Guiding Leaders Through ConFlict

Think of a recent situation in your professional role where you had a significantly different perspective or decision on a topic, compared to your colleagues. Once you realized your opinions diverged, did you launch head-on into convincing others that your position was the best one? Did you take time to listen to their point of view? Did you try to collaborate on a solution? Or did you avoid facing the differences and hope the whole issue would go away or subside on its own?

Conflicts are a normal occurrence in organizations. They typically arise when…

  • Leaders don’t address performance deficiencies or damaging behaviors with their team members.
  • Individuals lack self-awareness regarding the impact of their behaviors on colleagues.
  • People have different opinions on strategies, plans, directions, and execution.
  • There’s a failure to build relationships with colleagues.
  • People aren’t aligned or clear on desired business outcomes.

Great leaders can lean into conflict and find collaborative ways to address it. They’ve learned that respectful discussions from different perspectives can potentially contribute to better solutions and outcomes and be a catalyst for growth and new opportunities.

But some differences are not easy to resolve or address. People dig into their positions. They create tensions that can be destructive and can continue to simmer beneath the surface, sometimes exploding when you least expect it.

The Pain of Avoidance

And most concerning, some leaders avoid discussing the topic of the conflict at all costs. The primary reason is that for them, the potential pain of addressing it is greater than the pain of letting the conflict fester. Thus, they do nothing. They…

  • Want to pursue their preferred outcome and not recognize or consider other options.
  • Believe they can reach their organizational goals despite the conflict.
  • Have prior negative experiences with conflict and may have felt victimized.
  • Simply are unsure what to do about it.
  • Fear offending the other parties.
  • Don’t believe it is as serious or destructive as it is.

Meanwhile, colleagues see the conflict, experience the frustration of misaligned views and harmful behaviors. Often, they find themselves either being forced to take sides, ducking to avoid getting caught in the crossfire, or straining to find a tenuous balance between multiple misaligned perspectives.

The main objective is to help the leaders recognize that the harm resulting from avoiding conflict is greater than finding a constructive means of addressing it. Organizations are typically formed with a shared goal. Unresolved conflict can hinder the ability to achieve these objectives.

From Avoidance to Engagement

How do you help leaders find an authentic way to engage in the stressful topic they’ve been avoiding? A neutral and trusted third person can be helpful.

  • Typically, one party is more conflict avoidant than the other. Paint a verbal picture with that person of the continued negative impact of that lingering conflict on their leadership, legacy, and the organization. Find their motivation to want to address it.
  • Engage the parties by reviewing the benefits of discussing the conflict topic. Initiate separate conversations if greater resistance is anticipated.
  • Provide space for each person to talk about their own perspectives, and to listen to the other person’s perspective. Validate their concerns.
  • Encourage curiosity by asking open-ended questions and urge both parties to explore alternative solutions. Ask them to consider each other’s perspectives and suggest solutions, but don’t reject or evaluate them yet.
  • Then ask them to discuss the possibilities of each option in detail, before narrowing them down.

In the process of discussion, be aware of their emotions and unspoken fear of loss, whether it be to their position, a measure of power, or how their voice is heard.

Some leaders will never have aligned perspectives. But encouraging them to interact more frequently and communicate their positions may build a relationship of respectful disagreement. The ability to explain a position different from their own, even if they don’t agree with it, is a positive step. Help them to find common interests in other areas of their work and personal lives. It’s possible to like and accept someone even if you disagree with them in certain areas.

Modeling a Positive Approach

Our natural wiring and past negative experiences shape how each of us manages conflict. The tendency to avoid it typically has deep emotional roots. And while the workplace isn’t a therapeutic setting in and of itself to learn to address it, leaders and colleagues can model constructive approaches, and trusted unbiased professionals can help the parties work through it.

Ultimately the goal is to help those avoiding conflict see the greater need that must be addressed. When they realize the positive opportunities and possibilities that may emerge when they dare to lean into, rather than avoid conflict, they set up a repeatable cycle of positive returns.

How can you model a positive approach to conflict for those in your organization?

Copyright 2025 Priscilla Archangel.
Image by Andrii Yalanskyi from iStock

Want more leadership tips read past leadership articles or check out the book LeaderVantage.