How to Keep Conflict to a Minimum and Build Trusting Relationships
by Ashley Ward & Kayla Ezinga
Sometimes, it can be hard to fathom that you spend 40-plus hours a week with the same group of people. Whether you tend to stick to yourself at work or if you love building friendships with your coworkers, everyone will agree that having a good relationship with your coworkers is important. Many things go into building a good relationship such as communication, understanding, and listening. A good relationship shows when adversity hits. When complications arise, keeping peace on a leadership team is the most important thing you can do. Having peace between your leaders creates a better environment for the rest of your employees and helps to build each leader up rather than it feel like a competition. The following are our best tips to keeping peace on a leadership team.
1. Try to understand where everyone is coming from
When employees are explaining their personal problems to you, it’s very important to understand where they are coming from. For instance, if an employee has been burned by a manager in the past, they’re going to want to protect themselves. Another example would be if a leader is trying to please everyone, they might be stretching themselves too thin.
2. Keep your composure
When discussing issues with a group of people, it is very important for the top leader to stay calm. If the leader gets upset or starts yelling, it can cause inflation in everyone else’s emotions. Keeping your cool can help a discussion go smoothly.
3. Communicate clearly and often
When employees know that there is a decision that is being made that might affect them or their job, it can be very anxiety inducing to have to wait around and know nothing. By communicating clearly and often, you can build trust and relationships with employees.
4. Consider every option
Even if you think you know the right decision right away, it’s important to consider every option. By considering every option, you can predict what might play out by choosing path A over path B, or even going with path C which you had not even thought about yourself.
5. Explain your final decision
There’s nothing worse than having something affect you and not understanding how it was decided. After making big decisions, you must explain how you came to that answer. This gives all employees the opportunity to understand your thought process and understand why you decided what you did.
6. Get outside help
Sometimes, it takes a team of talent experts to come in and help you identify pain points and solutions for your team. It’s okay to ask for help. W Talent Solutions launched a whole talent optimization division where, among other talent and management challenges, we help companies with this very problem.
Keeping peace on a leadership team is not easy. However, with some hard work and lots of consideration, you could be a professional. By following the steps listed above, you can keep conflict to a minimum and build up trusting, worthwhile relationships with your leadership team and every employee in your company.
