Avoid Conflict
A Leader's Guide to Discouraging People, Diminishing Trust, and Damaging Culture
Avoid Conflict (Maybe It Will Go Away)
Description: The leader avoids conflict with superiors, peers, and subordinates, which causes problems to fester and persist. As a result, low performers are allowed to produce at low levels, and individuals with unhealthy attitudes or behaviors persist. Strong performers begin to wonder why they are going above and beyond, picking up the slack, and enduring the toxic culture.
This One Time: I worked in an organization where everyone gossiped about a couple of team members. The leader was also actively engaged in the gossip. When asked to address the challenges, the leader failed to act, which caused further division. Eventually, a few team members left because of the toxic environment, and productivity diminished.
Making it Worse: The leader actively participates in gossip, hearsay, or unproductive conversations. Or, the leader actively ignores unproductive behaviors even when they happen in plain sight.
The Leader Loses: Respect, dignity, trust, and potentially team members
Followers Think: “This person has zero backbone,” and “Why should I go above and beyond when no one else is?”
At the Water Cooler: “What in the world is happening?”, “Why won’t he address this dysfunction?”, “How do these behaviors persist?”
Effective Leadership: Conflict is embedded into the role of manager or leader. When a person takes on a formal (or informal) position, they are responsible for addressing unproductive behavior. These may be differences in perspective, work ethic, attitude, or values. When this occurs, the leader needs to help the group, and sometimes individuals, understand the baseline expectations. Next, they need to hold others accountable for meeting those expectations.
This Week: Pay close attention to the conversations that do and do not occur. Likewise, pay close attention to your behavior – is it productive or damaging team culture?
“There are two ways of meeting difficulties: You alter the difficulties, or you alter yourself meeting them.” - Phyllis Bottome, Novelist