Conflict comes with leadership when the sparks fly up. If you don’t want to deal with conflict, leadership is not your thing.
Being a leader is not about IF you will address conflict, but about HOW. In fact, no other skill (besides being able to get results) shapes people’s careers as much as the ability to deal with conflict.
Conflict and leadership go hand in hand because leadership often involves challenging people to do what they don’t want to do. If the people did what they wanted, leaders would not be needed. Great results do not fall like manna from heaven. Achieving them means that people have to step out of their comfort zones, make problematic decisions and take new and puzzling actions. Leadership helps guide and motivate people to do those things.
There are countless books, articles, etc. dedicated to conflict resolution. But let me give you a tool that I have been teaching leaders of all ranks and functions around the world for over 22 years. It’s the Leadership Talk.
Because the Leadership Talk is results-oriented and deals with fundamental human dynamics, it can be a unique way to help you deal with the inevitable conflicts you will face.
(The many books and many other articles I have written on Leadership Talk can be viewed on my website.)
Here are the three essential elements to adhere to when dealing with conflict and how the Leadership Talk can help you manifest those essential elements.
1. Establish a deep, human, emotional connection with the people you are dealing with. When in conflict, keep in mind that the message is not just the message, the message is the messenger. HOW you deal with conflict and WHO you are in dealing with conflict are just as important, if not more so, than WHAT the conflict is. Abraham Lincoln explained the importance of HOW and WHO: “If you want to win a man to your cause, first convince him that you are his sincere friend…Assume that you will pass judgment on him, or command his action, or point him out.” as one to be avoided and despised, and he will withdraw into himself, close all avenues to his head and heart, and even if your cause is the naked truth itself… you will be able to reach him only by penetrating the shell tortoise shell with a rye straw”.
The leadership talk helps you deal not only with the WHAT of the conflict, but also the HOW. It is a clear and practical path to win the hearts of the people with whom he is in conflict simply because the guiding principle of it is Lincoln’s imperative to convince the other side of his goodwill and sincerity.
2. Be guided and empowered through the process. Having a simple and clear conflict resolution process to guide your thoughts, words and actions is important to your career. You may not follow it exactly in every case, but it can help you better deal with the myriad variety of conflicts you will face.
The Leadership Talk is a powerful conflict resolution process because it engages the human aspects in a practical and structured way. For example, one of his processes was called the Three Trigger Motivational Process. When you face a conflict, you must ask three questions. If you say “no” to your answer to any of those questions, you can’t give a leadership talk. The questions are: 1. Do you know what the audience needs? 2. Can you bring a deep belief to what you are saying? 3. Can you get the audience to act?
3. Stay focused on results. Since leaders do nothing more important than get results, the fruits of how we deal with conflict need to be assessed whether we are obstructing or promoting results.
In leadership it is not enough to resolve conflicts, we must also achieve increases in results in the process. Forget trying to achieve “win/win”. That can be a sweet trap. In fact, in many cases, a win/win goal could impede results by preventing people from moving on to the next step, the result generation step.
The Leadership Talk looks at the conflicts you are involved in not only in terms of conflict resolution but also of generating results. Furthermore, their focus is not just about achieving ordinary results, but more results, faster results on an ongoing basis.
Since conflict will always be with you as a leader, you should welcome it as an opportunity for increases in results. When you’re using Leadership Talks, you’ll find yourself getting those results consistently.
2006 © The Filson Leadership Group, Inc. All rights reserved.
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