagreements, it takes the sap out of communication.
Do I need to say sabotage of the works of others?
A place that has lingering disputes will cause talent flight, which in turn becomes a grave expense that chews into the balance sheet. Employee resourcing can be an expensive and tedious undertaking. When an employee is mad, they can elect presenteeism as a way of keeping their jobs; present but do the barest minimum. The leaders lose big time. The company loses when there are perpetual discords.
Did we say wellness? Yes, let us say it. Wellness, which is critical to the bottom line, becomes a causality of unsettled differences. Unaddressed tensions can cause stress and burnout. Persisting frictions can cause immense damage to personal, product and organisational brands.
