What does a leader need to know in order to successfully resolve conflicts? Although the answer to this question isn’t simple and can be as unambiguous as conflict resolution is itself a complex and non-linear process, many professionals roughly understand what qualities and skills are needed to resolve conflicts. Most of the skills can be covered by emotional intelligence (EQ) which is defined as “the ability to monitor one’s own and others’ feelings, to discriminate among them, and to use this information to guide one’s thinking and action.”
According to our experience, the key skills needed to resolve conflict as a leader are the ability to empathize and understand how others feel, a sense of tact and respect for boundaries, and the ability to maintain a neutral position. However, there is already plenty of material and theory written on how to solve conflicts, but not so much on how to learn and teach it. That is why, in this article, we have gathered our experience to provide methodological guidance on how to train leaders on conflict resolution.
Training Leaders on Conflict Resolution
The first important rule is learning through reflection of one’s own experience. It’s essential to encourage leaders to notice, recognize and understand their own behavior and its causes. Seeing and understanding how your words affect team dynamics is a challenging but imperative skill.
The second recommendation is to create a safe space. In order for reflection to be effective, it’s necessary to create a space that allows for constructive and safe reflection and learning. A really useful discussion will only happen if there is trust among the participants (no matter in which format the reflection takes place).
Why?
Discussing conflict and one’s behavior is strongly associated with personal vulnerability. Conflict often releases socially disapproved behavior and can show a person not at their best. That is why a lot of people feel uncomfortable and are afraid of being judged, and therefore don’t share their experiences and thoughts.
A psychologically safe atmosphere not only helps to make the learning process effective, but also shows leaders what kind of environment they themselves have to create on their teams. It makes them better overall in the areas of team management and relationship-building with team members.
How to Create a Psychologically Safe Learning Environment
Set rules.
Try setting the “Vegas rule:” Everything that happened in the meeting stays in the meeting. We don’t spread gossip or comments about other participants.
Encourage and help participants to accept mistakes more easily.
First, by using intermediate activities or ice-breakers to help everyone feel comfortable and on the same page. For example, an ice-breaker in the format of “Everyone answers a question about their most embarrassing situation at work.” Or “Share the deepest mistake you made in a meeting,” can encourage everyone to open up.
If you have the opportunity and time, such an ice-breaker can be scaled into a separate meeting/activity. For example, “fail-nights,” where everyone presents and tells stories about their fails in certain contexts and a given form.
Second, by encouraging activities and mistakes in the learning process. As a training professional, you can highlight how useful what a participant said was, even if it was a “mistake.” Fill in the pauses, reassure learners if they are nervous and provide support.
Ways to Format and Organize the Reflection Process
How to format and organize the reflection process depends on the number of people and opportunities, but we would recommend training leaders on using the following formats:
Group masterminds.
These are periodic group sessions with leaders of the company across different levels and departments, if possible. It makes sense to hold them about once every two weeks. If more often, then with the topics that assure the variety of questions discussed.
For such an event, you need preparation: Encourage leaders to collect applications in advance, talk about the benefits of the meeting and tell how it will be held. In the introduction, it is necessary to clearly define the rules of the format and timing. For example, each leader presents their case in advance, describing the key points:
- What the conflict was about, the roles of the participants.
- A description of the problem or challenge.
- What the leader requests from the group: support, advice or a solution.
In a group mastermind, the leader has 10 minutes to present the case. After that, everyone gives comments (about three minutes each person). Thus, in two hours you can listen to 4-5 cases. It can, of course, be changed to suit the situation, the request and the team’s specific challenges.
Workshops.
Workshops are a more vertical format that includes an educational or conceptual portion, group and individual exercises to practice mechanics, techniques and situations. It’s better to practice by mixing participants among themselves, changing their positions, including them in the process and allowing them to feel themselves not only in the role of a leader, but also in the role of the conflict aggressor, for example.
Pro tip: One engaging and unusual way to update the situation with conflicts, as we discovered recently and are already actively using in our work, is to play everyone together in an online team game. Particularly, a game that simulates a high-stakes situation. This format immediately highlights the emotions and behavior of the participants and allows for a more effective and visual transition to the educational portion.
It’s also important to ground the concepts being discussed in real contexts, examples and situations. Provide space for discussion and broaden the experience by asking tough questions and reflect on specific examples.
Coaching sessions (i.e., dealing with conflict situations together with an experienced mentor, coaching or colleague).
Sessions in a coaching approach with a focus on leaders who have experienced a specific complex conflict, often face the same type of conflict situations or have difficulty interacting with a “challenging colleague” or even a whole type of person (e.g. anxious or aggressive colleagues).
The Grow Model, which is more or less universal for coaching, is excellent here. It goes from goals to steps, and helps to focus on the question “How do I want to behave in conflict in the future, and what result do I want to get?” The partner in this model acts as a guide by asking the right questions. In theory, if there is no “sparring partner” for such a session, you can teach ChatGPT or another generative artificial intelligence (AI) tool the Grow Model and then go in dialog mode to discuss the situation with AI.
Stay tuned for the second article in this two-part series to learn more about exercises and techniques for practicing conflict resolution skills.
